She had just been appointed director after a demanding selection process: three interviews, a case study, five candidates turned down.
And her first sentence in our coaching session was:
“Last night I woke up from a dream about the email telling me they’d picked the wrong person.”
If that sentence makes you smile a slightly tense smile, this article is for you.
Because here is the best-kept paradox of taking on a new role: the moment you finally get the role you were aiming for is often the moment you most doubt you deserve it.
And nobody talks about it, least of all new managers, convinced they are the only ones on the starting line hearing that little voice.
Where the impostor voice comes from (and why it’s shouting right now)
What is commonly called impostor syndrome (the researchers who described it in the late 1970s actually spoke of an impostor phenomenon) is neither an illness nor a manufacturing defect.
It is a common and widespread phenomenon: the persistent feeling of not deserving your successes, which you attribute to luck, timing or other people’s misjudgment, along with the fear of being “found out”.
Taking on a new role is the exact moment when the gap between what is expected of you and what you already know how to do is at its widest.
Yesterday, you were an expert in your role: competent, recognized, on familiar ground.
Today, you are a beginner in the next one.
That vertigo is not a sign that you are an impostor; it is the very definition of a promotion.
You weren’t appointed because you already knew how to do everything.
You were appointed because they believe you can learn how.
Runners know this moment well: the first time you line up for a race one level up. You watch the other athletes warm up and they all seem more legitimate, sharper, more at home.
What you forget is that every one of them thought exactly the same thing at their first race at that level.
And above all: the qualifying rounds are behind you. You are in that lane because your split times got you there, not because of a clerical error.
5 signs the impostor has taken too much room
A passing doubt is normal, even useful; more on that below.
But certain behaviours show that the impostor feeling is steering your transition in your place.
Here are the most typical ones I see in my clients:
- You over-prepare everything, to the point of no longer deciding.
Every meeting takes hours of preparation, every email is reread five times, every decision waits for “one last check”.
Over-preparation is doubt’s most respectable disguise: it looks like rigour, but its real driver is the fear of being caught out.
The telltale symptom: files pile up waiting for your sign-off. - You don’t dare ask “beginner” questions.
You nod in meetings at an unfamiliar acronym and painstakingly piece the information together yourself rather than ask.
As if asking a question meant confessing to fraud.
Cruel irony: the first 90 days are precisely when those questions are expected and welcome; it’s afterwards that they become costly. - You credit your successes to circumstances, and your difficulties to yourself.
The project is moving forward? “The team is excellent, I’m lucky.”
A file is stuck? “I wasn’t up to it.”
This lopsided sorting is the accounting signature of the impostor feeling: gains go to chance, losses go to you.
No balance sheet can come out positive with that kind of bookkeeping. - You avoid visibility.
You let others present your results, you turn down speaking at the executive committee, you play down your first wins (“oh, it was nothing”).
Yet in a new role, visibility isn’t vanity: it’s part of the job.
An invisible win builds neither your credibility nor your team’s. - You work twice as hard to feel half as good.
Longer evenings, weekends nibbled away, unable to delegate “because it’s faster to do it myself”.
Overinvestment is an attempt to pay back an imaginary debt: since I don’t deserve this job, I’ll earn it through exhaustion.
It is the most serious of the five signs, because it is the one that does damage: to your health, your judgment, and to a team that learns it isn’t trusted.
An important note
If exhaustion, anxiety or loss of sleep set in for the long term, this is no longer a matter for coaching or a blog article. Talk to a health professional. Taking care of yourself is also part of the race plan.
Turning the impostor into an ally: four shifts
The good news: the goal is not to silence that voice, because people who never doubt rarely make good leaders.
The goal is to put it back in its place: a passenger in the back seat, not the driver.
1. Turn the verdict into a signal
Reframe what the voice is saying.
“I don’t belong here” is a verdict: unverifiable and paralyzing.
“I’m learning a role that is bigger than my current reflexes” is a signal: accurate and actionable.
Read properly, doubt is simply the dashboard of your learning curve: it shows where you need to grow, not whether you deserve to be there.
2. Move from feelings to facts
The impostor feeling thrives on vagueness.
For your first six months, keep an evidence journal: a ten-minute weekly note recording what moved forward thanks to your decisions, the positive feedback you received, the problems you solved.
It isn’t self-congratulation; it’s the runner’s stopwatch. You don’t argue with a split time: it is what it is.
The day the voice starts shouting, reread the journal.
3. From secrecy to chosen words
The impostor feeling draws its strength from silence.
As long as you are the only one feeling it, it remains a shameful truth rather than a common experience.
Choose one or two people you trust (a peer, a mentor, a coach…) and simply name it:
“I’m going through the classic phase of doubt that comes with a new role.”
Nine times out of ten, the answer starts with “me too”.
Be careful about who you tell, though: in the first months, your team doesn’t need to hear your existential doubts; it needs a direction.
Transparency is a virtue best taken in measured doses.
4. Focus on learning rather than performance
For your first six months, set yourself learning objectives alongside your results objectives: understanding the budget cycle, mastering the relationship with a given partner, learning to chair the committee...
The inner impostor measures everything in pure performance.
And at the start of a role, pure performance is bound to be disappointing, since you are just starting out.
By also measuring what you are learning, you finally judge yourself on the right event: that of the runner moving up a category, not that of the reigning champion.
Anticipating relapses
One last thing, which articles on the subject often forget: the impostor feeling doesn’t follow your 30-60-90 day plan.
It has predictable relapses: the first crisis to handle, the first public failure, the first performance review you give, the first reorganization to announce...
Each of these moments reopens the question: “A real manager would know how to do this.”
That’s normal, and it’s actually a good sign: each relapse corresponds to a new level in your role.
In a 1500-metre race, doubt comes back at every change of pace, and experienced runners don’t get rid of it: they learn to run with it.
At 18 months, the voice will still be there, somewhere.
But you will be the one holding the stopwatch.
So the real question is not “How do I stop doubting?”.
It’s: “What do I do with my doubt while it’s here?”
Frequently asked questions about impostor syndrome in a new role
Is impostor syndrome an illness?
No. It is neither a medical diagnosis nor a psychological disorder.
The researchers who described it spoke of an impostor “feeling” or “experience”, widely shared and usually temporary.
That said, if it comes with lasting anxiety, sleep problems or exhaustion, it is important to talk to a health professional, because these signals go beyond professional development.
Does the impostor feeling mainly affect women?
It was first studied among high-achieving women, which left a lasting impression, but later research shows that it very widely affects men too.
Context can amplify it, however: being the first person with your profile to hold a position, because of your gender, age or background… gives the inner voice extra arguments.
The mechanism remains the same, and so do the levers to outsmart it.
Should you talk about your doubts to your manager during a transition?
With discernment.
Talking about your learning needs, yes, and it is even strategic: asking for support on specific points (“I’d like a monthly check-in on the financial side of the role”) strengthens your credibility.
Unloading a global existential doubt (“I’m not sure I’m cut out for this job”), no, not in the first months.
Save that level of confidence for a mentor, a trusted peer or a coach, whose role it precisely is.
Does the impostor feeling disappear with experience?
It fades as the role becomes familiar, but it typically resurfaces at each new level: a new promotion, a new scope, a new organization...
Many very experienced executives still know it well.
The difference from the start of their career is that they have learned to recognize it for what it is: a learning-curve signal. And to run with it rather than against it.
