Stop Calling It Imposter Syndrome — Own Your Power

Let’s have an honest conversation about one of the most overused — and I would argue, most damaging — labels in professional culture right now: imposter syndrome.

For the past several years, this phrase has been everywhere: conferences, LinkedIn posts, leadership workshops, and magazine covers. And while the intention behind the conversation is often good, something troubling happens when high-achieving professionals — particularly women — internalize this label as their identity.

They stop owning their brilliance. And that is a problem we need to address directly.

What Imposter Syndrome Actually Means

The term was first introduced in 1978 by psychologists Pauline Clance and Suzanne Imes to describe a pattern they observed in high-achieving women who struggled to internalize their own success. The clinical definition describes doubting your abilities and feeling like a fraud — particularly when your accomplishments are objectively evident.

That’s worth sitting with: it disproportionately affects high achievers. People who have already demonstrated excellence. People who have already earned their place.

So let us be clear about what imposter syndrome is not:

It is not humility. Choosing not to broadcast your accomplishments does not make you a fraud.

It is not normal self-doubt. Every professional experiences uncertainty, especially when stepping into new territory.

It is not inexperience. Not knowing everything about a new role on day one is not a character flaw. It is just called being human.

The Problem With the Label

Here is what concerns me as an executive coach: when professionals adopt the imposter syndrome label, they often stop questioning whether the label is actually accurate — and start building an identity around it.

The label becomes a ceiling.

I have worked with countless senior professionals — many of them accomplished women of color — who came to me convinced they were impostors. When we did the actual work: auditing their credentials, mapping their accomplishments, examining the feedback they had received from peers and leaders over the years, the evidence consistently told a different story.

The “imposter syndrome” was not coming from inside them. It was being projected onto them.

It was a work environment that undervalued their contributions. A leadership culture that failed to sponsor them. A promotion system that moved more slowly for them than for their counterparts. Or simply a lack of someone in their corner telling them the truth: You belong here. You earned this.

Imposter Syndrome and Women of Color in Leadership

Research consistently shows that imposter syndrome disproportionately impacts professional women of color, and particularly Black women in corporate and organizational settings. But the conversation often stops there — at the diagnosis — rather than asking the harder question: what is creating the conditions that make high-achieving women doubt themselves?

When you are frequently the only one in the room who looks like you, when your leadership style is consistently evaluated against a narrow standard, when you have to work twice as hard to receive the same recognition — the self-doubt you experience is not a syndrome. It is a rational response to an irrational environment.

The work, then, is not just internal. It is also about navigating those environments with greater strategic intelligence — what I often describe as political savvy: the ability to understand how influence, power, and relationships work in your organization, and to lead within that reality with integrity and purpose.

So What Do You Do Instead?

If you have been carrying the imposter syndrome label, here is what I want you to do:

1. Audit the evidence. List your credentials, your accomplishments, the problems you have solved, the teams you have led, and the results you have produced. Read that list. That is not the resume of an imposter.

2. Identify the source. Who or what is making you feel like you do not belong? Is it a specific person, a culture, a comparison trap? Naming the source moves the conversation from internal failure to external reality.

3. Stop performing doubt. There is a professional culture — especially among high-achieving women — where downplaying competence has become a form of social currency. It is time to retire that habit. You can be both humble and confident. They are not opposites.

4. Build your inner circle strategically. Surround yourself with people who reflect your capability to you accurately — mentors, peers, and coaches who have no investment in keeping you small.

5. Get support. Working through deeply held beliefs about your own worthiness is not something you have to do alone. Our leadership coaching services are designed precisely for this — helping professionals reconnect with their real value and lead from that place.         

Own Your Brilliance

You can’t read the label of the jar you’re in.

That has always been one of my favorite reminders for the professionals I work with. When you are inside the experience — inside your own story, your own career, your own doubts — it is nearly impossible to see yourself clearly. That is not weakness. That is just the limits of perspective.

What I know from years of executive coaching is this: the professionals who struggle most with self-doubt are rarely the ones who should. The ones who genuinely lack the skills or judgment for their roles tend not to question themselves nearly enough.

If you are questioning yourself, it is likely because you care deeply about doing the work well. That is a strength. The goal is not to eliminate that conscientiousness — it is to make sure it is not mislabeled as inadequacy.

You earned your seat. Your credentials are real. Your experience is real. Your accomplishments are real.

Own them.