Framing self-doubt as “imposter syndrome” hides structural transition friction. Leaders need identity-shift support, not shallow confidence advice.
Liz Pavese
Workplace Psychologist
Workday
Scroll through LinkedIn on any given day, and you’ll see the same well-intentioned advice parroted to emerging leaders and high-performers, especially high-performing women: “It’s time to overcome imposter syndrome.”
It’s time to stop repeating this phrase.
“Imposter syndrome” has become a lazy, patronising corporate diagnosis. It frames standard human self-doubt in a high-stakes, unfamiliar context as an individual psychological defect rather than an environmental or structural failure. When we tell new managers that their struggle is a personal confidence flaw, we miss what C-suites are actually witnessing across their organisations.
It isn’t a confidence problem. It’s a normal psychological response to a new work identity. That transition can actually be made worse by AI that speeds up tasks, freeing up more time for strategy and leadership. Leaders suddenly operate in an even less familiar sense of the value they offer.
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When first-time managers struggle, executive leaders often assume they simply lack personal grit, management skills or self-belief. The standard corporate response? Prescribe management 101 (which is just a bunch of checklists), shallow words of encouragement or a one-off emotional intelligence workshop (helpful, but not the answer).
This approach misses the mark because it confuses technical skills with psychological identity evolution.
Any high-stakes transition naturally shakes confidence; that is evolutionary psychology, not a personality flaw. When underrepresented talent voice doubt, corporate systems too often instruct them on who to be (“be more assertive”) rather than what to improve, turning normal contextual friction into internalised shame.
Furthermore, shifting from an individual “builder” identity to a leader who establishes context and enables results strips away the exact daily deliverables that anchored a high performer’s sense of value before their move to the next rung on the career ladder.
Enter artificial intelligence.
The prevailing enterprise promise is that automating tactical work will automatically free up bandwidth, allowing managers to focus on coaching, strategic thinking and human leadership. While AI certainly saves time, it does not suddenly turn a tactical manager into a human sensemaker.
Without intentional support, managers don’t magically elevate into strategic leaders. Instead, they end up trapped in administrative triage – managing, verifying and formatting AI outputs rather than leading people.
Without intentional support, managers end up trapped in administrative triage.
Treating leadership transitions as a series of administrative tick boxes creates organisational drag. Combined workforce findings highlight several compounding friction points:
The result? New managers feel stranded. They are expected to navigate complex, AI-augmented environments with limited room to practice, fail or adjust.
With internal mobility falling year-over-year across 57% of organisations, managers have fewer opportunities to move laterally or test new skill sets.
Leadership moves require an internal upgrade. When an individual’s operational context changes without an equivalent update to their internal psychology, they pay a heavy tax: Identity Drag.
Identity Drag is the psychological friction leaders experience when their role demands context, vision and human orchestration, yet their self-worth remains tethered to old success metrics like tangible output and immediate task execution.
Organisational psychologist William Bridges emphasised that while change is situational, transition is the internal, psychological reorientation that occurs inside the person. You cannot project-manage an identity shift with a 90-day checklist.
Navigating this requires identifying which of these shifts needs structural support. They are non-linear, and different challenges will surface depending on the role, domain and experience level.
As Herminia Ibarra noted in her research on Possible Selves, stepping into leadership requires letting go of the immediate gratification that comes from solo output. Without structural scaffolding – such as peer coaching and mentoring, explicit developmental expectations, and psychosocial safety – new managers risk achievement numbness (psychological anhedonia). They may hit targets on paper, but feel disconnected, overwhelmed and bogged down in tactical oversight.
Identity Drag is the psychological friction leaders experience when their role demands context, vision and human orchestration, but their self-worth remains tethered to old success metrics.
To close the gap, organisations must move away from transactional onboarding and build environments that support human leadership development.
1. Focus on Role Transition, Not Task Onboarding
2. De-Risk Leadership “Reps” Early
3. Measure Human Leadership, Not Just AI-Augmented Output
About Workday findings: Data are drawn from Workday’s ongoing workforce research, which analyses anonymised, aggregated data from more than 5,000 global enterprise customers representing millions of active workers. Tracking longitudinal data across 2024 through H1 2026, these metrics utilise matched-panel, industry-normalised benchmarks to isolate macro talent trends. They reflect early, directional signals across headcount, retention and recruiting friction, and will continue to evolve as the research expands.
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