Marcus, a COO I worked with, had just helped carry his company through a major acquisition. Millions of dollars secured, a decade of effort proven out, every external marker of success… yet he felt depleted, unable to understand why.
What he couldn’t see was that he walked around his life as if every moment was a high-stakes meeting. He carried a substantial load of stress and spent enormous energy making sure no one else saw it. Composure was the only thing anyone ever saw from Marcus. The problem was that the cost of holding up the facade was invisible, even to him. So he put no effort into relieving it.
The pattern traced back to a childhood household where you didn’t couldn’t still, and where visible strain was understood as a sort of failure, never to be shown.
Your version might look different, but I bet you know the feeling. The moment before you present to the board. When a project proposal gets pushback. When someone praises your work, and your first instinct is, They’re just being polite. A not-so-subtle disagreement with an important point you make in a meeting. The promotion six months ago that still feels like a clerical error.
You know the feeling. And you know the move you make right after it—you put the composed mask on. Quickly.
The feeling is called impostor phenomenon, and a systematic review of more than 11,000 people found 62 percent experience it at significant levels (Bravata et al., 2019); in executive samples, that climbs to around 71 percent. The people we assume have “figured it out” are the ones feeling it most.
And while the prevalence of imposter syndrome may feel unexpected, the real puzzle is why it is so difficult to beat. Even very smart leaders, who fully understand the pattern, can still stay stuck in it for decades. The answer isn’t the feeling. It’s what you do with it.
The loop and the lock
Walk into a high-stakes moment and your brain’s threat system fires. Usually, the rational part catches up: I’ve done this. I’m qualified. But when the threat feels core to your identity, being exposed as “not who they think I am,” your threat response can override the rational one. You scan for evidence you don’t belong, and your brain finds just that. Even when you succeed anyway, your brain either files it as an exception or thinks, All of my anxiety about this worked. I’m going to need it next time. The self-doubt and the race to fix it all start to feel like your edge.
Uncomfortable, maybe. But, on its own, workable.
But then comes the compounding problem that locks you in the loop. The instant the doubt shows up, almost every high performer hides it. You work hard to steady your voice, keep a neutral face, and let no one see the turmoil. That instinct to keep the inner doubt fully hidden may be the most expensive move you can make.
People who habitually suppress the expression of emotion don’t feel less; they just feel worse, while looking calm outside (Gross & John, 2003). It’s like letting a house fire burn without calling the fire department because you don’t want the neighbors to know there’s a problem.
Suppressing all that stress also burns the exact mental bandwidth you need to think clearly. On a brain already running a threat response, you’ve now added a second job, exactly when your bandwidth is already stretched.
The way it shows up for Marcus is that he works so hard to present as competent and secure that no one even thinks to assure him of this fact. His suppression actually exacerbates the problems he’s struggling with.
When you’re unreadable, the corrective feedback can’t reach you, and the honest “you earned this” that would tell your brain to stand down never lands.
The composure everyone praises you for is the thing keeping you stuck.
When a leader performs chronic composure and never shares vulnerability and doubt, the people watching learn fast: Flinching is unacceptable. They stop bringing problems early. They hide their own weather. You get a team quietly running the same loop, and a culture where nobody says the truth until it’s a crisis. The most resilient-looking leadership, therefore, ends up teaching everyone that discomfort is something to hide.
Why we get stuck in imposter syndrome
The standard advice is, “Believe in yourself. Own your truth.” But it doesn’t work. The pattern is about belief, certainly, but it’s a belief formed long ago… something I call a hook.
Somewhere early, looking like you had it all together was rewarded, while looking vulnerable was frowned upon or punished. By the time you reached the top, it stopped feeling like a strategy and started feeling like who you are. That’s an identity, not just some mask you choose to put on at work. The composure you use to hold the doubt down feels like character. Letting it go can feel scary.
Imposter Syndrome Essential Reads
What to do instead
The goal isn’t to feel the doubt less. Research shows this causes more problems. The true goal is to stop suppressing it. Here are three moves that can help get you started:
- Name it precisely, to yourself. Not “I’m stressed” but “I’m anxious because the board is evaluating a call I’m not sure about.” Putting a feeling into precise words measurably calms the brain’s threat response (Lieberman et al., 2007). Do it in the 10 seconds before you walk in or whenever the dread creeps back in.
- Treat the feeling as data, not a verdict. The doubt isn’t telling you that you don’t belong; it’s telling you you’re in a high-stakes situation that you care about, and that something specific is unresolved. Ask: What exactly is unclear here? There’s usually a real, answerable question under the global dread.
- Let one person see the real read. This breaks the lock. You don’t need to emote in the boardroom, but you need to stop signaling that the feeling is a closed door. Pick one trusted person, a confidant, and let them see the actual weather in real time. One vulnerable sentence, “I’m second-guessing this and want to think it out loud,” can make all the difference and release massive pressure. It can also open the door to true corrective signals to get back in.
Marcus, the COO I opened with, didn’t turn this around by force of will. One overloaded week, he canceled a department-wide meeting, letting the honest read of his own state make the call, instead of burying it under the performance of being fine.
That’s the move. Not overly dramatic, but not on autopilot. He used the free time to gather his thoughts, get better aligned, and be prepared for the next meeting.
Remember this: The loop is uncomfortable; not dealing with the discomfort makes it permanent.
Feeling like a fraud is just evidence that you care, and is a predictable threat response, often loudest in the people who’ve earned their seat.
The composure you use to hide it is why the feeling never gets the air and daylight it needs to resolve.
You don’t have to fall apart to lead, but you do have to stop confusing a poker face with strength. The strongest leaders are the ones who can name what they feel, read it accurately, and stay reachable while they do it.
So this week, try to think about this: Which door have you been holding shut, and who could you let see what’s behind it?
For more on the hidden drivers behind persistent patterns like this one, see my book Unhooked.
