When Confidence Hasn't Caught Up to Competence

By Cade Murphy · Remergent

Picture a leader who has just stepped into a bigger role. She’s good at her job — the promotion wasn’t a fluke, and the people around her would say so without hesitation. But she doesn’t quite believe it herself. In meetings, she second-guesses input she’d have given without a thought a year ago. She wonders when someone will notice she doesn’t have this fully figured out. On paper, she’s exactly where she should be. In her own head, she’s still catching up to a version of herself the evidence has already outpaced.

That gap — between what someone can actually do and what they believe they can do — is common enough among experienced leaders that psychologists gave it a name decades ago: impostor phenomenon. It isn’t a personality flaw, and it isn’t one single thing. It can involve discounting real achievement, attributing success to luck or effort rather than skill, fearing exposure, or simply struggling to internalize evidence that’s already there — and it’s often shaped by the specifics of a role, a team, or a culture where belonging has to be proven over and over. In leadership transitions, it can show up as a gap between a leader’s internal picture of their capability and the evidence — or the role — they’re trying to absorb.

It’s More Common at the Top Than Most Leaders Assume

Research from Korn Ferry found that 71% of U.S. CEOs report experiencing impostor syndrome in their role. The figure doesn’t tell us why each of those leaders felt that way — but it does challenge an assumption a lot of leaders carry quietly: that seniority and self-assurance are supposed to rise together, and that reaching the next level will finally settle the self-doubt. Often it doesn’t. The visibility increases, the stakes get bigger, and the gap between what a leader has already demonstrated and what they believe about themselves can widen right alongside the responsibility.

This is worth sitting with, because it reframes what the feeling means, and what it doesn’t. The feeling is not reliable evidence that something is wrong with the leader’s capability. It also doesn’t mean there’s nothing left to develop. Both can be true of the same person at the same time.

Why “Fake It Till You Make It” Gets the Mechanism Backwards

The common advice here is to act confident until it becomes real. I’d push back on that. When the evidence shows that a leader is capable of doing the job, acting on that capability is not an act of pretence. It’s doing the job while carrying an outdated internal picture of who’s allowed to do it.

That picture isn’t static, and neither is the capability underneath it. A leader can be genuinely good at their job today and still have real ground to cover before they’re fully equipped for the next one — impostor feelings don’t prove a leader lacks capability, but they also shouldn’t be used to wave off an honest look at what a bigger role still requires. The skills that earned someone their current seat are rarely the same skills the seat now requires. Recognizing that a leader is capable and recognizing that they still have real development ahead of them aren’t competing conclusions. Most promotions involve both.

What the Gap Costs, Beyond How It Feels

It’s tempting to treat this as a private experience with no footprint outside the leader’s own head. It usually doesn’t stay that private. A leader who doesn’t fully trust their established capability may sit on a decision that’s already theirs to make, soften a recommendation that needed to be direct, hold onto work they should be delegating, or under-claim authority that’s already theirs. Carried long enough, what looks like humility can gradually become hesitation — and hesitation at a senior level is something the rest of the organization feels too.

None of this sits entirely inside the leader, either. Unclear expectations, inconsistent sponsorship, exclusion from the right rooms, feedback that isn’t calibrated fairly, or a culture where belonging has to be continually re-earned can all make legitimate capability harder to trust, regardless of how solid that capability actually is.

Naming the Gap Is the First Move, Not the Whole Fix

Naming the pattern can make it easier to examine precisely. “I don’t feel confident” is vague enough to spiral into “maybe I’m not good enough.” “My confidence hasn’t caught up to my competence yet” is specific enough to actually work with.

This is also where a transition into a bigger role deserves particular attention, since that’s often where the gap opens widest — not because the promotion was premature, but because the internal picture hasn’t caught up yet. The work isn’t performance. It’s updating that self-assessment: helping a leader look directly enough at their own evidence to actually take it in.

What does that evidence look like, specifically? Not vague reassurance, but particular things a leader can point to: decisions they’ve made that held up. Responsibilities other people already trust them with, without being asked twice. Strengths that show up consistently across different feedback sources, not just one person’s opinion. Results they habitually credit to luck, timing, or simply working harder than everyone else — worth asking whether that’s really the full explanation. Situations where their judgement turned out to be reliable, even under pressure. Capabilities they use every day without recognizing them as capabilities at all, because repetition has made them invisible.

That’s a different exercise than telling someone to feel more confident. It’s showing them, specifically, where the evidence already exceeds the story they’re still telling themselves, while being honest about where real development is still the right next step.

The aim isn’t to replace doubt with certainty. It’s to judge capability from better evidence, identify what still needs to be developed, and stop treating every unfamiliar demand as proof that a leader doesn’t belong. If you’ve felt this — capable by every external measure, still waiting for someone to notice you’re behind — I’d be glad to talk it through.

Cade Murphy is the founder of Remergent and an ICF Professional Certified Coach. He works with leaders and organizations navigating the gap between demonstrated capability and internal confidence, especially during leadership transitions.

Interested in writing for Remergent? If you have a perspective on leadership, coaching, or assessments worth sharing, I’d love to hear from you. Reach out at inquiry@remergent.ca.