What you’re calling imposter syndrome isn’t a syndrome, and it might not even be the problem you think it is. In 1978, psychologists Pauline R. Clance and Suzanne Imes introduced the concept, deliberately calling it the impostor phenomenon, not a syndrome. The distinction between a syndrome and a phenomenon is critical to understand.
A phenomenon describes an observable experience that happens to enough people to be worthy of studying and understanding better. A syndrome implies a diagnosable condition requiring intervention. The moment we attach “syndrome” to the word “imposter,” we signal that something is clinically wrong with the person experiencing it.
Yet, for the vast majority of people I work with, not only is there nothing clinical “wrong” with them as individuals, but this feeling is often a sign that things are going right. In fact, it’s a normal feeling that is too often labeled as a problem: discomfort.
Growth Is Uncomfortable
In their research and what I see among my clients, it seems almost counterintuitive: the more highly credentialed and technically expert someone is, the more likely they report experiencing imposterism (a term I personally prefer to use).
Imagine a physician, researcher, professor, or senior attorney surrounded by other high-achievers, constantly pushing themselves toward mastery, moving through a career that demands ever-greater expertise, and often in high-pressure roles within organizations where the bar keeps rising, and the complexity never stops.
What would that feel like?
It would feel like not knowing enough. Like you might be found out. Like everyone else has it more together than you do. Like you have to hide what you don’t know and perform as if you do.
That feeling isn’t some kind of diagnosable pathology. It’s what growth actually feels like.
The Expert-to-Leader Transition Complicates It
Now imagine those technical experts who choose to move into leadership roles.
Leadership, team development, and organizational dynamics are their own specialized fields. And yet most technical experts, like those in the fields I mentioned above, arrive at leadership roles not through formal training, but because they excelled at their technical work. What no one tells them is that by moving into a leadership role, they are entering a new field of technical expertise: leadership, team, and organization development. These technical experts-turned-leaders are expected to know how to lead people, develop strategy, make financial and resource decisions, manage competing demands with no clear right answers, navigate unknowns, delegate the technical expertise to others, understand change management principles, know how to address HR compliance and management issues, and so many other things.
So, we end up with a paradox: Some of the most highly trained, educated, and accomplished professionals in leadership report the highest rates of impostor experiences, precisely because they assume they should already know. They spent years becoming experts. Moving into a new field doesn’t change their assumption that they should be experts.
Now what would that feel like? You would be afraid you might be found out, deemed an “incompetent” leader.
The self-doubt these leaders feel isn’t irrational, nor unexpected. It’s the accurate experience of starting in a new field. The problem isn’t that they have low self-confidence or don’t belong in their role; it’s the absence of a roadmap and proper re-training.
Kark, Meister, and Peters (2021) have found this type of leadership imposterism to be especially common in “roles that are characterized by elevated expectations, high visibility, and high levels of responsibility.”
And for women and others who have been marginalized, feeling like an imposter comes with the territory. If you’ve been constantly told you don’t belong, and you’ve had to work twice as hard to get into spaces where you’ve been told you don’t belong, how do you think you might feel? Like you don’t belong and aren’t good enough (even if you are). It is very likely to negatively impact your confidence.
Imposter Syndrome Essential Reads
When It Is Something More
Now, in some situations, this experience really is more about chronic self-doubt or anxiety. The key is to know the difference because it has significant implications for how best to address it.
- Self-questioning that is contextual, tied to growth edges, and that shifts as competence builds is likely more about imposterism or intellectual humility.
- Persistent negative self-perception that permeates multiple domains of life, is disconnected from actual performance, and doesn’t shift even with evidence of success, might need therapeutic intervention.
What This Means for You or Your Team
In either of the cases above, the solution isn’t to give yourself a label, but to better understand what those experiences (or symptoms) indicate and might require, whether that’s a simple reframe, better mentorship, therapy, coaching, or leadership training.
If you are in a position of being a mentor, supervisor, or sponsor of someone who feels like an imposter, here are a few things you can do:
- Don’t treat it like some kind of personal failing. Instead, help them manage their experience.
- Share personal experiences when you entered a leadership role and tried something new or pushed into new territories.
- Share what it was like to feel uncomfortable growing into the level of leadership.
- Ask what would help them improve their confidence and offer sufficient and appropriate resources to do so.
Each of these small actions can empower instead of disempower. And each requires your own willingness to be a little vulnerable to help someone else feel less vulnerable and alone in a highly common experience.
An extended version of this content also appears on The Hard Skills podcast.
