It’s fairly common for leaders to experience impostor syndrome.
In fact, if you’re stepping into something new—whether it’s leading a team, launching a company, or making decisions that affect many people—it’s almost inevitable that at some point you’ll ask yourself a question like: “Am I doing this right?”
Many leaders assume that feeling this way means something is wrong with them. But that’s not necessarily true.
A certain level of uncertainty is actually healthy. It’s your brain telling you that the decision or situation matters. It’s a signal to slow down, think carefully, and gather the information you need to move forward responsibly.
In many cases, that internal voice is encouraging you to pause, seek advice, and learn more before acting. Those are all positive leadership behaviors.
The challenge arises when that voice becomes something else entirely.
When it begins to erode your confidence.
When it starts questioning your capabilities.
When it whispers that maybe you don’t belong in the role you’re in.
That’s when it begins to resemble what psychologists call impostor syndrome.
The term was first introduced in research by psychologists Pauline Clance and Suzanne Imes in 1978 to describe high-achieving individuals who struggle to internalize their accomplishments and instead attribute success to luck or external factors. You can read more about their research here:https://www.apa.org/monitor/2006/06/impostor
For leaders, impostor syndrome can quietly undermine confidence and decision-making if it goes unrecognized.
But understanding where it comes from—and how to respond to it—can transform it from something limiting into something surprisingly useful.
Where Impostor Syndrome Often Comes From
One helpful way to understand impostor syndrome comes from a concept sometimes referred to as “parts work” in psychology.
Parts work suggests that our minds hold different “parts” that developed through past experiences. Some of these parts carry helpful lessons. Others carry memories of moments when we felt embarrassed, criticized, or ashamed.
These experiences often happen earlier in life.
Maybe you missed an important shot during a basketball game and heard the crowd react.
Maybe you failed an exam in a subject you believed you had mastered.
Maybe you said something awkward in front of a group of friends and felt their reaction.
Moments like these might seem small in the moment, but they can leave emotional imprints that stay with us.
Take a moment to think back to your early teen years. Many of us can recall at least one moment when we felt embarrassed, exposed, or judged by others.
Those experiences can quietly remain in memory and resurface years later when we face situations that feel uncertain or high stakes.
Leadership often creates exactly those kinds of situations.
When we’re responsible for decisions that affect others, those old memories can reappear in the form of self-doubt:
What if I get this wrong?
What if people realize I don’t know everything?
What if I fail publicly?
The good news is that once you recognize this pattern, you can respond to it more intentionally.
Step 1: Check Your Self-Talk
The first step in addressing impostor syndrome is to pay attention to the way you are speaking to yourself.
When you encounter something unfamiliar or challenging, what is your internal response?
Are you approaching the unknown with curiosity?
Or with criticism?
For example, there is a big difference between these two internal conversations:
Healthy curiosity:
“I’m not completely sure how to approach this yet. I should gather more information.”
Impostor thinking:
“I should already know how to do this. Everyone else probably does.”
The first response reflects responsible leadership. The second reflects self-doubt that may not be grounded in reality.
Uncertainty is not the problem. Leadership often requires navigating situations that no one has handled before.
The problem arises when uncertainty turns into negative self-commentary.
Simply noticing this shift in self-talk can be a powerful first step.
Step 2: Question the Story Your Mind Is Telling
Once you recognize that negative inner dialogue, the next step is to examine it more closely.
Ask yourself a simple question:
“Is this actually true?”
Then go a step further:
“Why do I believe this is true?”
Often when leaders slow down and investigate the story their mind is telling them, they realize the doubt is tied to something very specific rather than their overall ability.
For example, a leader might feel confident in most aspects of their role but struggle with a particular type of decision.
Imagine a manager who feels confident leading their team but feels uncertain when making financial decisions.
Their mind may interpret this as:
“I’m not good at leadership.”
But the more accurate statement might be:
“I need more experience or information around financial forecasting.”
Those are very different conclusions.
Here’s another example.
A founder may feel confident building strategy and solving problems but feel uncomfortable addressing conflict between team members.
Their internal dialogue might say:
“I’m not cut out to lead people.”
But in reality, the challenge may simply be learning a new skill—having difficult conversations.
When you narrow self-doubt down to a specific area, it often becomes far more manageable.
Step 3: Remember How You Got Here
Another powerful antidote to impostor syndrome is remembering the effort and experience that brought you to your current position.
No one arrives in a leadership role by accident.
If you’re a manager or executive within an organization, someone trusted your judgment, abilities, and potential enough to give you that responsibility.
If you’re an entrepreneur, you’ve already done something that requires courage and initiative—you’ve chosen to build something that didn’t exist before.
That takes vision.
It takes resilience.
It takes action.
Every leader, no matter how experienced, has faced situations where they were learning as they went.
The difference between successful leaders and everyone else is not that they had all the answers. It’s that they were willing to continue learning and adapting.
So when impostor syndrome starts whispering that you don’t belong, it can be helpful to pause and remind yourself:
You got here through effort.
You got here through experience.
You got here because someone—whether it’s your team, your organization, or your customers—believed in your ability to lead.
Sometimes the most important thing we can do is extend the same trust to ourselves that others have already shown us.
Step 4: Remember That Everyone Starts Somewhere
One of the easiest ways to put impostor syndrome into perspective is to remember a simple truth:
Everyone does things for the first time.
Every leader you admire once faced a moment when they were stepping into something new.
The CEO making a major decision today once had their first leadership meeting.
The founder leading a large company once pitched their first idea.
The executive confidently presenting strategy once gave their first nervous presentation.
Experience and wisdom are not things people are born with.
They are built through repetition.
Through trial and error.
Through learning from both success and mistakes.
In fact, if you listen closely to the stories of many successful leaders, you’ll often hear them describe moments in their careers where they felt unsure, underprepared, or even overwhelmed.
Those moments didn’t disqualify them from leadership.
They were part of how leadership was developed.
Final Thoughts
Impostor syndrome is often misunderstood.
Many people assume it means they’re not ready for the role they’re in.
But more often, it simply means they are growing.
When we step outside our comfort zone, our minds naturally look for signals of risk. That awareness can actually be helpful—it encourages us to think carefully and seek the knowledge we need.
The key is learning to distinguish between healthy caution and unhelpful self-doubt.
By paying attention to our self-talk, questioning the stories our mind tells us, and remembering the experience that brought us here, we can keep impostor syndrome from becoming a barrier.
Instead, it becomes something else entirely.
A reminder that we are expanding our capabilities.
Because in leadership—as in life—growth rarely happens inside the comfort zone.
It happens when we are willing to be vulnerable enough to try something new.
And that willingness is often the very thing that makes great leaders.