Have you been in a meeting and felt like you didn’t belong in the room? Looking around, you noticed that your colleagues were better informed, more capable, more assertive, and somehow more legitimate. Or maybe you find yourself working on a project and questioning your ability to get it done. And even though you succeeded, you told yourself that your success was more due to luck than skill?

Sound familiar? If so, you’ve probably been dealing with “imposter syndrome”: feelings of insecurity, inadequacy, and self-doubt.

American psychologists Suzanne Imes and Pauline Clance coined the term in 1978 and compared it to a feeling of ‘intellectual inauthenticity’. High-performing women seemed particularly affected by this. Although imposter syndrome is not equivalent to a clinical diagnosis, the term has entered the popular lexicon. In its 2022 Mind The Gap report, KPMG estimates that 75% of female executives in Fortune 1000 companies have experienced imposter syndrome. A research article by…