Second Guessing
Level 2. Scores 26 to 50. The doubt is present, not in charge, and expensive.
The doubt is present and it is not in charge, but it is expensive. You second guess decisions after you make them, praise gets discounted, and you probably overprepare. The feeling comes and goes; it comes most on the days when you are most visible. Once the benchmark publishes you will see where this sits.
The useful part of a Second Guessing result is the Feeling versus Record gap, because it tells you which kind of second guessing this is. A large positive gap means your record is solid and your doubt is not reading it: you have led a team through something hard, people choose to work with you, and you still assume they do not have the full picture. That doubt is not information.
It is a habit, and habits can be interrupted. A gap near zero means the feeling and the record agree that you are partly proven and partly not, which is simply accurate for anyone in a role they have been in for less than a couple of years. A negative gap means the confidence is running ahead of the record, and the second guessing may be the honest part of you.
Look at your Attribution bar. Second Guessing leaders usually score lowest here: successes go to luck and the team, failures come home. That is the mechanism that keeps the record from ever counting, and it has a plain fix.
The first thing I do is take the label away. Forget imposter syndrome for a moment. The label is not an explanation. It is a place to stop thinking. Then I ask one question: what specifically do you think you cannot do? A skill gap can answer that. It names a task, a report you cannot read, a conversation you have never run. You can train it, and it closes.
The feeling cannot answer it. It says everything, or it says something vague about not being enough. Then I ask how their best friend would describe their strongest trait against the role they are in. Very few people argue with that answer. You will never win the battle in your own head with emotional reasoning.
One thing to do this month. Keep a record. Not a gratitude list; a decisions list. Every decision you made under uncertainty, what you decided, and, when it lands, whether it was right. After a month you will have a document that your Attribution habit cannot argue with. Read it before the next senior meeting instead of overpreparing for it.
This is not a diagnosis. If the doubt is affecting sleep, health or life outside work, the note below comes first.
Next step: the fastest evidence against the feeling is other people's view. The 360 feedback tool gives you the self versus team gap in a week.
Next step
This test is not a clinical instrument and your result is not a diagnosis. It is a score on twelve statements about leading, written by a coach, not a clinician. If the feeling has spread from work into the rest of life, if sleep, appetite or health have changed, or if the last month has held more than doubt, please talk to your doctor or to someone you trust before you read any more of this page.
A coach, a peer group and a page like this one come after that, not instead of it. When I think a client needs a doctor or a therapist first, I tell them so in those words, and we do not start coaching until they have made that call. Coaching starts where there is frustration and a wish to move. Fear, grief and a body that has stopped coping belong with a clinician, and there is nothing weak about going there first.
The other results
- OvershadowedThe doubt is loud and it is running things.
- Finding FootingYou have doubt and a record, and the record mostly wins.
- GroundedThe feeling is quiet and the record is in view.
About this result
This is one of 4 results from the Imposter Syndrome Test for Leaders, a free tool that shows the score without an email. Aggregate figures are at the statistics page once 30 completions have been reached. More free tools are at the tools shelf.