Why is impostor syndrome such a big deal for women leaders?

Why is impostor syndrome such a big deal for women leaders?


Laura Weldy Women's Leadership Coach - Impostor Syndrome for Women Leaders

Why is impostor syndrome such a big deal for women leaders? Probably because it feels like a nearly universal experience.

There are a ton of reasons women seem to be more susceptible to impostor syndrome:

  1. Women are typically socialized to be more accommodating and inclusive than men, which can trigger feelings of being an outsider when in a room of leaders who are more focused on direct communication and progress.

  2. Women are statistically underrepresented in leadership roles, which can create that feeling of “otherness.” In fact, McKinsey’s Women in the Workplace 2021 Report tells us that women are actually less represented in leadership positions than we have been in years – so we have some catching up to do.

  3. Women are questioned more often than men & often criticized for personality traits rather than skill sets or objective performance. For example, a direct communicator that is a woman is more likely to be told they’re “harsh” or “bracing.” Men who communicate directly are typically praised for being efficient and clear.

The good news? Impostor syndrome is fixable! The best place to start is with defining your personal brand. Having a clearly defined personal brand gives you grounding in who you are and creates expectations from others. Without a clear personal brand, you leave yourself more open to these vague critiques. If you’re looking to begin defining your personal brand, start with identifying your personal and professional value sets, your expectations for self and team performance, and the “executive presence” energy you want to bring into every room.

What are your professional values?

What are your professional values?


Generally speaking, we know what our personal values are.

We may not have written them down, but we know that we value things like honesty, safety or communication. Why then, do we rarely ask ourselves what our professional values are? We spend a good portion of our lives working, and knowing our professional values can help us to prioritize, work more effectively, and stay engaged with our work for sustainable career fulfillment. 

What I find with my clients is that it is common for 1-3 of your top five personal and professional values to overlap. This is a positive sign that the role you’re in is a good fit for you. What’s not a great sign is when you feel that those values aren’t actually being honored or fulfilled by your managers, yourself, and your coworkers. This creates the feeling of dissonance, or internal conflict, that leads you to feel unsatisfied with your work. 

If you’re wondering what your professional values can do for you, consider the calendar exercise. I would encourage you to review your google calendar from the past week objectively. If someone that didn’t know you saw what was on your agenda, what would they think you valued? If there isn’t enough on your calendar that represents what you value, consider adding it as a means of prioritizing that work and play first. You’ll immediately start to see shifts in how you spend your time, and how easy it is to stick with the schedule when it’s value driven.

As a side note, if you struggle to connect your daily work to ANY of your values – think creatively.

How do you conduct your relationships with your coworkers? With your boss? What tasks do you prioritize? How do you share feedback? How generous are you with your insights and information?

You’ll start to see themes emerge!



I offer professional coaching for rising women leaders in the corporate world, with a focus on helping them overcome lack of confidence via professional coaching, virtual coaching, invitation only masterminds and powerful online courses. If your goals for the year include confidence in the workplace, let’s talk! I’d love to help you build an action plan for success. Click here to apply for a free coaching consultation with me directly!

What makes women excellent leaders

What makes women excellent leaders


I’ve been shouting from the social media rooftops for years now that women are just as capable as men of being powerful leaders in the workplace. But there’s some research that shows that women may actually be more equipped for modern leadership expectations than men are. 

Modern leadership in the workplace is all about communication, empathy and modelling excellence. It’s a constructive, interactive process that prioritizes employee engagement in order to facilitate results, rather than focusing on results at the expense of employees.

A few facts you may not know:

  • Women are actually rated as more proficient than men in major leadership skills by both men and women – but are promoted far less.

  • Women are socialized from a young age to create harmony in groups and to promote inclusion with their language and behaviors. These skills are invaluable when leading large teams and departments.

  • Women are incredibly social and communicative (this is a generalization, of course – but throughout their lives,  women are rewarded for these behaviors more than men) which I would argue actually makes most women more intentional about their communication approach and skills, as a leader must be.

So if you’re a rising woman leader in the corporate space, I want to encourage you this week to stop focusing on improving your perceived inadequacies as you try to fit in with the men in your company. Instead, focus on playing up your strengths and using those to lead with full confidence that you’re at the forefront of new leadership.

Did this article help you reframe your own leadership abilities? I’d love to know. Email me directly at laura@lauraweldy.com and let me know how you’re seeing new value in your skill set! 



I offer professional coaching for rising women leaders in the corporate world, with a focus on helping them overcome lack of confidence via professional coaching, virtual coaching, invitation only masterminds and powerful online courses. If your goals for the year include confidence in the workplace, let’s talk! I’d love to help you build an action plan for success. Click here to apply for a free coaching consultation with me directly!

Reverse engineering your career

Reverse engineering your career


Your career isn’t something that passively happens to you.

Instead, your career should be a relationship that you’re proactively managing, just as you do the other relationships in your life that help you thrive. My favorite tool to help my leadership clients take control over their career and start creating the milestones they’re wanting is to practice reverse engineering.

I find that thinking about a problem from the same perspective without finding results is frustrating and exhausting. So when it comes to setting career goals, I encourage all my clients to develop a new perspective by  literally thinking in reverse. Here’s how!

  1. Start with the goal. Spend some time clarifying where exactly you want to be in 6 months. What would you like to have accomplished in your role? What kind of feedback do you want in your annual review? How would you like to feel differently at work and at home?

  2. Assign a benchmark that will help you measure your success, beginning with month 5. Ask yourself – in order to achieve x by month 6, what would I need to have completed by month 5? Repeat the process working backwards until you’re at month 1 and know exactly where to start.

  3. The key to making this plan actually happen is consistent check-ins and accountability. Add a 15 minute meeting with yourself every Friday morning to sit down, compare your monthly progress with the planned deliverables for the month, and make any needed adjustments. You’ll likely find that some goals will need to be extended or shortened, or that an alternate approach is needed. But as everyone knows – the first draft is the toughest. Get that 6 month plan down on paper and the tweaking process will feel much more simple.

I spend a portion of each Powerhouse day doing this exact process with my clients. Powerhouse is my one day leadership incubator designed to help rising women leaders create a plan and execute it confidently as they shift into true career leadership. Learn more and apply here!



I offer professional coaching for rising women leaders in the corporate world, with a focus on helping them overcome lack of confidence via professional coaching, virtual coaching, invitation only masterminds and powerful online courses. If your goals for the year include confidence in the workplace, let’s talk! I’d love to help you build an action plan for success. Click here to apply for a free coaching consultation with me directly!

3 assumptions leaders make that hurt their team’s results

3 assumptions leaders make that hurt their team’s results


What does mindset really mean when we talk about leadership?

Mindset sounds like a buzzword that doesn’t mean much – but the truth is that your mindset is everything when you’re leading a team. You can have a great attitude and excellent leadership skills, but without the right mindset, your team and its results are limited.

Mindset isn’t just your perspective but a combination of your perspective, approach and most importantly your expectations.

When one of my clients has a team that’s underperforming, I immediately want to learn more about the mindset of the leader. Specifically, I’m watching for these three assumptions in how they speak about the team’s performance – and that assumption will often point me in the direction of what must change in order to get the results they desire.

  1. Assuming that repeated success is a given. Our team created amazing results last time – so we assume the same will happen with this project. This assumption leads us to cut corners on the systems and processes, under-support our personnel, and overlook analysis that could help us understand why they succeeded last time. Don’t check out just because your team has handled a similar project in the past.

  2. Assuming that the team is motivated by one thing without asking. It’s normal for us to make educated guesses on how to get our team to perform better, based on previous results. That’s what leadership often boils down to! But we must stay present to the fact that everything from personal life to season of the year can impact our team members’ motivations and workload capacity. Asking them how you can support them and keep them motivated will get you further than assumptions.

  3. Assuming that someone specific will underperform. Every team has varying levels of dependability and skill sets. However, I challenge you to not assume that a specific team member or members will underperform. If you expect little, you’ll inevitably receive little in return – and you’ll end up taking on more of the work than you must. Instead, partner with each team member to ensure they have a process for the results you need.

Have you made these assumptions as a leader before? What would happen if you took a different set of assumptions into your next team meeting?



My name is Laura Weldy, and I’m a women’s leadership coach. I help women in the workplace become confident leaders by tackling their mindset head on so they can think like a leader before they have the job title. I do this through professional coaching, virtual coaching, small group masterminds and powerful courses. If you’re looking to become more successful and fulfilled at work, let’s talk! I’d love to help you build an action plan for success. Click here to apply for a free coaching consultation with me directly!