How Do You Overcome Imposter Syndrome as a Leader?

Toby Adamson

6 days ago

5 min read

Updated: 18 hours ago

I wondered what I was doing there almost every single day.

Here’s the short answer to the question above. You overcome imposter syndrome by separating what you don’t know yet from what you can’t do, quieting the inner voice that says you don’t belong, and collecting real evidence of what you bring. I learned all three the hard way, in a room full of MBAs.

How do you stop second-guessing yourself at work?

You stop by treating doubt as information about a gap. It’s a signal to learn something, and it says nothing final about your worth.

Not long after my company was acquired by McKinsey, I landed on my first projects there. Picture it. Nearly everyone around me had an MBA. I had a BS in Business. I was a tech consultant surrounded by strategy consultants. The industry was new to me (making paper), the methodologies were new, I was working in a different country (at least they spoke English), and the work itself was work I had never done before.

My inner pep talk was solid. I can figure this out. I can do anything if I set my mind to it. I believed it. And I still wondered every morning how I’d ended up in that room. Both thoughts lived in my head at the same time. I’ve been there, and I’d guess you have too.

Then came the day I met the plant manager. I was in my twenties, 5'2", maybe 110 pounds, sitting across from a man with far more experience than I had. Five minutes into the conversation, he told me he’d doubted me at first. Then he told me I’d impressed him.

A huge weight slid off my shoulders. I had been carrying around the belief that everyone could see my gaps, and here was someone saying out loud what I’d been bracing for. His doubt came from a first impression, and it faded once I started doing the work.

How do I overcome imposter syndrome and become a better leader?

How do you know if you’re ready for a leadership role?

You’re ready when you’re willing to learn what you don’t know yet. Nobody walks into a leadership role with every skill in place.

When I look back at those projects, I wasn’t missing ability. I was missing information. I didn’t know paper manufacturing. I had never done strategy work. Those gaps were real, and every one of them could be closed with curiosity, good questions, and practice. Closing them built the strategic skills I used in every job I have had since.

Many people wait to feel qualified before they raise a hand. The trouble is that feeling qualified usually arrives after you’ve done the thing, not before. Not knowing something yet says nothing about whether you can learn it. And a quiet, small-framed person in the room can absolutely be respected and impactful. Your appearance and your résumé are only the first five minutes of the conversation.

How do you build confidence as a leader?

You build it from evidence and from a quieter inner critic. Waiting to feel certain won’t get you there.

Your saboteurs are part of the story here. Saboteurs are the inner voices that try to protect you by criticizing you, and they get loudest when you stretch.

The Judge says you don’t belong here and everyone else earned their seat.
The Hyper-Achiever says your worth depends on your performance, so any gap in your knowledge feels like proof you’re failing.

Notice that neither of them mentions the evidence. They never say, “You’ve learned hard things before.” They just turn up the volume.

There’s an honest caveat worth adding. Researchers have pointed out that workplaces shape who feels like they belong, and the label “imposter syndrome” can put all the weight on the individual. I agree with that. You can work on your inner voice and still expect your workplace to do its part. Both matter.

The practical move is to start keeping receipts. Save the kind words, the wins, and the moments someone changed their mind about you. Mine would include a plant manager who told me I’d impressed him. Confidence grows when you give your brain better data than the Judge is offering.

How do you transition from individual contributor to leader?

You transition by changing the energy you lead from, in addition to picking up new skills.

In the iPEC Energy Leadership framework, we talk about the levels of energy people operate from. At the lower levels, you’re in protection mode: I have to prove myself, I can’t get this wrong, they’re going to find out. That’s where I spent a lot of my early McKinsey days. It’s exhausting, and it makes learning harder because you’re busy defending yourself instead of absorbing what’s in front of you.

At the higher levels, you’re curious, collaborative, and focused on contributing. From there, “I don’t know this yet” becomes a useful starting point. You ask better questions, you listen harder, and people feel the difference. This shift matters more as you move into leadership, because your job changes from proving you can do the work to helping other people do theirs.

You don’t have to leap from one level to the other. You just have to notice where you are and take one step up toward curiosity. Ask yourself, “Am I trying to prove something right now, or am I trying to learn something?” That one question can change how you walk into a meeting.

How do I overcome imposter syndrome and become a better leader?

Start small, and start this week. Here’s a tiny thing to try, in five parts:

Sort your doubts into two columns. Column one: “I don’t know this yet.” Column two: “I can’t do this.” Be honest. Most of your list will land in column one, and column one comes with a built-in to-do list.
Name your saboteur. When the voice says “you don’t belong here,” say, “Hello, Judge.” Giving it a name creates a little space between you and the thought.
Swap proving for asking. In your next meeting, replace one defensive thought with one curious question. “Help me understand how this works” is a strong leadership sentence.
Start a proof file. Write down one piece of evidence a week: a win, a thank you, a problem you solved. Read it on the hard days. In coaches training we actually went around and people anonymously wrote down their impressions of each other. I would look at mine and it would energize me when I was feeling down.
Let people watch you work. First impressions fade fast when people see you show up prepared and ask good questions. Give them the chance to be wrong about you.