Imposter Syndrome: When You Step Up
There is a voice that most high achievers know well.
It arrives at the moments that matter most. A new role. A bigger client. A room full of people who seem entirely certain of their place in it. And the voice says, quietly but clearly: what are you doing here?
That voice has a name. Imposter syndrome. And almost everyone who has ever pushed themselves beyond the comfortable edges of their capability has heard it.
The question worth asking is not how to silence it.
It is what to do with it.
The Conversation Nobody Talks About
Imposter syndrome is, at its core, a conversation you are having with yourself.
And like most internal conversations, it is more complicated than it first appears.
There is a widespread assumption that positive self talk is always good and negative self talk is always bad. That the goal is to replace every moment of doubt with a moment of confidence, every critical thought with an affirming one.
I am not sure that is right.
I played tennis competitively for a significant part of my life. And one of the things tennis teaches you – quickly and without mercy – is that the only voice you have on the court is your own. There is no team. No one to carry the weight when your mind turns against you. It is all you, the ball, and whatever conversation you are having with yourself between points.
I have experienced the full range of that conversation.
Positive self talk can be extraordinary. It can lift you when the match is slipping away. It can create momentum from nothing. It can make you believe, genuinely, that the next point is yours – and that belief can change everything.
But positive self talk can also make you complacent. It can tell you that you have already won before you have. It can soften the edge you need to keep fighting.
And negative self talk – the doubt, the criticism, the quiet voice that says “you do not have this” – can be damaging. In its most destructive form, it erodes confidence in ways that are very hard to rebuild.
But it can also be the thing that makes you fight harder. The challenge that sharpens your focus. The signal that something needs to change before it is too late.
You can change the outcome not by changing the voice itself. But by changing what you do with it.
Why High Achievers Feel It Most
Imposter syndrome is not a sign of weakness. It is, more often than not, a sign of exceptionally high standards.
The people who feel it most acutely are rarely the ones who are least capable. They are the ones who hold themselves to a standard that most people around them would consider unreachable; and who therefore find themselves in a constant, uncomfortable gap between where they are and where they believe they should be.
That gap is not a failing. It is the motivation.
It is what keeps high achievers pushing forward, developing, questioning, improving. The person who feels no gap, who believes they have already arrived, is the one who stops growing.
Imposter syndrome, viewed this way, is not the problem. It is the proof that you care enough to keep raising the bar.
Flipping It On Its Head
Here is the reframe I want to offer.
What if imposter syndrome is not a barrier to trusting yourself, your capabilities, your right to be in the room?
What if it is actually a guide?
The voice that says I am not sure I am ready for this is not always lying. Sometimes it is pointing directly at the thing you need to work on. The skill to develop. The knowledge to build. The experience to seek out. Not because you do not belong, but because you know, with the clarity that only genuine self-awareness brings, exactly what it would take to belong completely.
Own the imposter syndrome. Acknowledge it. Accept it.
Then channel it.
Use it as the most honest form of self-feedback available to you, the internal signal that tells you where to focus, what to strengthen, and what it will take to build the kind of trust in yourself that no external validation can ever fully provide.
The Difference Between Doubt and Direction
There is a line, of course.
Imposter syndrome that paralyses, that keeps you from acting, from stepping up, from owning the room – is not serving you. That version needs to be challenged, not channelled.
But imposter syndrome that focusses the mind, that points at something specific and says this is what you need to work on – is one of the most valuable internal tools a leader has.
The goal is not to eliminate the voice. It is to learn to hear it differently.
Not as evidence that you do not belong.
As a map of what you need to focus on.
A Question Worth Sitting With
What is your imposter syndrome actually telling you right now?
Not the fear underneath it, but the direction it is pointing you in. If you followed that signal, honestly and with intention, where would it lead you?
That might be the most useful question you ask yourself this week.
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