Is Imposter Syndrome Real at the Executive Level? | Neuroleadership Coach for Executives

Sahar Andrade, MB.BCh, Neuroleadership Coach and Forbes Coaches Council member, answers a question she hears privately from nearly every senior executive she coaches. 

Is imposter syndrome real at the executive level? The feeling is real. The interpretation most leaders attach to it is frequently wrong. 

What gets called imposter syndrome is often identity expansion instead, discomfort that signals a leader is operating at the edge of their current capacity, not evidence they do not belong there. 

This episode breaks down why the pattern intensifies with seniority instead of fading, and what to do with it when it shows up.

In this Forbes article-like edition, Sahar breaks down the difference between imposter syndrome as most leaders describe it and identity expansion as the neuroscience actually supports it. She unpacks why the discomfort intensifies with seniority rather than fading, why the nervous system cannot cleanly distinguish “dangerous” from “unfamiliar,” and the Pushback Beat every high-achieving leader is quietly thinking. Not sure where you stand? 

Thirty minutes. No pitch. Just clarity, Click here 

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Is imposter syndrome real at the executive level? 

Why does this pattern intensify with seniority instead of fading? 

What is identity expansion in leadership? 

Does this discomfort ever fully go away? 

Should leaders hide this discomfort from their teams? 

Transcript

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SPEAKER_00 0:12

Is imposter syndrome real at the executive level? Ask that question privately to almost any senior leader, and you will get a longer pause than you expect before the answer. This is Shar Andradi, and Euro Leadership Coach and Forbes Coach Council member. And here I'm answering a question I hear privately from nearly every senior executive I coach. Is imposter syndrome real at the executive level? The feeling is real, the interpretation most leaders attach to it is frequently wrong. What gets called imposter syndrome is often identity expansion instead of discomfort that signal a leader is operating at the edge of their current capacity. So this episode, this is AI Cafe Conversations, and this episode is a little bit different. This is our Friday Forbes article-like episode. It doesn't have much AI attached to it, but I felt like I really want to share this with you because this is a very recurrent theme that I see happening, especially in the key. So I wanted to share it with you. It is a conversation. This is a conversation that I actually have more than almost any other in executive coaching. A leader, usually someone with a genuinely impressive track record, sits across from me and says some version of the same sentence. I keep waiting to feel like I have earned this, and I never do. Every single time. So let's be precise about what imposter syndrome, as most people describe it, actually claims. It carries a verdict inside it. Like I don't belong here. I'm fooling everyone in this room, or I'm a fraud. They will find out that I don't know what I'm doing. It's basically waiting for the other shoe to drop. That framing treats discomfort itself as proof of fraudulence. Feeling comfortable, therefore, you must not deserve the seat. Identity expansion describes the exact same physical sensation completely differently. The discomfort is not proof that you don't belong, it's a signal the world has grown past the identity you built to fill the last one. Most leaders who advance quickly skip an entire step. Other leaders get more time to complete. Their sense of self does not catch up to their new title before the next demand plans. And that gap gets felt in the body long before it's ever understood in the mind. And by the way, I said there is not much AI today, but AI is actually making this worse. Because now, when we use AI or leaders or executives use AI and it gives them a decision or a way of thinking, all of a sudden it's like, how didn't I think about that? Do I really know what I'm doing? Is AI has a better thinking than I am? Is that because I don't know what I'm doing? Again, it's a loop that keeps coming back. Okay. But here is why it matters to really look at this. It's not just semantic. Leaders are trained across their entire career to read discomfort as data that something is wrong. In most life, that instant generally serves you. Discomfort tells you to check the numbers again, to slow down before the merger, to double-check the rule before you sit, to double-check the decision AI give you. It's a useful alarm system most of the time. At the exact edge of expended capacity, that same alarm system expires. The nervous system does not clearly distinguish between this is dangerous and this is simply unfamiliar. Remember that. Both register the same way in the body, both produce the same activation. So a leader stepping into a generally bigger role reads the unfamiliar sensation through the danger lens. Because that's the only lens their training gives them and concludes they must not belong. I want to name something most content of this topic misses entirely. The pattern does not fade with seniority. For many leaders, it actually intensifies. Every promotion resets the exact same gap between the new role and the identity that fit the last one. A leader who reaches the C-suite has usually outgrown five or six earlier versions of themselves along the way. And every single transition reopened the same discomfort at higher and higher stakes each time. That is why senior leaders privately carry more of this pattern than junior ones do, not less. Even though every leadership narrative around them assumes the opposite. Nobody tells the story of the CEO who still quietly feels this every single week. So what actually changes when a leader gets the diet, gets this right, gets the whole idea about what imposter syndrome is and what it does to their pressure system. Naming this accurately changes what happens next, immediately and practically. A leader who believes the discomfort proves fraudulence has exactly three moves available to them. And all three make things worse: hide it, overcompensate for it, or quietly disengage from a role they have already earned. One small retreat at a time, without ever naming one. A leader who instead recognizes the same discomfort as expansion has a completely different set of moves available. They can stay present inside the discomfort because it's no longer functioning as a verdict of their worth. It's functioning as information the same way muscle soreness after a generally hard workout is information not injury. You do not stop training because your legs are sore. You recognize the soreness as evidence of the training worked. This is exactly where my brain framework begins for every leader I coach through a transition like this. Regulation first. Before the identity work, before the confidence build, most programs jump straight to. A leader trying to build confidence on top of an unregulated nervous system is building on set. Regulate the activation first. Then the discomfort can be correctly read as data instead of danger. I can hear some of you thinking something like this right now. This sounds like a clever refrain, but it does not change the fact that I generally do not know what I'm doing half the time in this role. Here is the mechanism behind that objection, not just reassurance. Not knowing exactly what you're doing is not evidence you don't belong in the role. It's the accurate, honest description of operating at a generally new level of complexity for the first time. Every single executive above you experienced the identical sensation at their equivalent transition. And the ones who stay in the roles are not the ones who stopped feeling it. They are the ones who correctly read the feeling as the entry fee for growth, instead as a verdict for their competence. The discomfort was never optional. Only the interpretation of it was. Not sure where you actually stand. 30 minutes, no pitch, just clarity. Link is in the description below. A free call, a clarity call. I am someone with a medical background and degree who became a new leadership coach. And I have sat with this exact feeling at more transitions in my own life than I usually admit publicly. Leadership doesn't fail, nervous systems do, and neither does yours. At the exact moment, it feels the most uncertain. This is the end of our episode today. Before I go, I always say, show me some love. Rate, comment, subscribe, share this episode with someone that needs to hear it. If you want to ask me questions, you can email me at Sahar at saharconsulting.com. Thank you for your support and making us from the top 2% global listen to a podcast. The downloads are increasing, and I'm really happy about that. So thank you again for your support. Till we meet again next week. Peace out.