71% of CEOs Feel Like Frauds — Here's What Neuroscience Says About Why

The Data That Doesn't Make Sense

Here's something that should puzzle you.

In 2024, Korn Ferry surveyed executives across industries about impostor syndrome — that persistent feeling of being a fraud, of not deserving your position, of being about to be 'found out.' The results were counterintuitive:

71% of CEOs reported experiencing impostor syndrome.

65% of senior executives reported the same.

Only 33% of early-career professionals reported it.

Read that again. The more successful you become, the more likely you are to feel like a fraud.

This doesn't fit the standard narrative. If impostor syndrome were simply about lacking experience or credentials, it should decrease as you gain both. But it doesn't. It intensifies.

Why?

Because impostor syndrome isn't about your credentials. It's about the architecture of selfhood itself.

The Self Is a Model, Not a Thing

We tend to think of the 'self' as something fixed. A core. An essence. The 'real you' underneath all the roles and performances.

Neuroscience suggests otherwise.

Philosopher Thomas Metzinger, after decades of consciousness research, concluded that what we call the 'self' is better understood as a model — a dynamic, constantly-updated simulation the brain runs to navigate the social and physical world (Metzinger, 2009). He calls it the 'phenomenal self-model.'

You don't have a self. You run one. It's a process, not a thing. An abstraction your brain generates to coordinate behavior, plan the future, and interact with others.

Neuroscientist Anil Seth takes this further. In his research on consciousness, Seth describes our entire experience of reality — including the experience of being a self — as a kind of 'controlled hallucination.' The brain doesn't passively receive reality. It actively generates a model of it, constrained by sensory data (Seth, 2021).

Your sense of being 'you' is part of that hallucination. A very useful one — but a construction nonetheless.

How the Self-Model Gets Built

If the self is a model, what's it made of? Three main ingredients:

Why Success Makes It Worse

Now we can understand the impostor syndrome data.

When you're early in your career, the gap between your self-model and your role is small. You're junior. You expect to not know things. The model and the reality are aligned.

But as you advance, a gap opens.

Your title says CEO. Your self-model — built from decades of accumulated experiences, many from before you were successful — may still say something different. It may still contain the young professional who didn't know what they were doing. The criticism that stung. The failure that felt defining.

The model updates slowly. The role changes fast. The gap between them is impostor syndrome.

Impostor syndrome isn't evidence that you don't belong. It's evidence that your self-model hasn't caught up with your reality. The model is lagging behind the person.

The Hidden Freedom

Here's where it gets interesting.

If the self were a fixed thing — an essence — you'd be stuck with it. It would be 'who you really are.' Any gap between it and your achievements would be a permanent tension.

But if the self is a model — dynamic, constructed, updatable — then the gap isn't a verdict. It's a lag. And lags can be closed.

Try This: Question the Model

Next time you feel like a fraud — in a meeting, before a presentation, after receiving recognition — try this reframe:

Instead of: 'I'm not really qualified for this.'

Try: 'My self-model hasn't updated to include this yet.'

The first framing treats the feeling as truth. The second treats it as data about a lagging model.

Then ask: What would someone whose model included this achievement think right now? How would they feel? What would they do?

You're not faking it. You're updating.

Going Deeper

Reframing helps. But some self-models are deeply entrenched — built under intense emotion, reinforced over decades. They don't shift easily through thought alone.

At AATAM Studio, we work with these deeper layers — creating conditions where the self-model can actually update, not just be reasoned with. Because understanding that you're a model is the first step. Experiencing the flexibility of that model is another.

Curious? Explore the app.

The Takeaway

The 'self' you're so busy defending and doubting isn't a fixed thing. It's a model — dynamic, constructed, updatable. Impostor syndrome isn't evidence that you don't belong. It's evidence that your model is lagging behind your reality. And models can be revised.

References

Korn Ferry. (2024, June). 71% of U.S. CEOs experience imposter syndrome, new Korn Ferry research finds. Press Release.

Metzinger, T. (2009). The ego tunnel: The science of the mind and the myth of the self. Basic Books. MIT Press

Seth, A. (2021). Being you: A new science of consciousness. Dutton. Publisher Link

Bravata, D. M., et al. (2020). Prevalence, predictors, and treatment of impostor syndrome: A systematic review. Journal of General Internal Medicine, 35(4), 1252–1275. PMC Full Text