I am a fraud. 

I am faking it.

I cannot keep this up. 

When will they discover me?

I am fooling people.

If you have had any of these thoughts, you, like every human, have been a victim of imposter syndrome. 

Understanding Imposter Syndrome

Imposter syndrome is the condition of feeling anxious and not experiencing success internally, despite being high performing in external, objective ways. In other words, how I feel about myself doesn’t match the reality of the situation. 

Imposter syndrome tends to show up when we are launching our career out of college or when we are attempting to land a leadership position. This applies to recent college graduates as well as C-suite leaders who have impressive backgrounds. You may have gone to an Ivy League school but still feel as if you are not competent enough for the role you are trying to get. External achievements may prove otherwise, but internally, doubt persists. 

Take for instance a mid-career marketing manager promoted to VP. Though she’s successfully led multiple campaigns, she lies awake wondering if she truly deserves her new title. Her colleagues congratulate her, but in her mind, she’s convinced it was just luck. 

I see this frequently with coaching clients who grew up in a high-expectation environment with high levels of criticism. They feel like no matter what they do, it will not be good enough.  

When Doubt Speaks Louder than Experience

Imposter syndrome plays out especially during job interviews. When grappling with self-doubt, candidates hesitate before answering questions, underplay accomplishments, or hedge their language with phrases like “I think I might have…” These subtle cues can paint a picture of uncertainty to an interviewer. And in interview or promotion settings, the ability to confidently articulate your value is crucial.

Consider the young software developer, who despite leading a successful product launch, fumbles in an interview for a senior position. Rather than highlighting his leadership, he defaults to crediting his team and luck, inadvertently downplaying his own role.

The Five Faces of Imposter Syndrome

    1. The Perfectionist: Has impossibly ambitious standards. Even a small mistake leads to self-doubt. Because perfection is unattainable, they live in a cycle of overworking and dissatisfaction. One coaching client, a highly regarded attorney, would rewrite legal briefs multiple times out of fear they were not flawless – costing billable house and mental energy. 
    2. The Natural Genius: Believes competence should be immediate. When things don’t come easily, they feel like a fraud. My son, once a high school AP warrior, hit a wall in college calculus. His immediate thought? “I must be broken.” It took time, and some reframing, to understand that struggle is part of growth. 
    3. The Soloist: Values independence to the extreme. Asking for help feels like weakness. One professional I coached delayed a major project for weeks because he didn’t want to admit he didn’t understand a new system. A simple question could have saved him weeks of frustration. 
    4. The Expert: Measures worth by how much they know. If they don’t meet every requirement on a job listing, they will not apply. One client with 18 years in the medical field refused to pursue a dream role because she lacked two out of ten listed skills. The job was a wish list – yet her fear of being exposed stopped her. 
    5. The Superhuman: Believes competence means excelling in every roll, all the time. A department head I worked with managed a team, a household, and a volunteer project. When any one area faltered, she felt like a failure across the board

Related: Conquer Imposter Syndrome

Tools to Reframe and Rise

So then, what’s the antidote to imposter syndrome? 

First, acknowledge that everyone has some level of it. Politicians, CEOs, public speakers – you name it. Behind polished exteriors are often quiet internal battles. 

Second, change your mindset. Dr. Carol Dweck’s work on fixed and growth mindsets helps us reframe struggle. In our culture, struggle often has a negative connotation. But when normalized, it becomes just part of the process. 

Imagine giving a big presentation and fumbling over a point. If you catastrophize it, it derails you. If you accept it as a human moment, you recover. One client described it as feeling like the kid who gets question three wrong on a test and mentally gives up on the rest. But those questions might not be harder – they are just different. The key is to persist. 

Normalize struggle, and you unlock course correction. Did you make a mistake? Okay, what’s the adjustment? That’s what separates high performers. They are not mistake-free; they are mistake-resilient. 

The more you face challenging moments, the better equipped you become. You get practice recovering, and with each round, the anxiety around failure shrinks. Like building muscle, you grow through repetition. 

Bouncing Back from the Unexpected

Recently, a client – let’s call her Rachel – was pitching her software company to a potential investor. Halfway through, her computer crashed. She graded her pitch a B+, but the tech failure rattled her. Still, she rebooted, finished strong, and kept perspective. She later told me, “What defined me wasn’t the tech fail. It was how I recovered.” 

This is the core of managing imposter syndrome: realizing we are not the sum of our slip-ups, but the strength of our rebounds.

Reclaiming Your Worth

Imposter syndrome is a universal challenge, but not an unbeatable one. Understanding the types, recognizing the patterns, and practicing resilience and self-compassion are the tools to shift out of doubt and into ownership. Your accomplishments are not flukes. Your success is not a mistake. And when you begin to believe that – not just know it but feel it – you begin to lead more confidently, lightly, and authentically. 

Do you need help seeing your worth and showing up as the leader you truly are? 

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