Research reveals the vast majority of high achievers question their intellect, skills, or accomplishments; and neither career success, nor reaching the C-suite, fixes it. Cartier’s former global CEO, and organisational behaviour PhD Dr. Lisa Orbe-Austin explain why impostor syndrome is so pervasive.
When Cyrille Vigneron – the former global President and CEO of Cartier – was 22, he was thrust into a leadership role he felt entirely unready for. Overnight, a managerial shakeup and resignation at the French-owned water utility company he was working for in East Africa, forced him to step in to lead a fractured, multinational team of 50 people.
“I thought of myself as an impostor,” Vigneron told an audience of social entrepreneurs this month at the Cartier Women’s Initiative Dialogues in Bangkok, Thailand. “I never thought I would be [a global leader]… I was not meant for it.”
The revelation that an executive operating at the very peak of international business has battled a sense of inadequacy highlights a couple of powerful corporate truths: impostor syndrome impacts those you would last suspect, and reaching the coveted C-suite doesn’t mean the end of it. Rather, if left unchecked, the sense of not being good enough can amplify as you ascend the corporate ladder.
The syndrome is defined by researchers as “a behavioural health phenomenon described as self-doubt of intellect, skills, or accomplishments among high-achieving individuals.”
Internalising success is restricted in people suffering through impostor syndrome, who subsequently “experience pervasive feelings of self-doubt, anxiety, depression, and/or apprehension of being exposed as a fraud in their work,” according to a 2023 academic paper.
To unpack the psychological mechanics behind the impostor syndrome phenomenon, Vigneron was joined on stage in Bangkok by Dr. Lisa Orbé-Austin, a licensed psychologist, executive coach, and author of “Own Your Greatness,” a book on overcoming and triumphing against self-doubt.
Dr. Orbé-Austin provided an explanation of what leaders face when trapped in this cycle:
“It’s a phenomenon which is when someone believes that they are a fraud, they constantly overwork to prove that they fit in, they belong,” Orbe-Austin told the audience at the Dialogues held oat Dusit Thani Bangkok. “They attribute their success to luck or key relationships. They constantly live in this fear of being exposed as not good enough, not smart enough, and as a fraud.”
The data behind the doubt
What Vigneron, who is now Cartier’s Chairman of Culture and Philanthropy, experienced early in his career is far from an anomaly. In an Australian context, this pervasive sense of executive self-doubt is frequently compounded by the local cultural friction of Tall Poppy Syndrome.
Recent data from SEEK reveals that one in three Australian professionals have experienced tall poppy behaviour and cultural pressure to play small in their workplaces. It is a condition that can actively undermine internal corporate culture, ambition and bottom-line results. Data from The Tallest Poppy study reveals that 66 per cent of professionals who face hostility or minimisation for their success go on to develop impostor syndrome.
It is not an experience unique to Australia. New Zealanders have also adopted the tall poppy syndrome. In another individualistic-oriented country, Denmark, the term used is Janteloven. In Japan, a collectivist culture, the saying goes that “a nail that sticks out gets hammered down.”
According to Dr. Orbé-Austin, the resulting impostor syndrome has a consistent global baseline, with empirical data showing that between 70 and 72 per cent of people experience chronic impostor syndrome across their professional careers.
Coping mechanisms vary along gender lines, Orbe-Austin says. Women frequently exhibit counterphobic responses – meaning they will actively push themselves into the very high-stakes environments and corporate challenges they fear, carrying intense internal anxiety along the way.
In contrast, men dealing with these doubts often prioritise ‘mastery’, choosing to remain firmly within their comfort zones and avoiding strategic risks – unless they can guarantee absolute expertise.
When these internal pressures infiltrate the executive level, masking can be used to hide a fear of exposure that can erode an organisation from the top down.
Executives battling these anxieties frequently default to heavy micromanagement, driven by intense fear of how their team’s mistakes will reflect on their personal capability. Hovering over employees is often paired with chronic over-preparation and a relentless drive for flawless perfectionism that exhausts both the executive and their staff.
Leaders who suffer from impostor syndrome often demand that tasks be executed in a rigid, unyielding manner, stifling innovation and blocking employee autonomy.
Unravelling the roots of executive conditioning
To dismantle these patterns, Orbé-Austin emphasises that leaders must first understand where this internal conditioning originates. According to her research, the triggers for executive impostor syndrome are almost always established in childhood, stemming from early family dynamics and structural messaging around success, failure, and mistake-making.
Orbé-Austin identifies three distinct childhood archetypes that frequently grow into adulthood experiencing chronic self-doubt:
“One is the intelligent one, who is thought of as smart, but the minute things get hard, then you believe you were fooling everyone. The second one is the hard-working one – you felt like you weren’t naturally gifted at anything, so you work super, super hard to prove that you are worthy. The third is the survivor – people who had to undergo trauma or neglect, and their achievements allowed them to get out. For them, it’s scary, because if you make a mistake, you could be back in that situation all over again,” says Orbe-Austin.
Recognising which archetype drives a leader’s behaviour is critical because the coping mechanisms that once provided a sense of safety eventually challenge long-term professional fulfilment. Unravelling ingrained philosophies about how to lead and succeed takes significant effort, because those ideas feel like absolute truth rather than just a subjective point of view.
This internal conditioning is not necessarily permanent, however. Orbé-Austin’s research provides a strategy for ‘recovery’ that canreduce impostor syndrome symptoms by 30 per cent. Moving past these deeply ingrained childhood narratives requires a shift in perspective, accepting that growth – or a learning mindset – is an iterative, active process.
Cartier’s Vigneron concluded the session by summing up the mindset shift that helped him progress through impostor syndrome and rise to the very top of the organisation.
“Leadership is a question of going beyond your own self-restrictions. You have to learn by doing. You make mistakes, and then you become.”
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