Journal · LEADERSHIP · PSYCHE

Impostor Syndrome.

Why the most capable leaders feel like frauds.

It rarely hits the loud and the mediocre. It hits those who deliver. The greater the responsibility, the quieter the question in the background: what if they realise I can’t actually do this?

A feeling that divides the top

There is a thought almost no one at the top says out loud and almost everyone knows: that their own success is a misunderstanding. That they got lucky, timed it well, knew the right people — but at the core don’t have what everyone assumes. And that it is only a matter of time until someone notices.

This pattern has had a name since 1978. The psychologists Pauline Clance and Suzanne Imes described it as the “impostor phenomenon”. It strikes especially successful people who cannot internally accept their performance as their own. It is not an illness. It is an experience. And at the top of a company it is not the exception, but the rule.

How common it really is

The numbers contradict the feeling of being alone. They say the opposite: those who know this are in the majority.

A widely cited estimate suggests that around 70% of all people experience the impostor feeling at least once in their lives (Sakulku & Alexander, 2011). What is added at the top: fewer people you can talk to honestly about it. The burden stays the same — the isolation grows.

How to recognise it in yourself

The fallacy: more performance does not heal it

The obvious solution would be to earn your way out of the doubt — to get even better until the feeling disappears. That is exactly the trap. Every new success is immediately explained away and therefore provides no evidence that lasts. What lasts is the higher stake next time.

This creates a cycle that looks like discipline from the outside and works like fear from the inside. Overwork, perfectionism and avoiding visible risk are not solutions — they are symptoms. And they are one of the silent precursors of what later leads to the failure of leaders, long before it becomes visible from the outside.

“The question is not whether the doubt disappears. The question is whether it leads you — or you lead it.”

What actually changes things

The pattern does not disappear through self-reassurance (“you are good enough”). It changes through different mechanics:

Document evidence instead of explaining it away. Those who record successes in writing — what was the decision, what was the outcome — build a counter-archive to the inner voice. Facts are harder to talk away than feelings.

Separate self-doubt from self-worth. Doubt is a thought, not a verdict on your worth. Forgiving yourself your own yardstick here is not soft comfort, but a precondition for clear decisions.

Redefine responsibility. Not: “I have to prove I can do it.” But: “I stand for the result.” This is the Patron’s stance — responsibility for the result, not for the perfect self-image.

Have an honest sparring partner. The pattern lives on isolation. It falls apart the moment someone with an outside view names it. That is precisely the function of coaching — not a comforter, but a corrective, and the basis of real entrepreneurial resilience.

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