What Teachers Can Learn from Beating the Impostor Syndrome
Stepping up in a school, taking on a department chair role, leading a curriculum committee, mentoring newer teachers, puts you in front of colleagues in a new way, not just students. The classroom confidence you built over years does not automatically transfer to a staff meeting or a district presentation. Beating the Impostor Syndrome treats that gap as an ordinary feature of taking on more visible responsibility, not a sign you were the wrong choice for the role.
The whole book, compressed
This edition works through 4 core lessons — take them one at a time, not all at once.
What's different for your conditions
Tap whichever ones sound like you. Nothing here is sent or saved — it's just for your own noticing.
0 of 5 selected
The core lessons, applied to you
The meeting has more senior educators in it now
A first curriculum meeting with the principal or superintendent in the room can feel far riskier than a classroom of thirty students ever did. The instinct to defer entirely to more senior voices in that room is strong, especially when a hard question lands and the honest answer is that you need more time.
Deferring on every point to avoid looking unprepared also means your actual judgment, the reason you were asked to lead, never gets heard.
Before a higher-stakes meeting, decide in advance one point you will state plainly, even if it means disagreeing gently with someone more senior in the room.
Naming your part in a program that worked
Teachers who lead a new initiative often credit its success entirely to their team or to the students, which is generous but leaves the actual leadership choices unnamed and unnoticed.
Never naming your own decisions means the skills you are building as a leader stay invisible to the administrators deciding on your next opportunity.
When a program succeeds, write one plain sentence naming a specific choice you made that shaped the outcome, separate from what the team or students contributed.
A mentor outside your own building
Teachers stepping into leadership often have no one nearby who has made the same jump, since most colleagues remain in classroom-only roles. A mentor at another school, in a district office, or in a professional network can fill that particular gap.
Assuming this kind of guidance will simply appear leaves it to chance, and a first year of new responsibility rarely allows for chance.
Identify one educator who has led a similar role and ask for a standing conversation, then offer the same guidance to a newer teacher in turn.
Confidence was never a requirement for good teaching
Veteran educators who now look completely at ease leading a staff meeting rarely started that way. Most spent early years learning the role of leader while still performing it, quietly, without announcing the uncertainty out loud. The actual work of educational leadership, listening carefully, making a fair call with incomplete information, adjusting a plan without shame, does not require doubt to disappear first. Treating steady action as the real marker of readiness reframes what those early years of added responsibility are actually for.
A high-visibility presentation to the school board and a private worry about whether you belong in the department chair role can land in the same week. When that happens, prepare narrowly and specifically for the presentation, then set aside real time afterward to talk the deeper worry through with a trusted mentor. Trying to resolve both at once usually means the presentation prep suffers and the worry still lingers unaddressed.
Name one thing, honestly
- Where does the gap between your classroom confidence and your leadership confidence feel widest right now? - What is one leadership choice this year you have not yet named clearly as your own? - Who has led a similar role before you, and have you actually asked them for guidance?
Good. Now look back at the "Try this" line under whichever lesson feels most connected to what you just wrote, and treat that as this week's actual assignment — not all 4 at once.
The practices from this edition
0 of 3 selected
Run this for seven days
Identify one educator who has led a similar role and ask for a standing conversation, then offer the same guidance to a newer teacher in turn.