Ask any manager, at any level, whether they’ve ever felt like they were blagging it, and you’ll rarely find one who says no. Imposter syndrome is one of the most talked-about experiences in working life. It’s also one of the least understood.
The seniority doesn’t help either. Many C-Suite leaders report feeling it most acutely – the higher the stakes, the louder the internal noise. So, if they’re sitting in a new management role, wondering whether everyone can see through them, they are not alone.
The core of imposter syndrome
The term “imposter syndrome” has become a catch-all for the feeling of not being good enough for your role. That sense of waiting to be exposed and knowing, somewhere beneath the performance, that you’re making it up as you go.
However, there’s no solid evidence to suggest it’s actually a syndrome. Some psychologists argue it’s not really a clinical but more an umbrella term for a cluster of doubts, fears and behaviours that we’ve collectively decided to give a name to. That doesn’t make those feelings less real. Doubt is real, and so is the dread before a tricky conversation.
What we call imposter syndrome is, in practice, made up of many different elements, such as thoughts, feelings and behaviours, and as humans, we tend to name things we can’t quite make sense of. Naming it can help us start working through it. But the name alone doesn’t get us anywhere. It’s important to understand what’s behind the name.
Why managers feel it so accurately
The transition into management is a particular kind of disruption, as employees move from receiving directions to giving them. Research consistently shows that managers are typically promoted because they’re excellent at their jobs, but most have never managed teams before. Gallup’s State of the Manager report found that only about one in ten people have the natural talent to manage effectively, yet organisations still promote based on individual performance rather than leadership potential. That leaves many managers unprepared for what’s coming.
And the pressure is significant. Studies have shown that within the first 10 seconds of arriving, whether walking into an office or joining a video call, people are already forming judgments. Managers know this instinctively, and it puts them under pressure to constantly perform and have all the answers.
Add to that the fact that up to 70% of a manager’s time is spent managing people, and most weren’t promoted for that skill, and you start to see why imposter syndrome hits so hard at this stage of a career.
Putting the real work in
Rather than asking “Do I have imposter syndrome?”, managers should focus on what’s actually driving this feeling, and what they can do about it. Because the elements that make up that feeling are things they can genuinely work on. With time and self-reflection, they can start to feel more confident, both in themselves and in how others see them.
Self-awareness
The starting point is noticing what they feel, and when. Without that, managers will keep making assumptions about themselves that reinforce their own beliefs. The most practical way to build self-awareness is through journaling. Just a few minutes at the end of each day is enough. They can write down two or three things that affected them, what happened objectively, how they felt, and what it might have looked like from someone else’s perspective. Over time, they can spot patterns, see triggers more easily, and that visibility gives them something to work with.
Changing the narrative
We all have a running internal commentary – a script we’ve written about ourselves based on years of experience, feedback and the stories we’ve inherited. For many managers, that script includes lines like: “I don’t know enough. I’m going to get found out. That went badly because of me.”
There’s a concept called the Ladder of Inference that’s useful here. It describes how quickly we jump from observation to conclusion. For example, someone who yawns in a meeting becomes evidence that we’re a terrible presenter, without stopping to consider that they might just be exhausted. The work of changing the narrative is asking: “Where’s my actual evidence for that? What else could be true?”
Here, managers can seek direct feedback. Rather than walking away from a presentation thinking it was a disaster, they need to ask a trusted colleague specifically what worked and what could be done better. That will provide an evidence-based response and reassurance.
Flexing the leadership style
New managers tend to default to one or two styles – often whatever felt most comfortable for them, or whatever they experienced from their own managers. That might be being overly collegiate (not wanting to upset people they used to work alongside as peers) or going to the other extreme and projecting a confidence they don’t quite feel.
Research by Daniel Goleman identifies six leadership styles, and the evidence suggests that effective managers flex between them depending on the situation, sometimes in the same hour-long meeting. Coaching, directing, visioning or pace-setting – each has its place. The goal is to be responsive to the moment, recognise which styles you naturally reach for, and invest in the ones you tend to avoid.
Letting go of having all the answers
One of the biggest expectations managers place on themselves, and that others sometimes place on them, is that they should have all the answers. This belief makes imposter syndrome grip even more tightly.
This is where a coaching approach to leadership helps. Rather than being the person who solves every problem, the goal is to give people a clear framework and objective, and then ask them how they’d approach it. Over time, people start bringing you answers rather than just problems. That’s a very different kind of management, and a much more sustainable one.
Being genuinely kind to yourself
This point is one of the most consistently neglected. Many managers fall into the trap of believing that the role demands they’re always on, always available across everything and performing at full capacity.
Brain research on back-to-back video meetings has shown that without breaks, cognitive load builds to a point where people simply can’t process or recover effectively. Even twenty minutes away from a screen – a walk, or sitting quietly – makes all the difference.
It’s also worth remembering that nobody is at 100% all the time. Believing that everyone else is managing it while you’re struggling is part of the imposter experience. Most likely other managers are experiencing the same and simply not raising their hand up to admit it. This needs to change.
At the end of the day, imposter syndrome is largely the gap between where you are and where you think you should be, or where you imagine others already are. Understanding the pieces that make up that gap, and working on them one by one, is the most useful thing any manager can do. While it might not be possible to get rid of the feeling entirely, it at least stops running the show.
About the author:
Paul Buller is Head of Content at Mindtools Kineo. He has a Masters’ degree in Organisational Psychology, is an accredited executive and career development coach, an expert in leadership and personal development and has run and consulted for digital and hybrid learning teams with some of the world’s biggest organisations.
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