How to Stop Imposter Syndrome from Sabotaging Your Career

Abstract

Many women engineers’ livelihoods are influenced by imposter syndrome. The resulting lack of confidence and feelings of fraud can derail the careers of even the most technically gifted women. The chapter will provide a roadmap for women who want to understand and short circuit imposter syndrome, framed in the authors’ first-hand experiences. A five question-and-answer chapter format will detail how these two women of different generations, races, cultures, and geographic locations overcame imposter syndrome to achieve their version of success. Managers and individuals are often unaware of how imposter syndrome manifests itself in everything, from hiring processes to team meetings to supervisory decisions and roles. Toni Crowe and Stephanie Slocum have embraced the challenge of educating and providing practical, actionable knowledge. By sharing personal experiences to educate, empower, and mentor with real-life workplace examples, they are living proof that the sooner we address imposter syndrome, the sooner women engineers can grow their confidence and competence to become the leaders they deserve to be.

Imposter syndrome is a feeling that you don’t belong and don’t deserve to be here. Many women of notable achievement also have high levels of self-doubt, even when there is substantial evidence to the contrary … What we call imposter syndrome often reflects the reality of an environment that tells marginalized groups that we shouldn’t be confident, that our skills aren’t enough, that we won’t succeed—and when we do, our accomplishments won’t even be attributed to us. Yet imposter syndrome is treated as a personal problem to be overcome, a distortion in processing rather than a realistic reflection of [work environments ] [1].

Overworked, struggling with self-doubt, feeling like you don’t belong at work, and don’t deserve to be here, we’ve been there. A 2020 Women in Technology Report notes that 79% of technical women experience imposter syndrome [2]. Experienced executive-level women aren’t exempt, with a reported 75% struggling with imposter syndrome during their careers [3].

The resulting lack of confidence and feelings of fraud can derail even the most technically gifted women, stalling not just your progress but any progress made on normalizing women leaders in technical fields.

Toni Crowe and Stephanie Slocum connected based on the shared goal of normalizing professional and technical women as leaders at work. These women came from hugely different backgrounds. Stephanie is White, Toni is Black. Toni started in the Chicago projects, while Stephanie experienced a middle-class childhood. They are different generations, with disparate work histories and ethnic backgrounds, yet both have struggled with imposter syndrome. Both are proof that the sooner imposter syndrome is addressed, the sooner engineers lean into their unique professional and personal skills.

This chapter will uncover why and how women in engineering experience imposter syndrome and explore what they can do. You’ll learn through a duo of engineers that statistically should have never met: Two successful engineers turned leaders then authors, who met when writing their books.

What Is Imposter Syndrome, and How Do I Know I Have It?

“Imposter Syndrome” was introduced in 1978 by psychotherapists Pauline Clance and Suzanne Imes [4]. They found women with notable achievements struggled with self-doubt:

Despite outstanding academic and professional accomplishments, women who experience the imposter phenomenon persists in believing that they are really not bright and have fooled anyone who thinks otherwise.

In her book, The Secret Thoughts of Successful Women: Why Capable People Suffer from the Impostor Syndrome and How to Thrive in Spite of It [5], Dr. Valerie Young shares six self-assessment questions to determine if you have imposter syndrome:

• Do you chalk your success up to luck, timing, or computer error?

• Do you believe “If I can do it, anybody can?”

• Do you agonize over minor flaws in your work?

• Are you crushed by constructive criticism taking it as evidence of your ineptness?

• When you succeed, do you secretly know you fooled them again?

• Do you worry that it’s only a matter of time before you are found out?

Clance and Imes noted that environment, combined with a strong motivation to achieve, contributed to an individual’s experience of imposter syndrome.

Imposter syndrome is incorrectly viewed as a “fix the woman” problem instead of a “fix the culture” problem. Individuals view high levels of self-doubt as a self-esteem issue. Managers see a lack of confidence as an inherent trait instead of a trait the work environment is causing. Each woman must figure out how to help herself.

This chapter uses a question-and-answer format with practical advice and exercises you can apply immediately. The questions speak to women engineers at all career levels. We offer a roadmap for anyone who wants to support others in their career success journey, framed in the authors’ first-hand experiences.

Question 1: At What Times in Your Career Have You Experienced Imposter Syndrome and How Did You Overcome It?

Stephanie

I felt imposter syndrome for the first time during an internship interview in college. I sat in the lobby, waiting to be called into the conference room, fidgeting with the hem of my new tan suit I had bought for the occasion. When I heard my name, as I stood my heel caught on the chair leg. I nearly did a faceplant on the floor. Taking a deep breath, I walked into the conference room, attempting to regain my composure. I sat, silently berating myself for my clumsiness, until the interviewer interrupted my self-flagellation with his first question.

Since then, imposter syndrome consistently flares when I’m in new situations or stretching beyond my comfort zone. That is especially true when I am the only woman in the room or feel I have to put on a “tough woman” facade to be respected.

Examples of ways this has shown up for me:

• Looking at my resume as if it were someone else’s → “I can’t believe I’ve done all these things. I’m not this accomplished; it must have been luck.”

• Walking out on the site/plant floor → “I don’t have enough expertise to belong here.”

• Before giving a public presentation → “Who am I to be speaking? There are people out there who have more expertise.”

• Before a networking event → “I don’t belong here, I’m an introvert.”

• Before an interview → “Am I qualified for this position?”

• Before a meeting → “I’ll only speak up if directly asked. No one cares what I have to say.”

Toni

“This is a tough place for a woman. I’ve been put down, pushed aside, knocked out. The truth is I have had to fight my whole life because of who I am, who I love, and where I started. But I didn’t let anything get in my way.” Sharice David spoke these words during her 2018 campaign for Congress. The words resonated with me immediately. She told of her time in the political world, but she might also have been speaking of my time in corporate America [6]. Professional and technical women, particularly in men-dominated fields, don’t have a tranquil relationship with success. My time working in corporate America exacerbated my imposter syndrome.

As an ambitious Black woman, I was triggered quite a bit. It did not matter how difficult the mission, nor how successful the completion—it came back to me. Anyone questioning the success of my work triggered anxiety. One time was when I was the engineering team leader, we were working on a nuclear energy update project. The project involved castings, which are complex metal pouring. From start to finish, a casting takes 30 weeks. My team reduced the time from 30 to 25 weeks.

The day the parts were due (but did not arrive), my boss stormed into my office. The pieces were delayed by 1 day. His face was red; he was breathing hard with his hands clenched into tight fists. I thought he might punch me. The man climbed on my desk. He kicked the phone off the desk, then my paper clips, then my calendar. While he was standing on my desk, I wondered if he knew I was a fraud.

I didn’t allow anyone to see my genuine emotions when experiencing imposter syndrome. What my boss saw was that I appeared calm; I had on my game face. He told me to get my “stuff” together and left my office. Even though my team saved the project with innovative techniques, I spent the next three hours agonizing over my team’s performance. My boss had behaved brutally, but all that I could think of was that I was a fake.

It took a great deal of self-examination to realize nothing was wrong with me. Imposter syndrome had me on the ropes until I could gain control of my emotions.

Exercise 1. The Game Face

Every woman needs a game face. Never let your peers or boss know you are experiencing imposter syndrome. This is the face that I show when I am retreating behind a façade.

I went for “the interested and intelligent look.” Practice every morning. Your goal is to hide chaos or distress as they trigger you. It is not required to be interested and intelligent; you only need to look interested and competent.

Upon your imposter syndrome triggering,

• 1. Immediately put your face into your game face.

• 2. Look intelligent and interested.

• 3. Take one deep breath, breathing from the abdomen.

• 4. Invoke a sentence that captures your desired state. Do not speak it. Mine is four words. “I handle my business.”

• 5. Control runaway emotions by grabbing them in your mind and putting them in a box.

• 6. Casually look the provoker in the eye. Be cool.

• 7. Handle your business.

Steps 1 through 7 should take 10 seconds. The Game Face is a game-changer.

Question 2: What Role Does Confidence and Experience Play in Imposter Syndrome?

Stephanie

Until women in technical roles are normalized, confidence and experience help but do not eliminate imposter syndrome, I experienced imposter syndrome at all levels of my engineering career.

Imposter syndrome has lessened with more experience. The strongest flare-ups occur in the following circumstances: (1) new situations, (2) situations where I am stretching myself/taking a career risk, (3) situations when I am afraid of being judged harshly, and (4) a defensive reaction has been triggered.

I was elected to a board-level position, and was one of only three women. At my first meeting, a new committee proposal focused on justice, equity, diversity, and inclusion (JEDI). I wrote several questions about the proposal as the presentation proceeded. The presentation finished. The Chair of the Board asked if there were questions.

No one spoke. In those 10 seconds of silence (which felt like 10 min to me), I felt tightness begin in my chest and feelings of shame creep into my body. My inner dialogue filled with doubt: “No one else is speaking up. Who are you to ask questions, given it’s your first meeting?”

Recognizing the signs of an imposter syndrome trigger, I took a deep breath, asked myself, “How best can I serve this group at this moment?” and asked my questions. The result? A 10 min discussion about both the committee’s proposal and about advancing JEDI initiatives across the organization. It resulted in an email from the Board Chair afterward saying he appreciated my thoughtful questions.

In my experience and in coaching hundreds of women in engineering, I find new situations like the board trigger imposter syndrome. You get stuck in your head, ruminating over all the things you don’t know. You feel like everyone else knows more. Those doubts and ruminations translate into outward behaviors that make it appear that you aren’t leadership material.

This shows up in so many ways: Projects just don’t go as well for you and you don’t know why. You hesitate to volunteer for an exciting new project, so someone else gets it. You avoid active networking and challenging conversations. You say “yes” to everything instead of the things that matter.

Combined, this creates a self-perpetuating loop of more doubts, more rumination, and more imposter syndrome. It makes you feel terrible, and who wants to stay in a career that makes you doubt everything about your capabilities? Based on the women I have talked to who have exited engineering entirely, low confidence and high imposter syndrome levels are leading indicators she will leave her profession. My anecdotal discussions are not isolated. According to an NSF report, “Stemming the Tide: Why Women Leave Engineering,” “feeling a lack of confidence in their ability” is one of three primary predictors that a woman will leave engineering (the other two: excessive work responsibilities and lack of role clarity) [7].

Confidence is a muscle we can build. Psychologists have studied what it takes to build confidence and have boiled it down to three things: competence, compassion (with self-compassion being primary), and courage (Fig. 1).

Fig. 1

Components of professional role confidence

Experience is only one part of “competence.” We understand what success is when you tie your shoes. (Your shoes are tied.) Do you similarly know at work when you are successful on a project, on a weekly and daily basis? You need feedback to tell you how you are doing, often the missing link between getting experience and feeling confident about that experience.

When expectations are unclear, or there is no (or unfavorable) feedback, you are left to “guess” how you are doing. This leads to doubts, rumination, getting stuck in your head, and imposter syndrome. The solution: Proactively get more feedback. Ask your manager what project success looks like and how it will be measured. Drill those measurements down into your day-to-day work so you know EXACTLY what metrics define your success.

Here’s an example of what one woman I mentor said after having that conversation with her manager:

Having this conversation illuminated so many things and made me more confident. My manager and I are now on the same page, I know what’s expected, and I know where I’m headed.

The second component of confidence is compassion, specifically self-compassion. Imposter syndrome and perfectionist tendencies go hand in hand. When you beat yourself up about mistakes (or you are working with someone who is hypercritical and you internalize that criticism), lack of self-compassion causes low confidence.

Self-compassion is a struggle for myself and every high achiever I know. Short bursts of mindfulness practices built into your day are the best tool to address it. Specifically, 10 min per day of meditation, 10 min of journaling, and a 10 min gratitude practice. I do this right before starting my work, and I “beat myself up” much less since I started this practice.

The last component of confidence is courage. Practically, courage means you default to action. Stop thinking (or planning or researching, as I tend to do!) and MOVE your project forward. Two questions I use that immediately spur me into action when confronted with the feelings associated with imposter syndrome:

• “How do I want to show up in this situation?”

• “How can I best serve the group/project/greater good at this moment?”

Understanding the “why” which triggers your action is essential. Many women—as I do—have more courage when supporting and advocating for others than ourselves. That’s why the second question above works so well in tapping my inner courage.

Toni

Daniel Goldman, an internationally known psychologist and author of New York Times bestseller Emotional Intelligence [8], has identified a group of competencies predicting when a leader will be an outstanding performer. The five competencies are self-awareness, self-regulation, motivation, empathy, and social skill [9]. When these distinguishing traits of leadership are combined, they are called Emotional Quotient (EQ) or Emotional Intelligence (Fig. 2).

Fig. 2

The five components of emotional intelligence at work

Women engineers in technical situations often have not developed the level of EQ (Emotional Intelligence) to protect themselves from the imposter syndrome effects.

A study by the Goleman Company reviewed Star Performers in Fortune 500 companies. They examined the competencies of Emotional Intelligence.

The study found that a star performer’s IQ was not as crucial as they promoted a person through the Leadership Chain. EQ was the leading predictor of their success in becoming a superior performer in meeting objectives.

Unlike IQ, we can teach EQ. There are several training programs where a participant can gain the required knowledge. While increasing your emotional intelligence (EQ) command will not guarantee that they will promote you, the training will facilitate a deeper understanding of what it takes to succeed as a high potential leader.

Question 3: Why Do You Think Imposter Syndrome Is Particularly Acute When Transitioning from Technical to Management Roles? What Can You Do to Combat This?

Toni

The reward for great technical work is promotion into a position where you understand nothing. As a Design Engineer, I did an outstanding job. Because I was excellent at designing, they gave me a small team to manage. Since I had not managed before, I was lost. Sink or swim was not unusual treatment, yet men did not seem to have the same doubts about being a new leader.

I headed to my boss’s office to tell him I no longer wanted the promotion. He had me wait a moment while another supervisor stopped by and said, “I’ll be waiting in the lab with my group for you to help me with the overtime announcement.” The boss said, “No, I’m not coming. Just do it as I showed you.”

It had not occurred to me to ask my manager for help. I asked the boss if he could show me how to manage timecards. My imposter syndrome calmed down. Asking for help was not a weakness, but a normal part of learning (Fig. 3).

Fig. 3

The ingredients of star performances : distinguishing competencies

Star players use their IQ 33% and their EQ 66%. However, once those players took leadership positions, the balance changed. IQ was no longer a significant factor in their success; it was needed only 15% of the time. Instead, EQ was an essential factor 85% [10].

Self-regulation is the ability to control, manage, or disrupt impulses or moods. It encompasses the power to suspend judgment—to think before acting. Self-questioning causes hesitation and procrastination. The knowledge that imposter syndrome is at work will drive behavior change.

An exercise that identifies self-awareness issues is writing the thoughts in your head around an action down. Pay attention to the voices in your head: Capture them on paper. Are they mostly negative?

Take action with these three steps:

• 1. Forgive yourself: Everyone experiences indecision.

• 2. Reexamine goals: Have you set up unattainable actions?

• 3. Find someone to share your fears and hopes.

Stephanie

Toni’s story of the transition from technical to management is very similar to my own. I was promoted to a position with a management title, but no defined change in responsibilities or additional training. This was the norm at the firm where I was working, and it took several years for me to become comfortable in that role.

Looking back, I wish I had purposefully sought mentors, as well as proactively asked for training. For me, this transition created a perfect storm for imposter syndrome. I didn’t have the self-awareness or EQ at the time to recognize the problem, and I considered leaving the field entirely.

It turns out more than half of women who are promoted or transitioning to new roles experience imposter syndrome during that transition [11]. Fear of failure, commonly triggered during those transitions, is correlated with increased incidences of imposter syndrome [12]. To this day, new situations and situations where I am the only woman consistently trigger imposter syndrome, irrelevant to my level of experience on paper.

In addition to practicing self-awareness, you can reduce incidences of imposter syndrome during role transitions by:

• Seeking mentors inside and outside of your company and get extra support at home.

• Asking for clearly defined expectations and success metrics.

• Collecting (measurable) feedback on successes and areas for growth.

In future role transitions, I learned to purposely seek people who had been in those roles before and ask their advice about common mistakes new people made in that role and what the best people in that role did. I also learned to proactively seek mentors and a better support network outside my company to understand my own experiences better.

Question 4: What Are Signs That Imposter Syndrome Is Sabotaging You at Work?

Toni

There are four warning signs that imposter syndrome is sabotaging your career:

• 1. Worry about meeting the expectations of others.

• 2. Apprehension that people will find out you are not all that they make you out to be. You fear that “everyone” will find out you are not as good as they thought.

• 3. Attributing your success to “luck.” The careful preparation for meetings and research, the diligent checking and rechecking of your work, and your team’s work are dismissed. The meticulous preparation means nothing: it is merely “good fortune.”

• 4. Others take credit for your work, including the people that work for you. They don’t worry that you will ever claim the credit for what you have accomplished. They offer your ideas as theirs.

If even one of these situations is part of your work experience, then imposter syndrome is holding you back.

I was the Director of an Aerospace company. Five manufacturing plants were under my team. The CEO invited me to a corporate meeting to discuss closing one of my plants. The month before, I presented a plan to my boss to merge the five plants into four. Employees would transfer, but I would sell the building and land, providing a bump to our profit.

Being a paranoid engineer, I went to the meeting room the day before to check the setup. To my horror, I found another member of the team was presenting my charts. I sat there for quite a while, thinking about how unworthy I must be if my boss had given my presentation to someone else. Every reason that I could think of why I didn’t belong overcame me. Then, I took a few deep breaths and went home early.

That night, I prepared a set of custom emotional responses for myself. I worked hard to ensure that I was ready to deal with whatever happened at the meeting. I would be tough to ignore as the only woman and the only minority in the room.

When it was time for my information to be presented, I acted. After my peer stopped talking, I added additional facts and figures regarding the data not on the prepared charts. After all, I did the research, so I knew the backstory, equipment, and products.

When my peer challenged me, no amount of poking or prodding would get me to blow my stack. Eventually, it was apparent that it was my presentation. If I had allowed my imposter syndrome to remain in charge, that meeting would not have led to my next promotion.

Stephanie

Signs that imposter syndrome is sabotaging your career include a general lack of confidence. This can manifest at work as follows:

• Challenges in speaking up.

• Not going for a promotion or stretch project because you don’t feel 100% qualified.

• Walking into a meeting and immediately looking for a seat far away from the “important people.”

• Brushing off complements.

• Perfectionism: Nothing is ever “good enough.”

• You must have all the answers to be competent in your role.

• You hate asking for help and instead spend hours researching (also known as wasting time when asking someone was much faster!).

• Trouble delegating or micromanaging.

• Overwork and exhaustion.

• Saying yes to everything/not setting boundaries.

The most common of these are the last three. I see overwork and struggling to set boundaries at all experience levels, which results in trouble delegating and significantly contributes to keeping women stalled in middle management instead of advancing to executive levels.

Signs that imposter syndrome is sabotaging you show up daily when simple tasks that aren’t important in the big picture—like writing an email—take much longer than they should. For example, I wrote an email to my boss for help prioritizing my heavy workload. That email should have taken 15 minutes, or better yet a 5-minute conversation. Instead, it took over 2 hours to write. In retrospect, the real reason it took so long was that I was afraid of looking inept. It was a classic case of imposter syndrome.

Question 5: What Steps Can You Take to Prevent Imposter Syndrome or Stop It When It Occurs?

Stephanie

Long-term fixes and in-the-moment fixes can minimize imposter syndrome—in the long term, understanding your purpose at work (i.e., why does your work matter to YOU). Getting comfortable routinely being out of your comfort zone will reduce your incidences of imposter syndrome.

We must work on each of the three components of confidence: competence, compassion, and courage, and understand that this will not happen “naturally”—at least until women in leadership in technical roles are normalized—without practiced attention to it.

In the practical sense, starting can be as simple as asking yourself daily:

• “What did I fail at today?”

• “What did I do well today?”

I ask my three daughters these questions after school and I journal on them daily. Struggling to answer them is a sure sign we’re stuck in our comfort zones AND fueling the self-doubts inherent in our society around what it means to be a girl or woman.

Consistent practice getting out of your comfort zone means that when you do stretch yourself, imposter syndrome is less likely to strike and hurt your career opportunities.

Exercise 2. Take Immediate Steps to Overcome Imposter Syndrome

Steps to overcome imposter syndrome in the moment:

• 1. Make a list of your imposter syndrome triggers.

• 2. Prepare (a reasonable amount) for new situations. Training and role-playing help substantially. Example: Practice asking for feedback.

• 3. Increase your energy level immediately before a potentially imposter-triggering situation:

  • Take a 5-minute break to listen to upbeat songs, take a quick walk, or meditate.

  • Write your intention before going into one of these situations: How do you want to show up? What outcome do you want from this interaction?

  • Try power poses (Google them).

  • Start a brag file of “attagirl”-type messages. Look at that file right before a potentially triggering event.

• 4. Plan what you will do when imposter syndrome is triggered. Practice taking a deep breath, telling yourself, “That’s my imposter talking,” and then asking: “How can I best serve or show up in this situation? What is the outcome I want?” That kicks your brain out of rumination mode (where imposter syndrome thrives) and into a problem-solving mode (where your inner boss lives).

Toni

Take three measures to prevent or stop imposter syndrome when it occurs. I’ve listed them in order of relative importance.

• 1. Stop it. Instead, replace negativity with positive, self-affirming talk. Each time a negative thought seeps into your mind, replace it with an affirmation. The affirmations must be something that means much to you. You must find the affirmations that lift your spirits and place you in a better frame of mine.

• 2. Control your words. “Words are powerful—they bring up images of success or failure and significantly affect how we approach tasks and overcome obstacles and challenges [13].” I can tell you precisely what happened at every misstep I made in my career, detail by painful detail. I cannot describe the many more successes that I had during my career. The hits’ give me a fading sense of pride, but the misses still cause me pain. Analyze your successes and failures. When I started tracking my accomplishments, I found out something I had not recognized: My success was breeding success in others. I also found that, after 10 years, other than money, I had not fully defined what success meant to me.

• 3. Allowing others to trigger your emotions at work is a losing proposition. I invested too much in conflict management with my peers or bosses while I was in the throes of imposter syndrome. There is no success for anyone under those circumstances. When triggered, imposter syndrome is a terrible teammate.

Imposter syndrome works when one person is questioning themselves. To limit that questioning, individuals must know what success looks like for them. Once they define their success, they must visualize and hold success in their minds and hearts.

One of the consistent thoughts that imposter syndrome sufferers have is that everyone cannot be successful. No one needs to fail. Success is not a pie. There is no limit to the amount of success existing in this world. My success does not diminish your accomplishments. Your success does not diminish mine.

Exercise 3. Define Your Definition of Success

• (A) Write what you believe your success looks like for your mind, body, and spirit.

• (B) Examine these musings for perfectionist tendencies, then stop.

• (C) Eliminate the unreasonableness and rewrite with reality in mind.

Now, close your eyes and visualize yourself as your definition of success.

When I performed this technique on myself, I acknowledged that something was missing. I was an up-and-coming executive, making six figures, traveling the world. But when I visualized my life, I saw myself with more personal time. There were interactions in my vision that I was not having with people I loved.

I lived an outdated version of success I had set years ago. This realization caused a profound change in my direction as a high-performing executive. I got out of the fast-track travel position and settled down in a less exciting homebound office position. I became more successful, though it looked like I had stepped off the fast track to outsiders.

I decided what success meant to me and stopped chasing other’s versions of achievement. I encourage technical women, in particular, to make a decision early in their careers of what success means to them. Knowing your definition of success is a major quieting factor to the imposter syndrome voice in your head.

Creating a custom emotional guideline is an excellent way to deal with the changing values of success.

Exercise 4. Create Custom Emotional Guidelines

When you expect an interaction with a person, process, or team that triggers your imposter syndrome, perform the following exercise as close to the exchange as possible. This exercise takes 90 minutes—your definition of success matters in this exercise.

You’ll need a timer, a pencil and paper (or a computer), and a mirror.

• 1. Set the timer for 5 minutes.

• 2. Write every interaction, verbal or nonverbal, that could trigger your emotions.

• 3. Allow your negative thoughts to run wild during the exercise. Write/type as fast as you can. Do not correct errors.

• 4. Stop when the timer rings.

• 5. Reset the timer for 10 min.

• 6. Define a reaction to every interaction you identified. Apply no censure.

• 7. Stop when the timer rings.

• 8. Take a 15-minute break. Do not skip the break!

• 9. Set the timer to 10 min.

• 10. Control your emotions.

• 11. Examine and prioritize the emotional triggers identified based on their overall effect on your work. Apply your definition of success. Repeat steps 11–14 until the actions match your desires.

• 12. Edit your answers into professional interactions.

• 13. Stop when the timer rings.

• 14. Set the timer for 30 minutes.

• 15. Stand in the mirror. Practice your interactions until you are confident you will regulate your responses.

Conclusion

The environmental factors that trigger imposter syndrome are not your fault. However, there are real consequences to your ability to succeed if you cannot overcome imposter syndrome. Missed growth opportunities, lower pay, lower career satisfaction, and a lower likelihood of staying in your industry are just a few.

Imposter syndrome does not need to restrict your success if you have the self-awareness to see it for what it is: A by-product of a work culture that tells you in subtle and not-so-subtle ways that you don’t quite fit. Toni and Stephanie have shared their stories and a set of guidelines for identifying and addressing imposter syndrome. Repeat these exercises as needed when you call into question your competence.

Successful women still have doubts, but they must deal with imposter syndrome. The thing that sets them apart: They take action, anyway. You can choose to make healthy and empowering decisions to move forward, knowing that you are paving the way not just for yourself but for future generations of technical women.

We’ve given you the tools to be your ninja, ready to address imposter syndrome no matter the provocation—the next step: to be recognized as a leader at the top of your field. Now, get it done.