How to Be a Confident Leader and Beat Imposter Syndrome

I’m a professional leadership coach, and I’m revealing the top tips I use to help an unsure client become a more confident leader.

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If you are moving up quickly in your career, you may be wondering what you can do to be a more confident leader.

What Imposter Syndrome Really Means

It’s common to feel unsure of yourself when you have had a recent promotion. It’s even more common if you have had two promotions within a year or so of each other. It may feel like imposter syndrome but often it’s just the normal unease of a new role.

I think of imposter syndrome as something that persists for a while, maybe years. If you aren’t feeling like a confident leader a year after a promotion, then you may be experiencing imposter syndrome.

Fortunately, there’s a lot you can do to become a more confident leader and leave behind your feelings of unease. Confidence comes from within, so to be a more confident leader, you’re going to have to do some self-reflection and be willing to reconsider how you think about yourself.

The truth is, nearly everyone feels a little unsure sometimes, even seasoned leaders. I know a lot of leaders who felt out of their depth when the pandemic first hit. Many leaders felt unsure in the face of extreme challenges like the LA Fires, the Florida hurricanes, economic upheavals, and overwhelming public demonstrations. Frankly, it would have been strange if they didn’t question themselves a bit and do a little soul searching before they decided on the right response.

If you want to be a more confident leader, here are three proven tips for thinking and acting like the kind of leader you might want to be.

Adopt a Stance of Confident Humility

As a leader, the first step to be a more confident leader is to see that humility and confidence are ideal partners. Leaders who lack humility are often perceived as arrogant or aggressive, and it actually damages their effectiveness as a leader. No one wants to work for (or even with) someone who insists they are always right.

To have confident humility, you need to own what you don’t know. The best leaders accept that they don’t always have the answer. They understand that making decisions is a process that includes collaborating, reality checking, gathering information, and balancing competing interests and opinions.

At its very root, confidence comes from a solid sense of self-regard, which is the ability to accept yourself fully—the good, the bad, and everything in between. Accepting what you don’t know helps you shift into learning mode when things are new or unfamiliar. Good leaders are always learning and growing. Admitting what they don’t know helps them be authentic, which in turn generates trust.

If you try to pretend you know more than you do, it’s likely to cause you stress. It may even cause a fight, flight, or freeze response, so you might argue more than you meant to, leave a situation abruptly, or be unable to speak or respond in the moment. We have all seen these responses at the office when a leader gets stressed.

So when you feel your confidence shaking, take a moment to accept the uncertainty, shift into learning and collaboration mode, and maintain a stance of confident humility. For more on this subject, I recommend Adam Grant, Hidden Potential.

Define Your Leadership Values

The second thing to do if you are feeling a lack of confidence is to look inside and define your leadership values. My clients often tell me at the end of an engagement that taking time to define their leadership values with me is the most valuable takeaway they have from six months of coaching. Defining your values helps you know how to act in times of stress and that knowledge helps you become a more confident leader.

Every leader has their own values, and each leader has to find the unique set of values that is authentically theirs. Usually, I do this after a few months of coaching, exploring how to tap into and use their empathy, working on listening to others, helping others feel safe enough to learn, allowing themselves to feel safe enough to learn, discussing the culture on their team, and what they want that culture to be.

Exercise for Defining Your Leadership Values

Try this exercise: think of your most recent stressful moment. What are five values that you would want people to perceive in you at that moment? Here are some of the common values my clients choose:

• Empathy
• Fairness
• Kindness
• Honesty (even when it’s hard)
• Making everyone feel heard
• Consider other people’s feelings before acting (also called self-awareness)
• Own my own mistakes (and expect others to do the same)
• Always collaborate and cross-check when problem solving or making decisions.
• Publicly recognize good work when I see it

Choose no more than five guiding principles for yourself. You might want to choose from this list or from your own sense of how you want to be perceived. Then write them on a sticky note and put them on your desk where you can see them. The next time a stressful situation arises, refer to your values to guide you calmly through. By living your own chosen values, you will naturally develop into a more confident leader, able to respond to others in ways that inspire trust and action.

Managing Peers or Former Peers

It’s not enough to be confident when managing people under you. To be a truly confident leader, you need to consider how to manage up and across the organization with your peers and even those above you.

If you are rising quickly, some of your discomfort may arise from managing former peers. This is a classic challenge that every fast-rising leader needs to navigate.

Here are a few quick tips for managing peers and former peers.

1. Some will accept the changes, some won’t. If you are recently promoted, there is no way you can maintain the same relationships you had with your former peers or former bosses. Accept that and be aware of how things are changing. As a leader, you’ll want to do right by your team (whether they are former peers or not). At the same time, you need to find where to set boundaries, how to work independently, and focus on managing up and making relationships that will serve your new role.
2. Figure out who can work with you in this new role and who can’t. Just as you accept that things will change in your new role, some of your new or former peers will accept the changes as well. And some won’t. For those who don’t, it’s going to be difficult. If you need more guidance, I highly recommend the classic negotiation book: Difficult Conversations. Also, it’s highly advantageous to find a mentor or a coach who can support you in dealing with peers who are challenging you and perhaps, trying to sabotage you.
3. Set boundaries for collaboration. As you move up, your decision making will need to both rely on information from your team below you in the organization chart, and still maintain a higher level of organizational awareness above you and across from you than you formerly did. You will need to balance your collaboration and your independence. Rely on your team for information and set boundaries around your decisions. In the end, you will have to take ownership of the decisions you make, so don’t be overly influenced by others in making them.

Take Time to Build Your Confidence

Like every emotional intelligence skill, confidence is something that takes time to grow and develop. Instead of worrying about your confidence, focus on taking some positive actions. Adopt a stance of confident humility. Define your leadership values. Manage new and former peers by accepting change, assessing team mates, and setting appropriate boundaries. These steps by themselves will help you find your way to being an authentic and confident leader.

Confidence grows gradually. Progress, not perfection, is the goal. If you feel that you are feeling more confident in a few months, keep going!

Next Steps

Want some encouragement to keep building confidence? Here are a few more articles to inspire you.

• Why Self-Regard is the Bedrock of Emotional Stability, Confidence, Trust, and Resilience — Learn more about the root of confidence and how to build a stable foundation.
• How to Appear More Confident and Speak with Authority — Tips for how to build real confidence and increase leadership presence.
• How to Be More Concise and Stop Rambling — Learn to speak like a leader with a few practical tips.

FAQs: Confident Leadership and Imposter Syndrome

How do I know if I have imposter syndrome or just new-role nerves?

If self-doubt lingers for a year or more despite success, it may be imposter syndrome. Short-term unease is a normal part of growth.

What’s “confident humility” in leadership?

It’s the balance of knowing your strengths while openly admitting what you don’t know—leading with authenticity instead of bravado.

How do leadership values help with confidence?

Values act as a compass in stressful moments, guiding you to act consistently and calmly, which builds trust and steadiness.

How can I manage peers after a promotion without losing confidence?

Accept that relationships will change, set boundaries, and focus on fairness and collaboration. Over time, new credibility replaces old dynamics.

How long does it take to become a confident leader?

Confidence grows steadily through practice. Focus on progress—small wins, authentic choices, and values-based leadership build lasting confidence.