By Janet Coin
Seven in 10 women have experienced impostor syndrome at some point in their careers, compared with 58% of men, according to a 2025 Hays survey of more than 8,000 professionals. Even more striking, 47% of women said these feelings had become more frequent as they progressed in their careers.
That statistic tells a story that many successful women will recognise. You can have the qualifications, the experience, the promotion, the successful company and the recognition, yet still wonder whether you genuinely deserve your place. From the outside, you may look confident and accomplished. Internally, however, you may be questioning whether your success came from ability or simply from luck, timing or circumstances.
This is the paradox of impostor syndrome. It does not necessarily affect women because they lack competence. In many cases, it appears precisely among women who have substantial evidence of achievement.
When Success Still Does Not Feel Like Success
The concept of the impostor phenomenon was first identified in 1978 by psychologists Pauline Clance and Suzanne Imes, who studied high-achieving women who privately believed they were intellectual frauds despite considerable evidence of success. More than four decades later, the experience remains widespread.
A 2024 meta-analysis examining 108 studies and more than 42,000 participants found that women consistently reported higher levels of impostor phenomenon than men. The gender difference was small to moderate but statistically consistent, and researchers found no evidence that it had disappeared over the decades.
That is significant because women’s representation in higher education, professional careers and leadership has changed dramatically since the phenomenon was first studied. Yet greater representation has not automatically eliminated the feeling of not belonging.
For some women, every achievement creates another question. Can I do this again? What if I fail next time? What if people realise I am not as capable as they think?
Instead of becoming proof of competence, success can become another test.
Why Can It Intensify as Women Rise?
It seems logical that confidence should increase with experience. But career progression can sometimes have the opposite effect.
A promotion brings greater visibility and responsibility. A senior position means more people depend on your judgement. Becoming an expert can create the expectation that you should always have the answer. Suddenly, the woman who once worried about proving herself at one level is now worried about proving herself at the next.
KPMG’s research involving 750 high-performing executive women found that 75% had experienced impostor syndrome during their careers, while 81% said women put more pressure on themselves not to fail than their male counterparts.
For ambitious women, perfectionism can make this worse. A woman who has built her reputation by being exceptionally prepared may begin to believe that being qualified means being completely prepared. She may spend excessive time preparing for meetings, hesitate to apply for opportunities unless she meets every requirement or interpret one mistake as evidence that she was never good enough.
Meanwhile, someone else may simply take the opportunity.
The Pressure of Being the First or Only
There is another layer to consider: representation.
Being the first woman to lead a department, the first woman in a technical role or the only woman in a senior meeting can be a remarkable achievement. But it can also create additional pressure because there are fewer people who look like you whose careers can serve as a reference point.
This is particularly visible in STEM. A 2025 study of women in STEM graduate programmes found that 97.5% of participants reported at least moderate impostor experiences. The study linked impostorism with poorer mental health, greater burnout and greater consideration of leaving their programmes, although it did not find that impostor feelings predicted academic achievement.
That distinction is important. These women were not necessarily struggling because they were incapable. They were achieving while doubting themselves.
For women from underrepresented groups, the experience can become even more complicated because professional identity intersects with gender, race, culture and social expectations.
When Women Explain Away Their Own Success
One of the most revealing features of impostor syndrome is how easily successful women can minimise their own achievements.
A woman wins a major contract and tells herself that she was lucky. She receives a promotion and assumes the organisation simply needed someone. She publishes important research and focuses on the colleagues who helped her rather than acknowledging her own expertise.
Of course, collaboration matters. No significant achievement happens entirely alone. The problem begins when a woman can recognise everybody else’s contribution but cannot recognise her own.
Impostor syndrome does not necessarily say, “You have achieved nothing.” It says, “Your achievements do not prove that you are capable.”
That is why it can be so difficult to challenge.
Confidence Is Not the Whole Solution
It is tempting to tell women experiencing impostor syndrome to simply believe in themselves. Confidence is important, but that advice overlooks the environments in which women work.
Women need mentors who can guide them, sponsors who will advocate for them and managers who give clear and meaningful feedback. They need workplaces where contributions are recognised and opportunities are distributed fairly.
KPMG found that 47% of surveyed executive women identified having a supportive performance manager as an important factor in reducing impostor feelings, while feeling valued and fairly rewarded was also identified as significant.
This means the responsibility cannot rest entirely on the woman. If highly accomplished women repeatedly question whether they belong, organisations should also examine whether they are creating environments where women can recognise and own their achievements.
What If You Are More Ready Than You Feel?
Perhaps the most useful question is not, “Why don’t I feel confident?” but “What does the evidence say?”
Look at the projects you have delivered, the problems you have solved, the people who trust your judgement, the qualifications you earned and the opportunities you created. Feeling nervous does not erase those facts. Neither does making a mistake.
Being qualified does not mean knowing everything. Leadership does not mean never being uncertain. Intelligence does not require perfection.
Sometimes readiness simply means having enough experience to take the next step and enough humility to keep learning.
Call to Action
If impostor syndrome has been making you hesitate, ask yourself what opportunity you would pursue if you stopped waiting to feel completely ready. Would you apply for the promotion, launch the business, accept the speaking invitation or finally put your expertise forward?
And if you lead or mentor other women, do more than tell them to be confident. Tell them specifically what they are doing well. Recommend them for opportunities. Give them credit publicly. Sometimes another person’s recognition helps us see the ability we have been unable to recognise in ourselves.
Share your experience with info@amazonswatchmagazine.com. Your story may help another woman realise that she is not alone.
Conclusion
Impostor syndrome does not mean a smart woman is unqualified. Sometimes it means she is operating in an environment where the expectations are high, the stakes feel greater and she has not yet learned to fully recognise her own success.
The goal is not to become a woman who never doubts herself. It is to become a woman who can experience doubt without allowing it to make her decisions.
Because the woman asking herself whether she belongs may already have spent years proving that she does.
She does not need permission to take the next seat at the table. She needs to recognise that she has earned it.
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