Imposter Syndrome in a New Role

I've got two clients starting new jobs this month, and both of them, without me asking, have used the word "exposed."

It's September. The shops fill up with pencil cases and lunchboxes, and there's a particular feeling in the air that has nothing to do with school at all.

New team. New building, or new screen full of new faces. New name you're already worried you'll mispronounce back at someone. Somewhere underneath the new job title, a much younger version of you is standing at the edge of a playground, hoping nobody asks a question you can't answer.

The playground never really leaves us

In 2010, newly arrived at PwC as a management consultant, I sat in a client meeting nodding along to a term I didn't fully understand, terrified someone would ask me to explain it. I was 37 years old in a good suit, and I felt about nine.

Imposter syndrome doesn't care how senior you've become. Your nervous system doesn't reliably tell the difference between the exposure of a new classroom and the exposure of a new leadership team. Both say: unfamiliar place, unfamiliar rules, and everyone else seems to already know them.

Nerves come from uncertainty - we don't grow out of that feeling.

Why it hits harder in senior, high-visibility roles

If you've landed a chunky new role, especially in pharma, life sciences, or anywhere with a matrix structure and a quarterly review cycle, there's a common pattern.

You were hired to have the answers. That's rather the point of the seniority. Nobody expects a graduate hire to have it all figured out in week one, but a newly appointed VP or director is supposed to walk in with gravitas fully formed.

I doesn’t though because you're learning the org chart, the politics, and who holds the power that isn't on the org chart, while also being watched for signs you were the right appointment. That's a lot of learning to do with an audience.

What imposter syndrome actually is (and isn't)

It feels like proof you don't belong. It's actually just proof you're stretching.

The two get confused constantly, mostly because the physical sensation, the tight chest, the overprepared notes, the rereading of an email four times before sending, is identical whether you're really out of your depth or simply somewhere new.

One of the leaders I'm working with this month put it better than I could. She said she kept waiting for someone to tell her that she’s in the wrong room.

She hadn't. She'd been appointed on merit, by people who'd seen her work for years. She was absolutely in the right room. It just didn't feel that way yet.

What tends to help

Time helps, but not much on its own. Plenty of senior leaders carry this feeling for a year or more, quietly, because admitting to it feels like confirming it.

What helps faster is saying it out loud to someone who isn't your team, your boss, or your partner. Someone with no stake in whether you look competent this week. A coach, mostly, though a genuinely honest peer can do some of the work too if you don’t have a coach in your corner.

Because the leaders who move through this fastest aren't the ones who never feel exposed. They're the ones who stop treating the feeling as a verdict or judgement, and start seeing it for what it is.

Information.

You're new. That's all it means.

The room you’re in was never wrong. It's just taking you a while to believe it.

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💬 If you're in the early weeks of a new senior role and any of this sounds familiar, particularly if you're in pharma or life sciences, I'm happy to have a conversation. My details are on this site