Why Your Best People May Be Hiding - And What the Science Says About It

By: Dr. Susie Hansley, PhD | Keynote Speaker, Master Certified Coach & Stress Resilience Expert

A few months ago, a senior manager at a well-known enterprise tech company reached out to me. She was asked to speak on imposter syndrome and wanted to talk through her perspective before she got on stage.

I asked, “When have you experienced imposter syndrome?"

She didn't hesitate. When she first started at her company, she felt like a fraud. There was so much she didn’t know, and no one to help her or tell her it was normal to feel that way. She feared letting her manager know and instead exhausted herself trying to do everything without help. The same thing happened when she got promoted to manager six years later. 

Then I asked: "What made it go away?"

She said it just disappeared over time. It shifted, she said, as she got better at her job - and as she found mentors and peers she could trust to share her challenges. 

I asked her, "How long did it take for you to finally feel competent and like you belonged in each of those two roles?"

Her answer? "Two years apiece."

I was astounded. Two years of a high-performing employee silencing herself and operating below her potential? 

If you can relate to this, there’s a good reason for this: we all fear not belonging. 

And it’s not a psychological issue. It’s biological. 

IT’S NOT “IMPOSTER SYNDROME” - IT’S BIOLOGY 

We've been calling “the fear of not belonging” imposter syndrome for decades. But here's what's actually going on: we’re mammals. And mammals are wired to need a pack to survive.

When we enter a new environment — new job, new role, new team — our nervous system reads it as a potential threat. We don't know yet if this pack will accept us. And until we do, our biology is on high alert, trying to do whatever it takes to belong. 

What people most need in any new situation or job role is what Harvard Professor Amy Edmondson calls psychological safety. It’s the sense that you’re allowed to make mistakes, ask for help, get feedback, and experiment without fear of appearing incompetent or losing your job. 

The problem faced by that manager wasn’t people who were jerks. It was experiencing a culture where everyone gave her things to do with the assumption that she knew how to do them. People didn’t stop to ask questions about how she was doing, to check in on her, or to tell her, “If you’re overwhelmed or have questions, ask me.” 

So she had thoughts like this running through her head:

• "Everyone else seems to get it. Why don't I?"
• "I'm working twice as hard just to keep up, but I can’t let them know."
• "I can't tell my manager I'm struggling — they'll think I'm not cut out for this."

Then later, as a newly promoted manager, she found herself thinking, 

• "I have no idea how to manage people. I was just good at the technical stuff."
• "My former peers now report to me and I can’t turn to them for support like I used."
• "I'm supposed to have answers, but I'm figuring this out as I go."

The bottom line mindset that drives this?

"I shouldn't have to ask for help. I should be able to get it all done."

PSYCHOLOGICAL SAFETY ISN’T MENTAL - IT’S BIOLOGICAL

Many people who hear the phrase “psychological safety” think it’s a mental or mindset issue. I certainly did. I used to wonder: do people who are well-adjusted really need “psychological safety”? Maybe they just need therapy? 

However, psychological safety isn’t psychological - it’s biological. The need to feel belonging is older than our psyche or even our prefrontal cortex. When we pack animals feel safe with each other, we secrete different types of neurochemicals than when we feel unsafe. Those connection chemicals allow us to work better together, be more creative, and survive threats. 

Here’s how this translates to you and your employees. When an employee doesn't get explicitly told and shown they can ask questions, admit mistakes, or say "I'm struggling,” their nervous system is triggered. On the outside, they look like they’re handling it. But inside, they’re scared of being found out - and accumulating cortisol as they go.

Psychological safety occurs when leaders and teams send enough consistent signals that it’s safe to share mistakes and ask for support. The more leaders in your organization who acknowledge their own mistakes and respond to others’ challenges in a supportive way, the more your employees’ threat response quiets. In its place, a cascade of connection neurochemicals kicks in: oxytocin, which builds trust; dopamine, which reinforces that connecting with these people is rewarding; and serotonin, which deepens the sense of belonging. 

The result isn’t just people who feel more connected; it’s teams who perform better. Google's Project Aristotle — a two-year study of 180 Google teams examining 250 different factors — found that the single most important predictor of high team performance was psychological safety. The teams that felt safe to make mistakes and communicate them performed better than the ones who didn’t. 

When we understand the biology of connection, it makes perfect sense: people who feel safe are more likely to come up with creative solutions and quickly acknowledge mistakes. All of that leads to more creativity and engagement - which translates to higher performance. 

THE SOLUTION: NORMALIZE OUR BIOLOGY

If you're a leader in a tech organization, here's the good news: you don't have to wait two years for people to feel psychological safety and benefit from their high performance.   

It simply takes naming and normalizing that we all feel scared of not performing well. And it also means explaining that this fear isn’t psychological - it’s biological. Thanks to 200 million years of mammalian evolution, we all feel fear and churn cortisol when we’re trying to prove ourselves in a new environment.

One way to do this is to name the elephant in the room: "Here's what most people in your position are thinking and not saying - and it’s normal.” And tell them "Yes, this was me too." Share your own stories of when you feared not being good enough or thought, “I have to fake it til I make it.” 

Watch what happens when someone in the room nods and says "that's exactly it." The relief is immediate. The message lands: I'm not broken. This is normal. And they won't kick me out of the pack for saying so.

But don’t just do it once. Do it ongoingly.

Here's the part most organizations miss: they have the onboarding conversation once, check the box, and move on. But our nervous system doesn't work that way. Trust isn't built in a single conversation — it's built through consistent signals, over time, that your leaders and team still have your back. One key to highly effective teams are weekly meetings where people share wins and challenges. Another is regular offsites. Atlassian has found that doing offsites every four months measurably keeps their teams connected and engaged.

It also means doing this at the moments of greatest transition: when someone gets promoted, when teams are restructured, when a new leader comes in. Every one of those transitions reactivates the same biological question — "do I still belong here?" — and every one of them is an opportunity to answer it explicitly rather than leaving people to figure it out alone.

WHAT YOUR ORGANIZATION GAINS

When people feel physiologically safe to say what's actually happening, they ramp up faster. They ask better questions sooner. They bring their real ideas to the table instead of waiting until they're sure enough to speak. They stay. And they bring up everyone's performance.

You stop losing two years of potential. And you stop losing people who quietly decided the pack wasn't safe — right before they update their LinkedIn profile.

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Dr. Susie Hansley, Ph.D. is a Keynote Speaker, Master Certified Coach, and Stress Resilience Expert. She helps tech leaders, teams, and organizations drive performance & engagement using the science of connection.  

In addition to being a TEDx speaker, Susie has spoken at Google, Blue Shield of California, Levi Strauss, and Brown University, as well as helping the Duke Health Technology Solutions’ Project Management Team build connection and trust after a restructuring. 

If this post resonates for you or your organization, Susie would love to hear from you. Visit her website at www.susiehansley.com or email her at susie@susiehansley.com 

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