A few weeks ago, I was coaching someone who had recently stepped into a more senior role.
From the outside, she was doing brilliantly. Calm, capable, respected, measured. The kind of person other people naturally turned to for advice and reassurance.
But during our conversation, she said something interesting:
“The strange thing is, when I look around at everyone else, they all feel like leaders. But I still don’t feel like one.”
A few days later, I found myself having an almost identical conversation with someone else.
Different organisation.
Different personality.
Different role.
And yet they said almost exactly the same thing.
They also believed everyone else looked more capable, more confident and more naturally suited to leadership than they did.
And it got me thinking.
How many people are quietly walking around work assuming everyone else knows what they’re doing – except them?
Because statistically, this simply cannot be true.
Not everyone can be the only insecure person in the room.
And yet so many people genuinely experience work this way.
Which tells us something very important: our experience of work is not shaped purely by reality, it is shaped by patterns.
Patterns that quietly influence how we see ourselves, how we interpret other people, and what we assume everyone else is thinking about us.
And right now, I think those patterns are being triggered more than ever.
Why So Many People Feel Insecure at Work Right Now
Many workplaces are currently full of uncertainty, visibility and quiet comparison.
People are navigating restructures, budget pressures, AI anxiety, changing expectations, hybrid working, reduced feedback, and constant pressure to adapt quickly – often while trying to appear calm, resilient and capable at the same time.
Which means many people are operating with their nervous systems slightly on edge without fully realising it.
And when uncertainty increases, patterns tend to become exposed.
Which explains why the individuals I’m coaching – stepping into bigger roles and surrounded by more uncertainty and visibility – have suddenly found old insecurities resurfacing.
Patterns that were quite happy lying dormant when they felt more junior, more established, more certain and safer.
But leadership often changes the emotional landscape people operate within.
There is more visibility.
More ambiguity.
More judgement.
More responsibility.
More exposure.
And the nervous system notices all of it.
Why Capable People Often Doubt Themselves at Work
One of the most fascinating things about confidence is that insecurity at work often has very little to do with actual capability.
Some of the most self-doubting people I’ve worked with have also been highly intelligent, experienced and respected.
But because they unconsciously interpret situations through patterns like:
- Don’t get it wrong
- Don’t look foolish
- Don’t disappoint people
- You must prove yourself
- Stay quiet
- Be responsible for everything
they experience work very differently internally than they appear externally.
- A delayed email suddenly feels loaded.
- Feedback feels personal.
- Speaking in meetings feels risky.
- Not knowing an answer feels exposing.
- Visibility feels dangerous rather than exciting.
Meanwhile, the people around them often look calm, composed and self-assured, which creates the illusion that everyone else feels more confident than they do.
But appearance and internal experience are very different things.
In reality, many workplaces are full of people privately doubting themselves while publicly performing competence.
A situation which is both exhausting and strangely common.
The Hidden Problem With Leadership and Visibility
I think this becomes even more interesting as people move into leadership roles.
Because leadership often forces people into situations that trigger patterns they have spent years quietly managing underneath the surface.
The need to:
- make decisions publicly
- handle conflict
- speak with authority
- tolerate uncertainty
- influence people
- manage difficult conversations
- be visible
can suddenly expose insecurities people didn’t even realise they still carried.
Which is why some people can look incredibly successful externally while privately feeling like they are constantly about to be ‘found out.’
And because many workplaces reward confidence signals – certainty, decisiveness, visibility, influence – people often learn to perform confidence long before they genuinely feel it.
So entire teams can end up quietly looking at one another thinking:
“Everyone else seems far more confident than me.”
In other words, many workplaces are quietly full of people thinking:
“I hope nobody notices I’m making this up as I go along.”
while all privately carrying some version of the same fear.
Breakthrough Insight
Very often, insecurity at work is not actually revealing the truth about someone’s capability, it is revealing the emotional meaning their nervous system has attached to situations like:
- visibility
- leadership
- judgement
- uncertainty
- authority
- criticism
- comparison
And once those patterns are triggered, people start interpreting everything through them.
- They second-guess themselves.
- Compare themselves unfavourably to others.
- Avoid visibility.
- Stay quieter than they need to.
- Look for reassurance.
- Assume everyone else is coping better.
Not because those things are objectively true, but because patterns quietly shape perception.
How The Success Cycle Reinforces Insecurity at Work
This is one of the reasons I became so interested in what I call The Success Cycle.
Because over the years, I realised that unconscious patterns shape not just how people think, but how they feel, behave and ultimately experience themselves at work.
- The thought creates the feeling.
- The feeling shapes the behaviour.
- And the behaviour then reinforces the original thought.
So someone who quietly thinks:
“I’m not really leadership material”
may hesitate more, speak less confidently, avoid visibility or overanalyse everything they do.
Which then creates outcomes that appear to ‘prove’ the thought true.
Not because the belief was accurate, but because the pattern shaped the behaviour.
And underneath the thought is usually an even deeper pattern shaping it in the first place – which is exactly why these cycles can feel so convincing and so difficult to break.
The Good News About Confidence
The good news is that once people understand these patterns, they can begin changing them.
Because confidence is rarely built through becoming perfect, fearless or endlessly successful.
It is usually built through changing the meaning the nervous system attaches to situations.
Once that changes:
- feedback feels less threatening
- visibility feels safer
- leadership feels more natural
- uncertainty feels manageable
- comparison starts losing its power
And people stop unconsciously interpreting every situation through fear, judgement and self-doubt.
Not because work suddenly became easier, but because they stopped carrying old patterns into every interaction.
You Might Also Find These Helpful
If this article resonated with you, it may be because you’ve recognised some of your own patterns in it.
This is exactly the kind of thing I explore through The Confidence Breakthrough Framework – helping people understand and change the hidden patterns shaping confidence, communication, behaviour and visibility at work.
For Individuals
You can explore The Confidence Breakthrough book, cards and online programme here to better understand the patterns shaping your confidence, behaviour and experience at work.
For Organisations
You can find out more here about how I work with organisations, teams and leaders to strengthen confidence, communication, leadership and workplace dynamics through The Breakthrough Framework™.
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