Why We've Got Impostor Syndrome All Wrong

I’ll never forget the moment a newly minted senior executive, a man I’d watched steer his company through a turbulent transition, confessed his secret to me over a coffee. “Every quarter, when we report earnings, I’m convinced this will be the one where they all figure it out,” he said. “The ‘it’ being that I have no idea what I’m doing.”

This wasn't a struggling junior employee; this was a leader at the pinnacle of his career, shouldering the same gnawing doubt we often relegate to the inexperienced. For decades, we've called this "impostor syndrome," treating it as a personal flaw to be fixed. But groundbreaking research reveals we've been thinking about it all wrong—and in correcting our misunderstanding, we find not just relief but unexpected advantage.

When Stephen Curry, the NBA superstar widely considered the greatest shooter in basketball history, confesses to suffering from impostor syndrome, you know the concept has gone mainstream. A cottage industry of self-help books and leadership workshops has sprung up to help people "fix" this problem within themselves. But what if this entire framework is based on a set of misconceptions?

A comprehensive new review in the Academy of Management Annals, co-authored by Sean Martin of the University of Virginia's Darden School of Business, Basima Tewfik of MIT Sloan, and Jeremy Yip of Georgetown, challenges everything we thought we knew. "When we dug into the literature it became incredibly clear, incredibly quickly, that the definition of the term 'impostor syndrome' was all over the place," Martin recalls. "A lot of people who were using the term were not talking about the same thing and were not using it correctly."

The research team identified four fundamental myths that have distorted understanding. And in debunking them, they reveal a more nuanced, practical, and even hopeful perspective.

The Permanence Myth

We often speak of "having" impostor syndrome, as if it's a chronic condition. The research reveals this is ill-founded. "They are thoughts, and you can experience them and then they can go away," Martin says. This insight is liberating: What feels like a permanent identity is actually a temporary mental state. The very language of "syndrome" pathologizes a normal human experience. This is why Tewfik coined a term he contends is more accurate: "workplace impostor thoughts." Those words transform a seemingly fixed identity into a manageable, passing experience.

Consider what happens during a promotion—when, according to Martin, impostor feelings are most apt to intensify. "Promotion situations are ripe for feeling impostor thoughts because the higher and higher you go within an organization, yes, you are demonstrating competence, but more and more people are looking to you for direction." In fact, Martin suggests that if you're moving up and not experiencing some self-doubts, you might actually be overconfident. The thought isn't evidence of failure; it's evidence that you're operating at the edge of your competence.

The Prevalence Myth

The second myth, one deeply embedded in corporate diversity discussions, is that impostor phenomenon is more prevalent among women or people with marginalized identities. While the original 1978 research focused on high-achieving women, the review found the evidence surprisingly mixed across the board. "In my research, I've never found there to be a significant gender difference," Tewfik has noted.

This finding is seismic. It suggests that the trigger isn't primarily gender or identity but context. Martin's unpublished research reveals how modern work environments shape impostor thoughts. He found that for people with frequent impostor thoughts, being in the physical workplace can be intimidating. Remote work offers relief—but at a cost. "I fear that while that's true on the day to day, it might hinder the ability to close the gap and align expectations," Martin notes. If you don't have regular access to colleagues, you never get the corrective feedback that would dispel your false belief that they overestimate you.

The Harmfulness Myth

Perhaps the most liberating myth the review debunks is the assumption that impostor phenomenon is uniformly harmful. Our entire cultural script is written around "overcoming" such feelings because we assume they lead to stress and poor performance. But the data tells a more nuanced story.

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Tewfik's research revealed a stunning counter-narrative: Employees with more frequent workplace impostor thoughts were often seen as more interpersonally effective. The very doubt that makes someone question their competence may drive them to listen more intently, collaborate more genuinely, and seek help more readily. Martin elaborates on this positive dimension: "If you perceive that people expect you to know things that you don't know, the shadow part of that idea is that the other people must think you're pretty great. They think you're good. And that actually is pretty fantastic."

Further, feeling like an impostor connects to a crucial business benefit. "If there's anything that does seem to get in the way of excellent decision-making in organizations, it's overconfidence," Martin observes. By normalizing doubt, a culture that destigmatizes impostor thoughts can actively combat the hubris that leads to catastrophic business errors.

The Pathologizing Myth

The final myth is that we clearly understand how impostor thoughts create negative outcomes. The review found that most studies fail to directly test the psychological mechanisms, and when they do, the results are mixed. The simple cause-and-effect chain we imagine—impostor thoughts lead to shame leads to failure—isn't robustly supported. This opens the door to the positive pathway Tewfik identified, in which the thought leads to proactive relationship-building.

Sean Martin, professor at the University of Virginia’s Darden School of Business, co-authored the new research challenging long-held myths about impostor syndrome.

Source: Photo by Tom Cogill

What are the implications in practice? For managers, they are profound. If employees express impostor thoughts, it's less a sign of personal weakness and more a signal about workplace culture. "If employees say they are experiencing impostor thoughts and are associating the feeling with negativity, that suggests they don't feel safe," Martin notes. The managerial imperative shifts from sending employees for resilience training to auditing the team's psychological safety.

Leaders become the critical antidote. When a leader has the courage to say "I don't know" or to share a recent learning from a failure, they accomplish two things simultaneously. They role-model that it's acceptable to be a work in progress, and they tap into strategic benefits. This creates what Martin sees as the sweet spot inspired by Amy Edmondson's work: a culture of high psychological safety coupled with high accountability.

For the individual grappling with impostor thoughts, the new framework offers immediate relief. "People who are experiencing workplace impostor thoughts should recognize that this is not something that is going to last forever. It can pass," Martin says. "It's also a sign that others think highly of you." This is the ultimate reframe. That gnawing doubt is not proof of your inadequacy; it's evidence that you're in a challenging role where people believe in your capabilities.

The goal isn't to eradicate the thought but to acknowledge it, learn from the interpersonal opportunities it may present, and understand it as a normal response to growth and challenge. The future of work belongs not to those who never doubt themselves but to those who recognize doubt as a temporary companion on the path to mastery—and who build organizations in which such honesty is not just safe but strategic.

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