How many times have you worried that your truly inadequate self will finally be exposed? 
 
Why am I getting all this credit when I have just been lucky, or my boss or peers have not
picked up on my limits yet? 
 
They are pushing me to apply for this big job but if they only knew they would laugh
at me for even considering it.
 
I wish they wouldn’t keep raising a celebration for my leadership; it is not nearly as
good as they think.
 
Radiohead’s brilliant yet such sad song, Creep  and The Pretenders cover  (which I prefer)  is a great soundtrack for these inner fears.  They hold us back from even better performance and achievements than we have already displayed.  
 
Yet there is good news:  most high performing executives, including CEOs, share these inner fears.  The ones who don’t tend either to be cocksure, having gotten away with braggadocio all their careers, or people who learned to act as if they were all-capable and have just not tripped yet.  It is only the rare, fully rounded leader who can safely set the imposter syndrome aside.
 
How do I know this?  Because I was on a C-level leadership course some years ago, together with a group of top executives.  I was impressed every day by the sheer leadership capabilities of each of my classmates.  Then, near the end of the course when we were all feeling comfortable talking candidly in front of each other, we each unexpectedly experienced a huge revelation: every single one of us confessed to feeling often that we would soon be found out for the imposters we really were.  This was perhaps the most powerful moment in the courser for all of us.  To see and hear each accomplished person confess the inner feeling of ultimately being an imposter was a cathartic experience.  If the feeling was true of each and every one of the people I had come so to admire then my own anxieties were valid.
 
More than this, we came to understand that these feelings should not hold us back from reaching for greater achievement.  On the contrary, the feeling if properly channeled could be a powerful force in spurring us to greater performance.