I am a Chartered Accountant from India and a CPA in Canada. I built a career in finance and corporate, then crossed into coaching.
The first time I introduced myself as an executive coach to a room that expected an accountant, something specific happened. The credentials were real. The experience was real. The results were real. And there was still a part of me waiting for someone to ask: but who gave you permission to be here?
“The credentials had not changed. The story the room told about me had. And my internal operating system had not yet caught up with the edit.”
That is imposter syndrome. Not the absence of evidence. Not the absence of competence. The absence of a settled internal answer to a question no credential can fully resolve on its own.
The thing most posts about imposter syndrome get wrong
Almost everything written about imposter syndrome treats it as a confidence problem — a thinking error corrected with evidence and reframing. That framing misses the most important truth about how it works in senior professionals.
It gets worse with seniority — not better
As seniority increases, three things increase simultaneously: the stakes, the visibility, and the gap between the public performance of certainty and the private experience of doubt.
The higher the position, the more sophisticated the performance required. And the more sophisticated the performance, the wider the gap between who you appear to be and who you privately feel you are.
Many senior professionals are also among the few in their specific combination — operating in environments where the implicit template was not built around their background, identity, or path. The imposter feeling is often the measurable weight of navigating a room that was not designed with you in mind.
What it looks like at senior level
- Over-preparing to justify a position you were legitimately appointed to
- Pre-emptive minimising — editing your contribution before anyone challenges it
- Crediting luck when things go well; owning failure immediately and completely
- Projecting certainty in rooms where you privately feel exposed
“Imposter syndrome at senior level is not the feeling of not belonging. It is the daily discipline of performing belonging so convincingly that even you start to believe the performance is the person.”
Why it is not a confidence problem
Confidence is about believing you can do the task. Most senior professionals have that — they have demonstrated it repeatedly.
What often remains unsettled is the prior question: not can I do this? but am I the kind of person this kind of work is for? That is not a confidence question. It is an identity question — and identity is not updated by more achievement.
In ELI terms, this shows up as Level 2 catabolic energy — conflict, the need to prove. More credentials do not shift that. A different relationship with the self does.
One thing to do differently this week
In your next significant meeting — say the first real thought you have, in the form it arrives, without editing it for palatability before you speak. Once. Notice what happens.
“Your best thinking has been in the room with you every time. The only thing in the way is the story about whether the room deserves to hear it exactly as it arrived.”
Episode 12 of The Kitchen Table Conference — ‘I feel invisible in the room’ — explores the identity work behind executive presence. Clarity call at appikshajain.com.