How Not ‘Belonging’ Exacerbates Imposter Feelings

By Kate Atkin. 

“We escaped!” – an exclamation said in unison by two participants on my recent workshop in Oxford.  

No, they hadn’t escaped from prison, or from a stressful workplace, or from a difficult relationship. But, like those two ladies, I too have escaped from the same place: Lincolnshire. Now, don’t get me wrong, in many ways I’d move back to the county in a heartbeat, and I did for six years recently. But the remoteness, lack of dual carriageways (there are no motorways in the county) and the fact that the nearest mainline train station was Grantham, meant it took me an hour to get out of the county before I had even started to travel for work.  

So in 2025 I escaped again and moved to a Cambridgeshire village that’s only a mile from a dual carriageway and 10 minutes’ drive to a mainline train station; somewhere I lived 35 years ago. 

A Sense of ‘Otherness’ 

Finding the three of us animatedly chatting about our experiences of growing up in the county was like connecting with kindred spirits. It also validated my own imposter feelings… a farmer’s daughter from rural Lincolnshire, the shy one of three girls, and the one who failed the 11+ exam. What am I doing speaking for a living, with a doctorate to my name, and now a best-selling book, The Imposter Phenomenon (Atkin, 2025) based on my PhD thesis? 

Discovering someone who understands where you come from doesn’t happen to me very often (one of the ladies had even picked strawberries on our farm as a child and I went to primary school with her aunt!). Our conversation highlighted a sense of otherness which we all felt, the sense that you don’t belong where you are now, or where you came from. 

Not ‘Belonging’ and Imposter Feelings 

A sense of otherness or lack of belonging was one of the themes that emerged from my PhD as I researched the imposter phenomenon, coping strategies, and psychological courage (Atkin, 2024). As I listened to participants’ stories of feeling like an imposter, feeling fraudulent, worrying that they’ll be ‘found out’ not to be ‘good enough’ – despite having the external evidence that said they were – they often mentioned a lack of belonging.  

Not belonging can be attributed to ethnicity, gender, sexual orientation for example, but for my participants there was something else at play. Their feelings of not being ‘good enough’ were exacerbated by not having the ‘right’ qualifications, their socio-economic background and societal expectations, concurring with existing research (Badawy et al., 2018; Want and Kleitman, 2006; Sonnak and Towell, 2001). This is illustrated in the following abbreviated interview extracts:  

Ben: “I'm not particularly qualified for the IT industry. I haven't got any formal qualifications.”  

Lisa: “Everybody's talking about what university they went to and what degree they've got and then you're going to have to say, ‘Huh, not me. Just the local comprehensive school!’. 

Tina: “I’m not the sort of person that you would technically find in the finance industry. I’m not trying to say I’m a huge outlier, but I’m a single mum, I live in council house, I’m not a graduate, and I don't fit that mould of what people expect.”  

Fay: “There's a societal expectation at 36 that I should be married and have at least baby number two on the way.” 

A lack of belonging can also be created by the environment (Feenstra et al., 2020). I have had many conversations with individuals who work in prestigious offices or research campuses and feel deeply uncomfortable simply by being in those environments. Here’s Dawn talking about her environmental trigger raising her imposter feelings when she was promoted to a managerial role: 

“I can remember being shown to the most enormous office and someone telling me it's mine, thinking, ‘what the hell am I doing here?’.”  

Can We Create a Sense of Belonging? 

When you feel like an imposter and believe you don’t belong, it is not something that is generally shared with peers. But sharing it can be beneficial as Holly explained:  

“I came across this some years ago, and went ‘Oh my god, thank god there's actually name for it and it's not just me’. It was liberating because I thought, actually if most people feel like that, then I'm not weird.”  

Talking about the imposter phenomenon (it isn’t a syndrome!) can help create a sense of belonging and reduce the imposter feelings (Lane, 2015; Hutchins and Rainbolt, 2017). Mentors, roles models, senior managers and CEOs can also help create a sense of belonging for others, especially if they are willing to share their own experiences (Lanka, Topakas and Patterson, 2020; Detert and Burris, 2007). 

Perceived over-reward and a perceived lack of qualifications also increases imposter feelings (McDowell, Boyd and Bowler, 2007). Reducing this misperception may be aided through more explicit feedback and perhaps clearer reasons being given to successful candidates for promotion. 

Psychological Safety and Belonging 

There has been much written about the concept of psychological safety (Edmondson, 2018), and many organisations now say that they are psychologically safe spaces for people to work. However, telling people they are safe to speak up and will not be judged does not necessarily mean people feel they are safe to do so.  

I believe creating a space for vulnerability in the workplace – such as by sharing our own experiences of feeling out of place – starts at the top and can be modelled at all levels through an organisation, by team members as well as team leaders.  

Conclusion  

So, what can you do to create a sense of belonging for those around you? 

• Speak about your own experiences: Share your own imposer feelings if appropriate, and your career trajectory. 
• Remain non-judgemental: When problems arise, ask about learnings rather than judging failures. 
• Listen: Ask questions and seek to understand. 
• Provide feedback: Offer specific, evidence-based positive feedback to others. 

By doing so, all of us can contribute to creating psychologically safe environments that reduce imposter feelings, rather than heighten them. 

About the Author 

Dr Kate Atkin is an inspirational speaker, training consultant and author. Coming from a farming background in Lincolnshire, Kate currently lives near Cambridge with her husband and rescue springer spaniel. She is the author of The Presentation Workout, The Confident Manager and The Imposter Phenomenon, which is Kate’s third and most personal book, based on her PhD thesis, published by Pearson in June 2025. 

References 

Atkin, K. (2024) How do individuals cope at work in the context of the imposter phenomenon? A thematic analysis study. Anglia Ruskin Research Online (ARRO). 

Atkin, K. (2025) The imposter phenomenon: Pearson Education Limited. 

Badawy, R. L., Gazdag, B. A., Bentley, J. R. & Brouer, R. L. (2018) Are all impostors created equal? Exploring gender differences in the impostor phenomenon-performance link. Personality and Individual Differences, 131, Available at: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.paid.2018.04.044.

Detert, J. R. & Burris, E. R. (2007) Leadership behavior and employee voice: Is the door really open? Academy of management journal, 50(4), pp.869-884. 

Edmondson, A. (2018) The fearless organization: Creating psychological safety in the workplace for learning, innovation, and growth, New Jersey: John Wiley & Sons. 

Feenstra, S., Begeny, C. T., Ryan, M. K., Rink, F. A., Stoker, J. I. & Jordan, J. (2020) Contextualizing the impostor "syndrome". Frontiers in Psychology, 11, Article: 575024. 

Hutchins, H. M. & Rainbolt, H. (2017) What triggers imposter phenomenon among academic faculty? A critical incident study exploring antecedents, coping, and development opportunities. Human Resource Development International, 20(3), pp.194-214. 

Lane, J. A. (2015) The imposter phenomenon among emerging adults transitioning into professional life: Developing a grounded theory. Adultspan Journal, 14(2), pp.114-128. 

Lanka, E., Topakas, A. & Patterson, M. (2020) Becoming a leader: Catalysts and barriers to leader identity construction. European Journal of Work and Organizational Psychology, 29(3), pp.377-390. 

Mcdowell, W. C., Boyd, N. G. & Bowler, W. M. (2007) Overreward and the impostor phenomenon. Journal of Managerial Issues, 19(1), pp.95-110. 

Sonnak, C. & Towell, T. (2001) The impostor phenomenon in british university students: Relationships between self-esteem, mental health, parental rearing style and socioeconomic status. Personality and Individual Differences, 31(6), pp.863-874. 

Want, J. & Kleitman, S. (2006) Imposter phenomenon and self-handicapping: Links with parenting styles and self-confidence. Personality and Individual Differences, 40, pp.961–971.