“The cost of Imposter Syndrome has been steep; I declined opportunities in my day job, telling myself that I was not skilled enough even though I had the skills, and I said to myself that I lacked the experience to use the skills effectively, so I would not apply for the roles. I hid from taking action in my business, for fear that my clients would see that I was still a mess and did not know what I was doing. I played this game, and what did I get for it? During that time I lost almost £200,000 from higher-paying contracts that I refused to apply for, refusing to show up for businesses and, in some cases, deliberately sending clients on, fearing that they would see through me as being not good enough.”

-Lillian Ogbogoh, LinkedIn, 2022

There is a growing exodus of C-suite leaders headed for the exits. According to studies from Korn Ferry and others, executives quietly leaving their role has grown by leaps since 2022. It appears that the issue isn’t burnout or lack of skill. It’s not even pressure, although that’s part of it. At the highest levels of business, many leaders are quietly haunted by a different kind of professional erosion: the belief that they are frauds. That any day now, someone will realize they don’t belong in the seat they occupy. And so they edit themselves. They overcompensate. They shrink from risk or avoid hiring people who might outshine them. Or they leave the role. Impostor Syndrome is often framed as an early entrant problem, or an issue for those rejoining the workforce. But it’s not just a problem for young professionals trying to find their footing or late careerists trying to fit back in. It’s alive and well in the boardroom with current executives and founders, even with those we’d all recognize as high performers.

And while this is usually discussed as a personal psychological issue, the broader reality is that it has largely unrecognized bottom-line consequences for companies.

The Majority Report Feeling Like Frauds

It’s a startling statistic. Seventy-one percent of U.S. CEOs say they have experienced impostor syndrome at some point in their careers, according to a 2024 Korn Ferry study of top leaders. That includes both men and women, across sectors. A KPMG report found that 75 percent of women executives have experienced it, including those at the SVP and C-suite level. We always assume that senior executives are hugely confident, operating without self-doubt. But the numbers don’t lie; if anything, it’s likely an under-reported phenomena.

As recently as 2023, a survey of UK business leaders found that 78 percent had felt like impostors at work. Nearly half said they felt that way often. More alarmingly, 59 percent said it had made them consider leaving their roles.

Feeling like an imposter isn’t a fringe issue. It’s a leadership limiter. And in many companies, it’s hiding in plain sight, hurting both professional growth and company performance.

The Problem With Impostor Syndrome at the Top

It’s a generalization that confidence increases with seniority. While that can be true as experience accumulates, what also grows alongside is exposure. More responsibility, more visibility, with more at stake. It reveals and magnifies weakness. Knowing and feeling this becomes an emotional and psychological burden that clamours loudly inside of a person often evoking a painful flight alarm. The response is to hide, to avoid, to run away from responsibility, even to quit.

Some might fear they were promoted too fast. Others were told, implicitly or explicitly, that they were “diversity hires” or “not what the board expected.” Still others carry feelings of inferiority rooted in early emotional trauma that manifests in them as adults. They were never ‘good enough’ they think to themselves. Such deeply held personal beliefs don’t just vanish once you’re in a leadership role.

With executive leaders, these feelings can be amplified by leadership isolation. The higher someone climbs, the fewer peers they have. The fewer people they can talk to about real things. It becomes harder to ask for help, admit doubt, or show vulnerability.

What Imposter Syndrome Looks Like in Practice

In order to cope, to survive the fear of impostor syndrome ringing in their heads, making them dread coming to work, some executives will start to narrow their decisions. They will make their world smaller in an effort to manage the risk of being discovered.

For instance, they avoid big strategic decisions and default to incremental change.

They over-rely on data and delay decisions under the guise of “due diligence”, and never pull the trigger.

They hire people less experienced than themselves, not more.

They avoid confrontation or strong board engagement.

They overwork, micromanage, or fall into perfectionist traps.

They are mercurial, prone to fits of anger.

They are overly critical of little mistakes others make and can’t let them go, bringing them up again months later.

These are some telltale behaviors that affect individual performance. But what’s more is they shape the behaviour of entire teams and the culture of whole companies. These behaviours spread, leading to shrinking innovation, limiting qualified succession planning, alienating employees, and creating cultures built on caution instead of courage.

The Cost to Companies

The financial cost of self-editing executives is hard to measure directly, but the indirect consequences are visible. Missed opportunities. Underdeveloped teams. Slow responses to disruption. Poor board dynamics.

Perhaps most pernicious, it creates a precedent. Behaviours shared become copied and seep into decisions across companies, even infecting policy itself.

If leadership is by example, these examples ingrain fear and doubt across organizations. Exactly the opposite of what a company wants or expects they’re actually getting. The issue becomes in the mismatch between expectation and reality: when you hire an executive leader, companies expect them to lead exceptionally. The reality might be that this is just an assumption; under the surface, that executive you believe is leading might actually be pulling the entire organization down. If you’re a founder, in that case you’re undermining yourself at every turn, which keeps the company from growing, if not outright keeping it from succeeding.

What Companies Can Do

Obviously, a company can’t eliminate impostor syndrome. But what can be done is to defuse some of the conditions that help it flourish.

Normalize vulnerability at the top

When senior leaders talk openly about self-doubt, it’s a red flag for most companies. Like something must be wrong with them. That needs to change. Feeling safe in any organization should start at the top. Normalizing common human emotions within leadership signals psychological safety to everyone, and this is an important part of creating a culture of care. More than this, you want your leaders to be self-aware and real, don’t you? You can start small, with ‘fireside chats’, peer coaching forums, or internal panels where seasoned leaders share honest stories of uncertainty and growth.

Invest in executive coaching early and often

One-on-one leadership coaching provides a neutral space for executives to unpack fear, bias, and self-talk without judgment. The ROI of coaching can be especially high during role transitions.

Build peer networks to break down walls

Structured cohorts where executives meet quarterly for guided discussions or offer curated memberships in cross-industry leadership networks, is a great idea for leaders and for companies. When people realize their fears are common, they begin to drop the mask and get real about work and life. This has the effect of creating positivity and flow within companies, reducing isolation and more team bonding.

If doubt and fear fester in darkness, bringing them into the light is like a disinfectant.

Rethink how you measure performance

Human behaviour says executives under pressure to prove their worth are more likely to take safer bets. Balancing hard KPIs with qualitative inputs like team growth, collaboration, and culture-building can be better ways to measure success and encourage positive attribution. It will make leaders feel less like they are operating in isolation and more like they are leading and nurturing teams, which is part of exactly what companies want.

Over-indexing on short-term metrics almost guarantees long-term insecurity and the disintegration of culture.

Make leadership development continuous

Don’t treat executive education like a finish line or a once a quarter thing. Offer evergreen leadership learning to keep growth alive. Executives who see themselves as learners on a path and not as finished products are less likely to fear being “found out.”

What Executives Can Do

The great news is twofold: First, you aren’t alone, the majority of people feel the same way; second, impostor syndrome is manageable.

Name it

Self-awareness is the first move. Recognize impostor thoughts for what they are: survival brain responses to (past) perceived risk. Don’t confuse them with facts. They aren’t facts. Pushing out negative thinking can be done through meditation, coaching, and therapy. The basic ideas are to replace a negative thought with a positive one. The end goal is to retrain your brain.

Track your impact, not just your output

Changing your mind is about changing how you speak to yourself. Counter negative self-talk. You aren’t a failure. Look at the people you’ve helped, the teams you’ve built, the problems you’ve solved.

Remind yourself by keeping congratulatory emails, wins, thank-you notes, team feedback, news clippings. Refer to these when doubt creeps in. It helps.

Talk to someone who’s been there

Find a mentor who has led at your level. Not for advice, but for validation. Most executives will say: “I felt that too.”

Even ten minutes of shared vulnerability can rewire negative thinking.

Stop waiting to feel ready

Confidence doesn’t precede action. It follows it. If you’re waiting for the day you feel bulletproof, you’ll wait forever. Just have the courage to lead anyway.

Support for Leaders Is Support for Companies

Those organizations that support their leaders through periods of self-doubt to transform it into self-awareness, will be the real winners. Fostering a culture of care might just be the one thing that’s been missing in the personal and professional lives of your leaders. And it could very well become your competitive advantage.