You would think that the more you achieve, the more confident you would feel.

More experience, more evidence, more reasons to trust yourself, but for most high performers, the opposite happens.

The promotion arrives and instead of feeling proud, you spend the first few weeks waiting for someone to realise they made a mistake.

The business grows and instead of feeling secure, you feel more pressure about what happens if it stops.

You walk into meetings where you have more experience than most people there and still feel like the least qualified person in it.

This is impostor syndrome.

And if you recognise it, you are in very good company. Seventy percent of people experience it at some point. 

But high performers, especially in senior leadership roles, experience it more intensely and more consistently than most.

The Education Bit

Impostor syndrome was first identified in 1978 by psychologists Pauline Clance and Suzanne Imes. They observed that high achieving women, despite clear evidence of their success, believed they had fooled others and were close to being exposed.

Since then, research has shown this is not limited by gender, industry, or level of seniority, showing up most in people who care deeply about doing a good job.

Here is what is happening underneath it.

When you achieve something significant, your brain does not automatically update its internal picture of who you are, so your identity, the story you hold about yourself, lags behind your external reality.

You have the role, the results, and the responsibility, but internally, you are still catching up. Psychologists call this identity lag.

And the higher you go, the wider that gap becomes.

Success does not remove it, unfortunately each new level places you in unfamiliar territory again. The expectations are higher, the decisions carry more weight, you are more visible, you are no longer judged on effort, you are now judged on decisions.

Your brain is wired to scan for risk. It starts looking for where things could go wrong and its that signal that is impostor syndrome.

It is not evidence that you are not good enough, it is a response to being stretched which is good normally as this produces Adrenaline which gives us the fire to keep going but when it goes unmanaged, it starts to affect your confidence.

You over-prepare and under-speak, you hold back in meetings where you should be contributing. You give credit away that belongs to you and take responsibility for things that are not yours and you continually compare your doubt to someone else’s wins.

Working harder than necessary to prove yourself and over time this becomes exhausting.

Three Things That Make Imposter Syndrome Worse For Leaders

Visibility

The more people are watching, the louder the voice becomes. Larger teams, senior stakeholders, higher expectations. 

Comparison

You compare your internal experience to other people’s external performance. You see confidence and assume they feel it. However most do not in fact they have just learned how to manage it better.

Silence

Impostor syndrome grows when it is not spoken about. At senior level, fewer people give you honest reflection, so your internal voice fills the gap.

Now it is important to remember that a little bit of imposter syndrome is actually quite good for us as it signifies that we are stepping into something new, stretching your capability, and operating outside your comfort zone. That discomfort often appears at the edge of growth, not at the edge of failure.

The goal is not to remove it completely, the goal is to stop letting it define your decisions.

What To Do About It This Week

Build an evidence file

Impostor syndrome filters for what you have not done well and ignores everything you have.

Create a simple document and start collecting evidence that reflects reality. Wins, feedback, decisions that landed well, conversations that made a difference. Not only the big moments, the consistent ones.

When the voice gets louder, read it. Your brain needs data to update its view of you. 

Use the ABC technique

Developed by psychologist Albert Ellis and widely used in cognitive behavioural therapy, this helps you break the pattern in real time.

A — Adversity

What is triggering the feeling?

B — Belief

What am I telling myself about this?

C — Challenge

What is the evidence for and against that belief?

The key question is simple. Am I responding to facts or to my interpretation of them?

Most of the time, it is just our interpretation.

Name the voice

This is one of the most consistent findings in the research.

Impostor syndrome reduces when you stop treating the thought as truth and start recognising where it comes from.

Clance and Imes found that hearing others describe the same experience reduced its intensity. The shift happens through recognition, when the brain sees the experience as familiar and shared it starts to gain confidence.

In high performers, the impostor voice often sounds like fact. “I am not ready.” “I do not belong here.” “I am going to be found out.”

Pause and name it.

Ask yourself, whose voice is this. Is this your voice or something you absorbed over time.

It may sound like a parent. A teacher. A former manager. An old bully. A workplace where you had to prove yourself constantly.

That is not your present reality, it is an old pattern showing up in a new environment.

You are not arguing with the thought. You are identifying its origin.

That separation reduces its power and gives you space to respond with clarity instead of reaction.

This Week’s Reflection

What have I achieved in the last three months that I have not fully acknowledged?

Write down three things. Be specific and include the evidence.

Join Me Live This Month

I am going deeper on impostor syndrome in this month’s Resilient Leader Live.

We will cover five types of impostor syndrome, how to recognise yours and what actually helps.

There is not one version of this pattern and your response depends on which type shows up for you.

Impostor Syndrome: Why Do I Always Feel Like I Am Going To Get Caught Out?

Wednesday 29th April at 1pm GMT. 

Register here →

Read This Week

The Imposter Cure by Dr Jessamy Hibberd

If you want a practical, psychology-based approach to understanding impostor thinking, this is one of the better resources.

It breaks down the patterns that sit underneath it, from perfectionism to overworking, and gives you structured ways to challenge them using evidence-based tools. 

A good starting point if you want to understand how these thought patterns form and how to begin interrupting them.

Work With Me

Elevate: The Roundtable is my 12 week group coaching programme for founder and leaders.

Inside Elevate we spend 12 weeks doing exactly this kind of work. Understanding what is driving your thinking under pressure, leading from clarity rather than fear and building a life that actually supports the leader you want to be. 

Psychology first. Strategy second. In a room with people who finally get it.

Starting May 2026. Limited places. Special promotional price available until 30th April.

Find out more→

Elevate Intensive

The Elevate Intensive - a focused 90-minute 1:1 session to identify exactly where you are stuck and give you a clear path forward. £195 with code RESILIENT100, saving you £100. Book here →

So remember your performance is not the problem, the voice you believe is.

Have a fabulous week

Nicola.

P.S. If someone in your network who this may resonate with, please send them this edition.