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 director at a large enterprise tech company reached out to me. She’d been asked to speak on imposter syndrome and wanted to talk through her ideas 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 that 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 years later.
Intrigued, 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.
Finally, I asked, "How long did it take for you to feel competent and like you belonged in each of those two roles?"
Her answer? "Two years apiece."
I was astounded. What a waste of a talented employee! Imagine if from the get-go, she’d felt safe admitting when she didn’t know something. How much more could she have given her organization if that had been the case?
She’s not an anomaly. As a coach for high achievers, I’ve seen this fear of admitting “I don’t know” in hundreds of clients: I experienced it myself during my academic career and when working in corporate. It’s particularly rampant in tech, which is full of smart people who pride themselves on solving problems without having to ask for help.
Most of us see this years-long gap between beginning a job and feeling competent as a normal trial by fire that any new employee has to go through; we think that if they can’t hack it, they don’t belong. But this attitude comes at a cost to both your people and your organization. People who don’t ask for help learn things the hard way and take longer to get up to speed. They’re also more likely to burn out, which leads to even more loss of talent. Multiply those two years to get up to speed by every new and promoted employee in your organization, and the costs are astronomical.
But what if we can reduce the time it takes for people to feel capable of giving their best work?
To do this, it requires understanding WHY we fear admitting “I don’t know.”
IT’S NOT “IMPOSTER SYNDROME” - IT’S BIOLOGY
We've been calling this fear of not being good enough “imposter syndrome” for decades.
But here's what's actually going on: we’re mammals who are hardwired 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 the director I spoke with wasn’t that her leaders were toxic jerks. It was experiencing a culture where after her initial onboarding, 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 to."
- "I can't tell my director I'm struggling — they'll think I'm not cut out for this."
The bottom line mindset that drives this?
"I shouldn't have to ask for help. I should be able to get it all done."
This mindset of “I can’t tell anyone” is caused by a lack of psychological safety - the feeling that it’s unsafe to admit you don’t have it all together.
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.
However, psychological safety isn’t psychological; it’s biological.
The need to feel belonging is older than our psyche or even our prefrontal cortex. As pack animals, when we 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 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 so you can benefit from their high performance.
The key isn’t to normalize “imposter syndrome.” Telling people, “It’s ok, you’re human” won’t cut it. No one wants to admit to feeling weak or incompetent when we’re trying to prove ourselves. (Hence the hiding for two years!)
The key is telling your people that their fear is biological. When we name it as 200 million years of mammalian evolution working to keep us alive, everyone breathes a sigh of relief. I’ve seen this countless times in my presentations.
For this to work, your people need to hear three things from you:
- Share your experience. The more concrete, the better. "When I became a manager, I spent the first six months overwhelmed, but I didn't feel like I could ask for help."
- Name why it happens. Tell them the fear isn't personal; it's biological. "If you can relate to this, there’s a good reason: it’s our biology. We’re mammals who fear not belonging and getting kicked out of the pack."
- Tell them what to do. If you want them to come to you when they need help, tell them. "Feeling overwhelmed or unsure of yourself because you don’t know everything yet doesn’t mean you can’t do the job; it’s a sign you're in the middle of learning it. Come to me or to one of your team leads when you’re stuck or overwhelmed — that’s what we’re here for.”
Watch what happens when everyone in the room hears this message. 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 not knowing everything.
DO THIS ONGOINGLY
Most organizations 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 pack has your back.
One key to building psychological safety and highly effective teams is weekly meetings where people share wins and challenges. Another is regular offsites. For example, 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, and with large changes such as AI initiatives. Every one of these events creates uncertainty, which reactivates the fear of not belonging. When you, as leaders, acknowledge and normalize this fear in both yourselves and in your teams, you create the psychological AND physiological safety that leads to agility and resilience in the face of change.
WHAT YOUR ORGANIZATION GAINS
When people feel 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.
SOURCES
Google's Project Aristotle (Google)
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Dr. Susie Hansley, Ph.D. is a Keynote Speaker, Stress Resilience Expert, and Master Certified Coach. She works with tech leaders, teams, and organizations to drive performance & engagement using the science of connection.
Susie has spoken at Google, Blue Shield of California, Levi Strauss, and Brown University, as well as working with Duke Health Technology Solutions’ Project Management Team after a reorganization. To connect with her or to discuss opportunities for collaboration, email her at susie@susiehansley.com or connect with her on LinkedIn at https://www.linkedin.com/in/susie-castellanos-hansley/.
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