Imposter syndrome is the wrong diagnosis for most senior leaders

The label ‘imposter’ has become the reflex, a senior leader admits to private doubt and somebody, often the leader themselves, reaches for imposter syndrome. It's usually the wrong diagnosis, and the wrong diagnosis sends you in the wrong direction.

Imposter syndrome, by proper definition, is the fear of being exposed as a fraud. The person believes they've fooled people, and they're braced for being ‘found out’. This is not what most of the leaders I work with describe. They are not afraid of being found out because they know with reasonable accuracy what they're capable of. What they can't do is believe what their own record says about them even though they lived through the experience and read the evidence - for some reason it just hasn't landed.

That's a different problem. The fraud version is about exposure, and the remedy offered is reassurance: you do belong here, look at your CV! The version I see is about belief lagging evidence and where reassurance changes nothing, because more external testimony is exactly the input that gets discounted.

The label does a second kind of damage as it's become the acceptable way for a senior person to mention self-doubt, which means the conversation stops at the label. Everyone nods as though letting their little label come up for air, or in conviction that they know a great leader who felt it, and the specific thing this particular leader can't believe about themselves goes unexamined for another year.

Can you name what you can’t believe about yourself specifically in one sentence? I don’t want to hear 'I have imposter syndrome'. Something more like 'I don't believe I made that happen' or 'I don't believe I could do it again'. Think about it hard because those sentences have exits and can serve you - the label doesn't.

So, which is it for you: are you afraid of being found out, or are you waiting for evidence you already have to finally count?