You keep achieving. Your brain keeps finding reasons it doesn’t count.

It’s Not a Syndrome. It’s a Pattern

What we usually call imposter syndrome isn’t a syndrome. It’s a pattern, and understanding where it comes from matters more than the label. At the root of every imposter moment is the same thing: an inability to internalise your own success. You achieve, you deliver, you get the promotion or the praise, and instead of that becoming part of how you see yourself, it slides straight off. Your brain files it under luck, timing, or other people, then goes back to scanning for the gap.

This shows up differently for everyone. For some, it’s a flicker of doubt before a big meeting. For others, it’s a persistent, exhausting undercurrent running beneath almost every decision. Both are real. Both deserve your attention.

Left unchecked, this pattern is costly. It drives chronic over-preparation, reluctance to delegate, and difficulty accepting recognition, and it wears you down long before anyone else notices. Attribute your wins to luck often enough, and genuine confidence never gets the chance to build. At its most extreme, it pushes capable people to opt out of opportunities, stay in roles below their ability, or burn out proving something they proved long ago.

Name the pattern for what it is, though, and you get that energy back. You make bolder calls, speak with more authority, and take up the space your role actually requires, instead of over-working to stay ahead of being “found out.” This isn’t a side conversation about wellbeing. It’s a performance conversation, and it belongs at the centre of how you lead.

Foot Still on the Brake

Being held captive by your Imposter is a little bit like keeping your foot on the brake while everyone else puts theirs on the gas padel. You’re a genuinely skilled driver. The engine is strong, the road is clear, but you don’t trust your own hands on the wheel, so you brake through every straight and watch drivers with half your skill sail past.

One Bad Meeting Away

A couple of years ago I coached Mandy (not her real name), a senior leader in aviation: highly experienced, widely respected, the person her organisation turned to under pressure. From the outside, composure and capability. From the inside, “one bad meeting away from everyone realising she didn’t belong.”

Every piece of positive feedback, she discounted. Every achievement, she put down to good timing, a strong team, or luck. Asked to list ten things she’d achieved that no one else on her team could have delivered, she struggled, not because the list wasn’t there, but because her brain wasn’t trained to hold onto evidence of her own capability. It scanned for gaps instead.

We spent several sessions on what I call a capability audit, examining her track record and the beliefs behind each outcome. Slowly, the narrative shifted: an honest assessment of what she actually brought. She stopped managing her fear of being found out and started leading from what she knew to be true.

“The beauty of the impostor syndrome is you vacillate between extreme egomania and a complete feeling of: ‘I’m a fraud! Oh God, they’re on to me! I’m a fraud!’ So you just try to ride the egomania when it comes and enjoy it, and then slide through the idea of fraud.” — Tina Fey

The Research Has a Twist

Imposter syndrome was first identified by psychologists Pauline Clance and Suzanne Imes in 1978, in high-achieving women. It’s since been found to affect up to 70% of people across genders, though it stays more chronic and more career-limiting for women, especially women of colour and women in senior leadership.

Here’s the twist: MIT Sloan’s Basima Tewfik found that people experiencing imposter thoughts were rated as more interpersonally effective by colleagues, likely because the self-doubt drives better listening and sharper questions. The doubt itself isn’t the problem. The problem is when it becomes the only lens you see yourself through.