I've worked with a lot of leaders who describe this exact same moment. (Let me know if this sounds familiar to you. Use the reply button, and I’ll get the email directly!)
They get tapped for a big role, or they're sitting in a room full of people who seem more certain than they are, and something inside them shifts. They suddenly notice this low-grade hum of who am I to be here? And to be making these decisions? And almost immediately, they name it as “imposter syndrome.”
Maybe it is… But maybe it’s something else.
Self-doubt and imposter syndrome get collapsed into the same idea constantly, and I understand why. They feel similar when you’re experiencing it, but they're different enough that treating them the same way to find solutions doesn't work.
When that 'who am I to be here' feeling hits, what does the room usually look like?
The difference between self-doubt and imposter syndrome
Self-doubt is the inner critic. It's universal that every leader I've worked with has an inner critic. It’s that internal voice that's judgmental, comparison-focused, and quick to tell you why something won't work. It says “you should already know this or you're not as good as they think.” That voice is simply noise. You can notice it, name it, interrogate whether it's actually telling you the truth, and reframe it against what you know to be real about yourself, and that's a learnable skill.
Imposter syndrome is a specific version of that thought pattern. It adds a layer: the fear that others are going to discover you don't belong. It’s the underlying anxiety that the gap between who you appear to be and who you "really" are is about to get exposed. Imposter syndrome tends to show up loudest right at the edge of your comfort zone, when you're in new territory. (...and that's not an accident!)
An idea that comes up often with leaders I’m talking to is that sometimes what they’re feeling isn't coming from inside them at all, and it’s really coming from the environment instead.
It shows up when someone is being overlooked, excluded, or consistently dismissed: But that's not their inner critic lying to them, that's just real information about where they are. Part of the work is sitting down asking yourself: is this coming from my internal voice, or is it a response to something external?
The answer to that question changes what to do next.
One of my favorite songs, "Doubt" by Twenty One Pilots, lives in exactly that uncomfortable in-between. The whole song has this tension of not knowing whether to trust yourself, and that is right where this work starts! Before you can reframe anything, you have to figure out which voice is actually running the show.
This week’s #1 to-do
When you feel that familiar shrinking feeling during a meeting, pause and ask yourself one question before you do anything else. Is this coming from inside me, or is it coming from where I am? You don't have to solve it right then. Just name the source (in your head). That one distinction decides whether the work is internal or whether something in the room needs to change.
I’m on your side,
Lauran Arledge
Founder, Bold Font
P.S. Most people get stuck between naming it and doing something about it. That gap is exactly what I dig into in my upcoming free coaching session. I’ll even talk about why your brain resists that next step in the first place (hint: it's not weakness, it's homeostasis).
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