Fix the Culture, Not the Woman
In 1978, psychologists Pauline Clance and Suzanne Imes coined the term “imposter phenomenon” after studying high-achieving women who, despite overwhelming objective evidence of their success, remained convinced they were frauds. Decades later, the feeling of being “found out” continues to cast a long shadow over women’s professional lives. While self-doubt is a universal human experience, the weight of imposter syndrome falls disproportionately on women. Understanding why requires looking beyond individual psychology and examining the societal frameworks, cultural expectations, and workplace structures that fuel it.
For years, the mainstream self-help narrative has treated imposter syndrome as a personal deficiency, a lack of confidence that women simply need to fix through posture tweaks, positive thinking, or sheer grit. However, framing self-doubt purely as an internal flaw ignores the environment in which that doubt flourishes. When a woman steps into a boardroom and feels out of place, it is rarely an irrational psychological glitch. More often, it is a rational response to an environment where women remain underrepresented, underpaid, and consistently evaluated against double standards.
The roots of imposter feelings in women are continuously nourished by systemic workplace habits and early societal conditioning. It is remarkably difficult to feel an innate sense of belonging when you do not see yourself reflected in senior leadership, as a lack of visible female role models signals that top-tier success is an anomaly rather than an expectation. This is further compounded by the double bind of ambition. Cultural socialisation often encourages girls to be agreeable, modest, and risk-averse, while boys are rewarded for assertiveness. In the corporate world, assertive men are judged as natural leaders, whereas assertive women are frequently labelled as aggressive or difficult, leaving women constantly second-guessing their communication style and authority.
This disparity is equally evident in how professional competence is measured. Research consistently shows that men are often hired and promoted based on potential, while women are evaluated strictly on proven performance. Consequently, women frequently feel they must meet every single requirement of a job criteria before applying, fearing that any knowledge gap will expose them as incompetent. When accomplishments do occur, microaggressions and attribution bias come into play. When male colleagues succeed, their accomplishments are routinely attributed to skill, whereas women’s successes are more readily attributed to external factors such as luck, timing, or team support. Over time, internalising this bias makes it nearly impossible for women to own their achievements.
It is also vital to recognise that this experience is not uniform across the board. For women of colour, neurodivergent women, or those from working-class backgrounds, these pressures amplify significantly. When racial or class biases intersect with gender bias, the signal that you do not belong becomes louder and far more explicit. In these instances, self-doubt is not a delusion, but a direct reflection of genuine exclusion within the organisational culture.
Imposter syndrome in women is far more than a personal crisis of confidence; it is the natural byproduct of navigating systems that were simply not built with them in mind. To meaningfully address it, the focus must shift from attempting to fix individual women to fixing the workplace cultures that generate self-doubt in the first place. Real progress will not come from telling women to lean in harder or quieten their inner critic, but from building inclusive, equitable environments with transparent metrics, objective evaluations, and active sponsorship, ensuring talent is recognised and rewarded without exception.
