Successful on paper. So why do you still feel like a fraud?

A founder closes a seven-figure round, then spends the celebration dinner convinced the investors made a mistake. A newly promoted managing director rereads her own appointment email, waiting for someone to notice the error. Neither is short of evidence of competence. Both feel like they are getting away with something. Psychologists have a name for this: the impostor phenomenon, commonly called imposter syndrome.

The term was coined by psychologists Pauline Clance and Suzanne Imes in 1978, in a study of high-achieving women who persistently attributed their success to luck, timing or charm rather than ability (Clance & Imes, 1978). Later research found the pattern is not confined to women, or to any one profession. A 2020 systematic review in the Journal of General Internal Medicine, covering 62 studies and more than 14,000 participants, found prevalence estimates ranging from 9% to 82%, depending heavily on which screening tool was used (Bravata et al., 2020) - worth reading as a spectrum rather than a diagnosis, since measurement varies so widely.

That same review found impostor feelings were often comorbid with anxiety and depression, and associated with impaired job performance, lower job satisfaction, burnout, and reduced motivation to pursue leadership roles at all (Bravata et al., 2020). Because the studies were observational, the review cannot establish that impostor feelings cause these outcomes, only that they tend to travel together.

Workplace research adds a leadership-specific layer. A study of 201 employees found impostor tendencies behaved like a stable trait, closely tied to low self-efficacy, neuroticism and perfectionism, and linked to lower job satisfaction and lower discretionary "good citizen" behaviour at work (Vergauwe et al., 2015). Critically, workplace social support buffered these effects, weakening the link between impostor feelings and poor work attitudes. A 2025 qualitative study of leaders found a recurring pattern: discounting the ninety-nine things that went right in favour of the one thing that went wrong. Coaching using direct verbal feedback and credible role models appeared to help leaders build more accurate self-appraisal (Farmer & Papworth, 2025).

None of this means impostor feelings should be treated as a fixed flaw to fix once. The evidence base for formal treatment is thin - the 2020 review found no controlled trials of treatments at all (Bravata et al., 2020). What the research does support is smaller, evidence-grounded adjustments.

1. Keep a record of concrete outcomes and feedback, not just feelings - self-efficacy, built through direct evidence of past performance, was the strongest predictor of lower impostor tendencies (Vergauwe et al., 2015).
2. Seek direct verbal feedback and credible mentors rather than relying on self-assessment alone - leaders in coaching research responded most to verbal persuasion and seeing similar others succeed (Farmer & Papworth, 2025).
3. Build genuine social support at work, not just a wider network - support from colleagues measurably weakened the link between impostor feelings and poor job attitudes (Vergauwe et al., 2015).
4. Treat the feeling as common and situational, not a verdict on ability - prevalence estimates vary this widely partly because context and measurement shape it (Bravata et al., 2020).
5. Watch for burnout and anxiety alongside impostor feelings, and address those directly - the two were consistently associated in the evidence (Bravata et al., 2020).

References:

Bravata, D. M., Watts, S. A., Keefer, A. L., Madhusudhan, D. K., Taylor, K. T., Clark, D. M., Nelson, R. S., Cokley, K. O., & Hagg, H. K. (2020). Prevalence, predictors, and treatment of impostor syndrome: A systematic review. Journal of General Internal Medicine, 35(4), 1252-1275.

Clance, P. R., & Imes, S. A. (1978). The imposter phenomenon in high achieving women: Dynamics and therapeutic intervention. Psychotherapy: Theory, Research & Practice, 15(3), 241-247.

Farmer, M., & Papworth, J. (2025). Impostor phenomenon in leaders through the lens of self-efficacy and implications for coaching. International Journal of Evidence Based Coaching and Mentoring, 23(2), 94-111.

Swaidan, E., & Jabbour Al Maalouf, N. (2025). Impostor phenomenon unveiled: Exploring its impact on well-being, performance, and satisfaction among employees. Administrative Sciences, 15(2), 67.

Vergauwe, J., Wille, B., Feys, M., De Fruyt, F., & Anseel, F. (2015). Fear of being exposed: The trait-relatedness of the impostor phenomenon and its relevance in the work context. Journal of Business and Psychology, 30(3), 565-581.