Do you think you have imposter syndrome?
Do you think you have imposter syndrome?
Congratulations. You’re not that special. So does the majority of the adult population.
This might sound blunt, but it’s meant to be reassuring.
Imposter syndrome isn’t rare, unusual, or a sign that something is wrong with you. It’s common enough that when someone insists they have it and assumes they must be part of a tiny minority, they’re already misunderstanding what’s happening.
Depending on how it’s measured, studies consistently show that a majority of adults experience imposter syndrome at some point in their lives, often hovering somewhere between sixty and eighty percent. Among people in high-responsibility, knowledge-intensive roles, the numbers tend to climb even higher.
So if you feel like a fraud, like someday you’re going to be “found out,” like everyone else seems more confident, more prepared, more legitimate than you are, you’re not defective. You’re statistically ordinary.
And that’s the whole point.
Who experiences imposter syndrome the most
Imposter syndrome doesn’t show up randomly. It clusters in very specific environments and personality profiles.
It’s far more common among those who carry a lot of responsibility, deal with complex systems, and are expected to make decisions without clear right answers. Specialists, leaders, experts, and people whose work isn’t scripted and whose performance is visible tend to experience it more than others, not less.
The paradox is simple. The more you know, the more you become aware of how much you don’t know.
Beginners often feel confident because they can’t yet see the full landscape. It could be argued that not knowing what you don’t know supports the belief that ignorance is bliss. As understanding deepens, awareness expands faster than certainty, and that gap between what you know and what you can see coming next is where imposter syndrome tends to live, and often fester.
This doesn’t mean something has gone wrong. It means that swallowing the red pill exposes you to a version of reality your ego now has to contend with.
Personality has something to do with it
Certain internal operating systems are particularly susceptible.
People with high standards, a strong sense of responsibility, intellectual honesty, curiosity, and empathy tend to turn their attention inward. Those with some of these qualities, or a cocktail of all of the above, notice nuance and gaps, and they hold themselves accountable even when no one else is watching.
That level of attentiveness turns into self-punishment when awareness is interpreted as inadequacy rather than information.
Why it shows up so often in leadership
Many people assume imposter syndrome should disappear with success. Au contraire mon frère, leadership often amplifies it.
As seniority increases, feedback decreases, and peers disappear. Decisions carry more weight, mistakes have consequences beyond the self, and certainty is expected even when the situation is anything but certain.
Leadership positions remove training wheels and safety nets at the same time. “It’s all on you, kid.” Blaming those below you won’t help, nor is it an option when things go down, and if you’re conscientious and in charge, knowing that carries a certain weight.
It’s no coincidence that a large percentage of people in upper management report imposter feelings during promotions, transitions, and periods of increased visibility. The doubt isn’t usually tied to a lack of confidence, it’s more often a response to complexity and consequence.
The English factor: Uh-oh. The jig is up.
For non-native English speakers with bigger job titles, imposter syndrome often intensifies with meetings, presentations, negotiations, or any context where language becomes public.
In Italy, English is a thorn in most people’s sides because it’s taught poorly in the public school system, and it’s drilled into people’s heads that if they want to get anywhere in their career, they have to perfect it.
Now let’s talk about the people in charge. Many of them work their way up the career ladder with maybe a B2 level, mainly because English was never really necessary, and therefore never practiced consistently. These are often the ones in the greatest panic. They want to keep up appearances, but believe they’re going to be exposed “for what they really are,” at least that’s what their head keeps telling them.
English, in this specific instance, doesn’t create insecurity. It reveals it.
What imposter syndrome really looks like
Imposter syndrome isn’t always obvious. In fact, it often hides behind behaviors that look admirable.
Over-preparing and working longer than necessary. Staying silent until certainty feels absolute. Minimizing one’s own success. Attributing wins to luck, timing, or other people. And perhaps the most glaring manifestation is the intense anxiety that appears before moments of visibility, despite a strong track record.
These behaviors frequently coexist with high performance, which is why imposter syndrome is so easy to miss, both from the outside and from within.
How people hide it
Many people become very good at masking imposter syndrome.
They lean into humor, over-function, and become indispensable. They perfect their professional image by appearing confident, composed, and sometimes even intimidating.
What looks like confidence is often armor.
Most people are far better at fooling others, and especially themselves, than they realize.
Learning, myelin, and scraped knees
There’s a biological piece here that matters.
Learning doesn’t happen through flawless execution. It happens through repetition, correction, and error (sometimes in form of scarped knees). Myelin, the insulation that strengthens neural pathways, grows through doing things imperfectly and then doing them again.
Mistakes are not detours. They are signals.
Avoiding error doesn’t protect competence, it simply slows development.
That uncomfortable feeling of being fake, exposed, or clumsy is often the nervous system in the middle of construction. Skills are still insulating and pathways are still stabilizing.
Discomfort isn’t evidence of failure, it’s an essential part of learning. What this boils down to is that by ripping off the bandaid and actually doing the thing, rather than hiding in a corner worried you’ll be “found out,” you gradually overcome the very weaknesses you’re so hyper-focused on.
Ego, confidence, and resilience
This is where imposter syndrome often gets misunderstood.
Imposter syndrome is not humility. It’s the language of a fragile ego.
Ego exists to protect identity. It fears mistakes because mistakes feel like threats to worth, and when ego runs the show, errors become dangerous and visibility becomes terrifying.
Confidence built on self-compassion works differently. It creates space, space to try, to fail, to recover, and to try again.
Real confidence isn’t believing you’re exceptional. It’s trusting that you can screw up, even badly, and not fall apart.
That ability to recover is resilience, and resilience is what allows growth to continue.
Cultural conditioning: Italy, the U.S., and the missing balance
Culture plays a significant role in how imposter syndrome takes shape.
In Italy, the educational imprint is deeply scholastic. Mistakes are treated as a kind of moral failure, excellence is defined by proximity to perfection, and perfection is never truly reachable, which explains why some teachers never give a 100% grade. Even when you do well, it’s often met with little acknowledgment because you simply did what you were supposed to do, or attention is placed squarely on what’s missing. “No one can possibly reach perfection.”
When mistakes are framed as something to be ashamed of, when effort is never quite enough, and when learning English means sitting behind a desk listening to grammar rules while being discouraged from speaking until you’re “ready,” the perfect storm is created. It’s no wonder much of Italian society experiences English as a massive headache.
In the United States, the conditioning swings in the opposite direction. There is far more permission to try, to speak, and to show up. There was an era where children were handed a medal just for participating, and confidence often came before competence.
This has real advantages. Innovation moves quickly, participation is encouraged, and the barrier to entry is lower, but so is the bar.
The downside is that standards soften, and constructive feedback is often experienced as a personal attack. When identity is closely tied to positivity and self-expression, correction feels threatening. “What do you mean what I did isn’t amazing?”
Other parts of the world emphasize different values, each with their own strengths and pressures. Some prioritize rigor and endurance. Others emphasize psychological safety and consensus. None have culturally mastered the balance between striving for excellence and embracing the courage to make mistakes at scale.
The issue isn’t values. It’s order.
Healthy learning requires permission first and rigor second. Most cultures reverse that sequence or abandon one side entirely.
Why imposter syndrome feels worse now
There’s also a very modern layer to this.
We live in an environment of infinite comparison, surrounded by curated success, filtered beauty, and public achievement without visible process. And let’s not forget those who are always waiting to point out how you’re doing everything wrong. Mistakes are archived, highlighted, shared, and weaponized.
Visibility often arrives before integration.
People are asked to speak and behave with certainty while still learning, to look expert while still becoming, and finger-pointing seems to be all the rage.
Imposter syndrome, in this context, is not a personal flaw. It’s a coherent response to a distorted environment.
What this article is, and isn’t, suggesting
I’m not suggesting you become less precise. Pushing beyond what you think is possible is healthy, it’s how limits expand.
Growth happens when you’re challenged. Think of it like lifting weights, but for your brain.
What matters is understanding that challenge in the round. When effort is seen as part of an ongoing process, you don’t plateau. You move past what once felt like the edge, again and again.
Achievements are temporary markers. They can always be surpassed. Perfection, however, will never arrive, because humans are not built for it, no matter how unwilling we may be to accept that.
The brilliance lies in knowing that you’ve gone as far as you can, for now, and allowing that to be enough without mistaking it for the end.
A closing thought
I’m writing this to say something simple.
What you’re experiencing is extremely normal. It won’t be fixed by becoming more of an expert, and in many cases expertise actually intensifies it, especially when self-image goes unexamined.
Imposter syndrome dissolves through self-acceptance and humility, through the ability to remain in practice without turning every imperfection into a verdict of self-destruction.
There is no arrival point. There is only growth, learning, refinement, and expansion, all the way to the last breath. It might not be a sexy thought, but it’s an honest one.
If you feel like an imposter, even when you’ve genuinely done your best, it may be time to acknowledge that most of us are holding onto distorted beliefs about ourselves. As Shakespeare put it, “All the world’s a stage, and we are merely players.” We’re a bunch of perfectly imperfect people playing at life, so you may as well join the fun.