Impostor Syndrome at Work: Why You Feel Like a Fraud and How to Move Through It

Originally published 2021. Updated 2026.

Self-doubt is not proof you don’t belong. It may be a sign you are growing into a bigger room, role or version of yourself.

Picture this: a glossy boardroom table, a CEO on the other side of it, leaning in, voice dropped, like he's about to tell me something he shouldn't. I lean in too. I'm ready. He says, "You know, Janelle, men suffer from imposter syndrome too." I whispered back, "I know."

I was in that conversation because I was designing a leadership programme for some women in his workforce. Imposter syndrome was one of the key components of the programme, which is how we got onto the subject. It was very important to him that I understood men experience it too, which of course I already did, because I have many male clients who tell me exactly that. And we worked through it together.

What struck me about that conversation was how curious and genuinely engaged he was. We could have talked for hours. Not because imposter syndrome is rare or surprising, but because it's so common and so consistently misunderstood.

It Doesn't Discriminate

Imposter syndrome isn't just a women's experience. It's not just a new leader's experience. It's not something that only shows up when you're new to business or finding your feet in entrepreneurship. The list of who it visits is genuinely endless. And that's the point.

It shows up in the person hoping they won't be asked a question in the room. In the high performer who has been doing that role for 20 years. In the one who just got the promotion they worked a decade for.

What all these people have in common is this: they're doing something that matters to them. Something with real stakes. Something where the gap between how capable they feel and how capable they need to appear feels, in that moment, very wide.

That's what imposter syndrome is really tracking. Not incompetence. Not failure waiting to happen. Growth.

Why I Actually Love It When a Client Tells Me They Feel Like an Imposter

They don't love it that I love it. But I do.

Not because I enjoy watching them suffer, I promise I don't, but because it always means something good is happening. It always means they're stretching themselves. They're not sitting safely on the sidelines doing the version of themselves they've already perfected. They're leaning into something.

They're standing right at the edge of growth.

Here's the thing about growth: it's not always pretty. We like to call it things like expansion and evolution and stepping into your next level, and those things are true. But sometimes growth just feels like your stomach dropping before you walk into a room, or wanting the opportunity so badly and then panicking slightly when it arrives.

That's not a warning sign. It's often just what becoming looks like from the inside.

The real cost of imposter syndrome isn't that self-doubt shows up. Self-doubt shows up for most of us. The cost is when we hand it the keys and let it drive the car. When we overwork, overprepare, say yes when we mean no, stay quiet when we should speak, make ourselves endlessly available so no one can question our value. When we try to earn our place every single day instead of owning it.

So here are five ways to move through imposter syndrome. Not by pretending you're fearless. Not by doing a power pose in the bathroom, although that can be good sometimes. Not by hoping for the best. But by relating to the feeling differently, so it stops running the show.

1. Separate the Feeling from the Evidence

You may feel like an imposter, but a feeling isn't necessarily truth. It's information. It might be telling you that you're feeling stretched, more exposed than before, or in unfamiliar territory. What it's not telling you is that you're incapable. Those are very different things, and mixing them up is where a lot of the trouble starts.

Here's a practical starting point. Write down the evidence that you're capable and you belong.

Get a piece of paper or open a Google Doc and write down the actual evidence. Not the fear. The evidence.

What have you done?

What have you created?

What have you led?

What problems have you solved?

What have you navigated, built, carried, survived, figured out along the way?

Please don't write down a little polite list. Tell the truth properly.

Here's the thing about high-performing people: they are usually excellent at cataloguing their gaps and strangely reluctant to own their wins. If I ask them what they still want to work on, they'll give me a detailed and thoughtful answer. If I ask them what they've genuinely achieved, suddenly they're very modest.

This isn't about talking yourself into false confidence. It's about not letting fear override what is actually, demonstrably real.

2. Stop Using Overwork as Proof of Worth

This one is a biggie, and it's sneaky. Because in high performers, imposter syndrome often disguises itself as diligence. You think you're being thorough, responsible, professional, and most of the time you are. But sometimes underneath that, there's something else going on. A quiet attempt to outrun the fear that you're not enough.

This looks like preparing for something for three hours when thirty minutes would have been ample. Checking an email six times before sending it. Saying yes to another project when you do not have the time, because disappointing someone feels unbearable. Making yourself constantly available, because if you're always useful, surely no one can question whether you belong.

Short term, this feels like you're in control. Long term, it's exhausting. And it doesn't actually build confidence. It builds dependence on overdoing everything.

So before your next task, ask yourself: what would be enough here? Not lazy or careless. We're not dropping our standards. But what would the grounded, capable version of you, the one who knows they belong, actually do? And where would they stop?

Then practice stopping there.

3. Let Failure Be Information, Not Identity

Most of the time, the thing you're afraid of hasn't actually happened. Our brain imagines an undesirable outcome, makes it vivid and convincing, and our body responds as though it's already underway. Because that's how we're wired. And it's exhausting.

But, let's say something genuinely does go wrong. Because sometimes it will. You make the wrong call, stumble in a meeting, receive feedback that stings, launch something that doesn't land the way you hoped. None of those things make you a fraud. They make you a human who is actually doing something new, different, bigger, bolder than before. Which is more than can be said for people who never try anything uncomfortable.

The shift that changes everything is learning to treat failure as feedback rather than identity. When failure becomes about who you are, you collapse. When failure becomes information, you learn from it and you move on.

Here's something I do with my clients: we fail big, we fail fast, we learn from it, and we get it behind us.

Try this. Think back to a professional moment that didn't go the way you hoped. Not to torture yourself, but to study it.

What happened?

What did you learn?

What did (or will) you do differently next time?

There is something quietly powerful about realising you've already survived things that once felt enormous. Moments you were certain would define you in ways you didn't want to be defined. And they didn't.

4. Build Confidence Through Action, Not Waiting

Here's the thing: a lot of people believe confidence is something you feel before you do the thing you're anxious or frightened about. That you wait until you feel ready, and then you act.

That is not actually how it works.

Confidence is a result of action. It's a paradox. We wait to feel confident before we take the action, when in reality it's taking the action that creates the confidence. It comes after you've done the thing that frightens you a few times and noticed that you're still standing. After you've realised with some relief that you didn't in fact die from the discomfort of it.

I know that sounds dramatic, but our bodies can genuinely behave as though speaking up in a meeting or stepping into a more visible arena is a life-threatening event. Our minds know it isn't. Our nervous system has its own timeline.

If you're waiting to feel completely ready before you enter the room differently, I'm sorry, my friend, you're going to be waiting quite a while.

Here's something practical. Before your next meeting or important conversation, take a moment to actually arrive. Get out of your head. Feet on the floor. Unclench your jaw. Yes, really. You might not even notice you're clenching it until you try to stop. Relax your shoulders. Slow your breathing down. And choose one sentence you'll say in the room.

"I'd like to add something here." Or "I have a different perspective on this." Or "Here's what I'd recommend."

Say it. Don't apologise for it. Don't rush through it to fill the silence on the other side. Let it land. Give it space.

You're not trying to take over the room. You're just trying to stop disappearing from it.

5. Be Honest Without Handing Over Your Authority

Authenticity does not mean sharing every insecurity you have the moment you feel it. We all want to be authentic leaders. And leadership does not require performing perfection. There is a genuinely effective place between those two things.

It's okay not to know the answer. It's okay to be learning. It's okay to need more clarity, more time, or a conversation about priorities. What matters is how you hold yourself while you say so.

There is a real difference between "I have no idea, sorry, I'm probably the wrong person for this" and "I don't have that answer right now, but I'll find out and come back to you."

There's a difference between collapsing and being clear. Between oversharing and communicating. Between asking to be rescued and simply leading with honesty.

We saw this during the pandemic. The leaders who said confidently, "I don't know, I'm finding out," who were honest without unravelling, were the ones people trusted. The leaders who pretended they had all the answers, and then we all realised very quickly that they didn't, well, we remember those ones too.

Next time you don't know something, practice saying so cleanly. "I need to look at the numbers before I give you a clear answer." Or "I can take that on, but something else will need to move." Or "I'm at capacity this week. Let's sit down and work out what matters most."

This isn't weakness. This is what leadership actually sounds like.

The Goal Is Not to Never Feel Self-Doubt Again

I know, I know. That would be wonderful. And if someone has cracked that particular code, please send me the details, because you are going to be a gazillionaire.

But it's not the goal.

The goal is to stop letting self-doubt be the most powerful voice in your head. Because the more you grow, the more edges you'll meet. New rooms. New conversations. New versions of yourself that don't quite exist yet. And every time, there may be a part of you that wonders whether you're ready.

That's not the problem. The problem is when that part of you gets to run the meeting.

You don't need to wait until imposter syndrome is gone before you lead well, speak clearly, take the opportunity, or decide you're done making yourself small. You can feel the wobble and still tell the truth. You can feel uncertain and still move forward with intelligence, with warmth, with genuine strength.

I invite you to actually celebrate when imposter syndrome shows up. Not because it's fun, but because it means you are on the edge of an evolution. There are things that frightened you once upon a time that you do easily today, probably without even thinking about them. And that can happen again.

Link arms with it. "Hey, I'm so glad you're here. This means I'm on the cusp of something great. This means I'm in the game. This means I'm moving forward. This means I'm being brave. Let's go. Because I'm doing this anyway."

That's not fake confidence. That, my friend, is self-leadership. And it is absolutely something you can start practising today.

If something in this article has landed for you, I'd love to invite you a little further into this work.

If you want practical tools you can start using straight away, I invited you to download one (or both) of the complimentary Sky High Coaching blueprints.

The Unshakeable Woman Blueprint is for the woman who is brilliant at her job but tired of feeling like she's not. The one who looks like the definition of success on the outside - and is quietly running on fumes on the inside. It's packed with more than ten short, powerful tools you can use right away, even between meetings or before bed, to shift you from pressure to presence and get your confidence, calm and spark back.

Success Was The Warm-Up is for the woman who has done Responsible Adulting to an Olympic level - built the career, led the teams, supported everyone else - and is now finally asking: what do I actually want next? It will help you reconnect with what genuinely fulfils you, redefine success on your own terms, and design a next chapter that feels aligned, alive and unapologetically yours.

Both are our gift to you and available right now. CLICK HERE.

And if you already know this isn't something you want to just read about - if you're ready to do the real work, in a room with other women who get it - then I'd love to tell you about The Soft Strength Salon. The Salon is where intelligent, high-performing women come to stop editing themselves, build their self-trust, and practise leading, speaking and living with quiet, unshakeable strength.

Because the next version of you won't be built by proving harder. She'll be built by learning to hold herself differently.

CLICK HERE to learn more about The Soft Strength Salon and apply for a no-obligation call with Janelle, so we can explore whether this is the right room for you.

Janelle Ryan is a globally recognised personal, career and leadership coach who works with high-performing professionals and established leaders navigating growth, change and the next phase of their life and leadership. She is the founder of Sky High Coaching, an international speaker, retreat leader and published author, known for her work on internal authority, soft strength and sustainable success. Janelle blends deep insight with practical application to help capable women lead with clarity, confidence and precision.