The Lie You Have Been Sold About Imposter Syndrome

Walk into any leadership offsite and you will hear the same confession. "Honestly, I struggle with imposter syndrome too." Heads nod. People share stories. Someone recommends a book or a workshop on confidence.

Then everyone goes back to the exact same culture that produced the problem in the first place.

You have been told imposter syndrome lives inside people. That it is a mindset issue. A confidence gap. A personal flaw to be coached away.

It is not.

When high performers across your org quietly confess that they are waiting to be exposed as frauds, that is not a personality pattern. That is a leadership signal. It is your system telling them they are always one misstep from losing the chair they already earned.

Ruchika Tulshyan and Jodi Ann Burey wrote about this in their widely cited Harvard Business Review piece Stop Telling Women They Have Imposter Syndrome. They explain that instead of fixing biased or exclusionary systems, companies send women to confidence training and call it progress.

That pattern is not limited to gender. Any group that is underrepresented or over scrutinized learns the same lesson. The bar is vague. The rules move. The feedback is soft when it should be sharp. They start to think the problem is them.

It is not.

If you are a leader, here is the hard truth.

When imposter syndrome is common inside your org, it is not your people that need therapy.

It is your operating system that needs surgery.

The question is whether you are willing to open it up.

How Leaders Quietly Manufacture Imposters

Imposter syndrome is built, not born.

It forms through daily micro moves that teach people they are lucky to be here instead of qualified to be here.

Leadership teams run hidden scripts that sound reasonable but create chronic self doubt.

Here are the scripts that do the most damage.

1. Opaque Standards That Shift With The Weather

You say promotions are based on impact. Managers say promotions are based on readiness. Employees see promotions based on proximity.

When criteria are fuzzy, people cannot tell what good looks like. They cannot tell whether they are ahead or behind. They guess. They compare. They obsess over every stray comment from a senior leader. Eventually they decide the only logical explanation is luck.

This is how you manufacture imposter syndrome in high performers with strong track records. Not because they lack evidence. Because you refuse to make the scoring system explicit.

2. Recognition Without Fairness

Leaders love appreciation. Shout outs. Heart emojis. Praise at all hands.

None of that matters if the system underneath is unfair.

Decades of research on organizational justice show that when people believe rewards and opportunities are distributed unfairly, motivation collapses. Jason Colquitt's work shows perceived fairness predicts engagement far more reliably than perks or praise.

When someone gets promoted who did not carry the weight, no amount of gratitude fixes the damage. Praise sitting on top of an opaque or rigged system does not reduce imposter syndrome. It amplifies it.

"If they think I am doing great and I still did not get the opportunity, maybe I really do not deserve to be here."

3. High Scrutiny For Some, Free Pass For Others

Some employees can fail safely. Others get grilled for the same mistakes. Same outcome. Different story.

Underrepresented leaders or newer leaders often get fewer second chances and more second guessing. The message is clear. They are still on probation.

Christina Maslach's research on burnout identifies perceived unfairness as a key driver of cynicism and insecurity. Imposter syndrome is the early mental version of that insecurity. It shows up long before people disengage.

4. Politeness Instead Of Real Feedback

Leaders soften every hard message. Reviews use gentle phrasing instead of clarity. You tell yourself you are being kind.

You are not. You are depriving people of the information they need to trust their own competence.

When the only feedback is vague praise, people cannot tell if they are truly strong or if you are just trying to keep morale high. Confusion fills the gap. That confusion becomes imposter syndrome.

You will not think your way out of this. You have to build your way out.

Imposter Feelings Are A Psychological Safety Alert

Psychological safety means people can take interpersonal risks without believing it will cost them status or opportunity. Amy Edmondson's research shows teams with high safety report more errors at first, learn faster, and outperform teams that hide problems.

Now apply that to imposter syndrome.

What do people do when they feel like frauds? They hide.

• They hide questions.

• They hide mistakes.

• They hide half formed ideas.

• They keep quiet in exec reviews.

• They avoid stretch assignments.

• They do not ask for help until they are underwater.

From the outside, these people look calm and competent. Up close, they are exhausted and alone.

If this pattern shows up in your high stakes teams, you do not just have an emotional wellbeing issue. You have an execution risk issue.

Every unasked question hides a risk.

Every unspoken concern slows the company down.

Every leader pretending to be fine is running their own private crisis plan.

Psychological safety is the antidote. Not slogans. Not "speak up" campaigns. Actual safety built into leadership behavior.

The Leadership Playbook To Stop Creating Imposters

You cannot erase imposter feelings completely. Humans are messy. Big roles come with doubt. But you can build a system where competent people do not live in permanent self suspicion.

Here is what it looks like in practice.

1. Make The Game Transparent

Publish clear expectations for every level. Describe what "strong" means in concrete behaviors.

For promotions, require written rationales answering three questions.

1. What did this person deliver?

2. How did they deliver it?

3. What expanded in scope or complexity?

Share these rationales. You are not just explaining a decision. You are teaching how the system works.

Transparency does not kill flexibility. It kills paranoia.

2. Treat Fairness As An Operating Metric

Audit who carries the invisible load. Meeting prep. Emotional labor. Onboarding. All the work that keeps the place running.

Compare who owns that work to who gets credit, opportunity, and compensation. If the lists do not match, fix the system, not the slide deck.

Use Workplace to spot patterns in real time. Workplace tracks 1,228 signals across burnout, psychological safety, alignment, and more. Use them.

Fairness does not eliminate imposter syndrome overnight. It gives people evidence that effort maps to outcomes.

3. Turn Feedback Into A Trust Engine

Set a company wide standard. Feedback must be specific, behavior based, and forward looking.

"Here is what you did. Here is the impact. Here is what would make it stronger next time."

Train managers to use this structure weekly, not yearly. When people receive specific feedback consistently, they stop guessing about their competence. They have evidence.

4. Model Imperfection At The Top

People do not believe leaders' vulnerability statements. They believe leaders' vulnerable actions.

In leadership meetings say the words. "Here is a call I got wrong. Here is what I missed. Here is what I am learning."

You are not performing. You are normalizing imperfection. You are proving that competence and mistakes can coexist. That signal starves imposter syndrome.

5. Measure Silence As A Risk

Imposter syndrome hides in quiet rooms.

Track participation. Who speaks and who never does. Track decision reviews. Who challenges assumptions early and who waits until the end. Use language patterns to spot hesitations or withdrawal.

You do not need to psychoanalyze individuals. You need to spot clusters of fear. Then treat them the way you treat any other operational risk. Name it. Intervene. Measure again.

The Question Every CEO Needs To Ask Today

You can keep treating imposter syndrome like a personal confidence problem. You can keep funding workshops while the system tells people their success is a fluke.

Or you can ask the only question that matters.

"What are we doing, structurally, that makes competent people doubt they belong here?"

Your high performers will not tell you directly. They will smile. Deliver. Nod in meetings. Then one day they will quietly leave for a company that treats confidence as a shared responsibility.

Imposter syndrome is not a motivational gap. It is a system response to how you design standards, feedback, fairness, and safety.

You cannot coach your way out of that. You can only lead your way out.

Follow the hesitation. Fix the system. Prove to your people that they are not guests in the room. They are the reason the room exists.