75% of Executive Women Have Felt Like a Fraud. Here's the SNAP to Use When You Do.

Sep 22

6 min read

Updated: 7 days ago

Executive woman outside a boardroom feeling imposter syndrome after a big win.

Erica Anderson Rooney is an ex-CPO turned executive coach and AI educator on a mission to get more women into positions of power and keep them there. She is the author of The AI Gap (2026), host of the Glass Ceilings & Sticky Floors and AI Voice or Victim podcasts, and NC Chapter Lead for Women Applying AI. Her SNAP and AI Continuum frameworks are taught to thousands of women through CHIEF, WICT, and Fortune 500 leadership programs. She is the sought-after speaker at the intersection of women, AI, and leadership.

You just landed the biggest deal of your career, and the first thought in your head was that they made a mistake giving it to you.

Girl, you are not broken. You are one of the 75% of executive women who has felt exactly that, according to a KPMG survey of 750 high-performing women one or two steps from the C-suite. Eighty-five percent of them believe it is commonly experienced by women in corporate America. Forty-seven percent said their self-doubt comes from never expecting to reach the level of success they reached.

Here is what that looks like on a Tuesday. You rewrite the email three times before you hit send, even though you have sent a hundred like it. You get the promotion and immediately start a mental list of everyone more qualified than you. You prep for the meeting twice as long as anyone else in the room, then sit there convinced you are the only one who has not figured it out yet.

Most of us were taught to treat that feeling as a verdict. Something is wrong with you. Fix it, hide it, push through it, and whatever you do, keep it to yourself.

I want to push back on that today, because the research does not back up the verdict.

I recently had my girl Sara Schulting Kranz on the podcast. Sara spent a year in the aftermath of a betrayal she never saw coming, and she told me about the moment everything shifted for her, standing on a rock outcropping above Sequoia National Park, looking into a valley she had no plan for. She said something that has stayed with me since: what we fear is often our greatest success.

That is exactly why I want to walk you through the SNAP Method today. Most of us treat the fraud feeling like an alarm to shut off. I treat it as a signal, and it is pointing at the place you are about to grow.

Stop: Notice What Your Body Already Knows

Stop is the first move, and it is physical before it is mental.

I found this out the hard way a few weeks ago. My jaw would not release. I kept rubbing it, thinking it was nothing, until I finally asked my AI chief of staff, Claudette, what was going on. She told me the truth before I was ready to hear it. I was running at half capacity and calling it a productive week, switching from laptop to mom mode to dinner to laptop again with no reset in between.

That ache in your jaw, the tightness before a big meeting, the pit in your stomach when your name gets called in a room full of people you assume know more than you. That is data. Before you can Name what you are feeling, you have to Stop long enough to notice you are feeling it at all.

Woman pausing at her desk to notice stress in her body.

Name: Call It What It Is

Once you have stopped, Name the feeling honestly, and then name what the research says about it, because it will surprise you.

A study by MIT Sloan's Basima Tewfik, published in the Academy of Management Journal, found that people who have more frequent workplace impostor thoughts are rated by others as more interpersonally effective. The discomfort turns their attention outward, toward the people around them. And across her studies, that did not come at the expense of their performance.

Separate research from Russell Reynolds Associates found that women leaders are 2.3 times more likely than men to believe they are not equipped to do their manager's job, with 34% of women saying they lack the skills and experience, compared to 15% of men. Women are more likely to call the discomfort of stretching a deficiency. Men are more likely to call it Tuesday.

So name it plainly. You are standing at the edge of your current skill level, which is the only place growth ever happens.

Woman looking at herself in a mirror, naming her imposter feelings.

Ask: Where Is the Real Opportunity?

Ask is where you turn the question around. Swap "what is wrong with me" for "what is this discomfort pointing me toward."

Sara put it simply on the podcast: we all have that moment of "okay, what's next," and a lot of times we turn our back to it because we want a louder sign before we will trust it. The louder sign never comes. You get a jaw that will not relax, a promotion you cannot quite believe, a room you were not sure you belonged in until you were already standing in it.

Ask yourself what the fear is protecting. For most of the women I coach, it is guarding them from being seen, from taking up the space they already earned, from the discomfort of being the most visible person in the room instead of the most careful one.

Woman looking out a window, reflecting on her next career move.

Pivot: Do It Scared Anyway

Pivot is the step that matters most. Take one concrete next move while the fear is still in the room with you.

Send the email without the fourth rewrite. Say yes to the stretch project before you feel ready, because ready shows up after you start. Walk into the next meeting and let the discomfort sit next to you instead of driving.

What I Want You to Take From This

What you do with the feeling is the whole game.

Seventy-five percent of the most accomplished women in corporate America have stood exactly where you are standing right now, certain they were about to be found out, while their results said otherwise. If you feel like a fraud today, you are standing at the edge of the next version of yourself, and she has not caught up to you in your own head yet.

If you want to go deeper, listen to my full conversation with Sara Schulting Kranz. We got into her five-stage framework for walking through change, the three types of people who show up when things get hard, and why women are expected to be the steady ones even while they are falling apart. Listen here.

This is the work we do inside HER Collective. Naming the feeling out loud in a room full of women who have felt it too is the fastest way to Pivot. We saved you a seat.

Women in a leadership circle talking openly about imposter syndrome.

I am cheering you on.

Erica

Frequently Asked Questions

What is the SNAP Method?

SNAP is a four-step framework for moving through hard or uncertain moments: Stop and notice what your body already knows, Name the feeling honestly, Ask where the real opportunity is hiding inside it, and Pivot into one concrete next move. It works for imposter syndrome, career change, or any moment where fear is loud and clarity is quiet.

Why do high-achieving women experience imposter syndrome so often?

A KPMG survey of 750 executive women found 75% had experienced imposter syndrome, and 47% said it came from never expecting to reach their level of success. Research from Russell Reynolds Associates found women leaders are 2.3 times more likely than men to doubt they could step into their manager's role.

Is imposter syndrome always a bad thing?

Research by MIT Sloan's Basima Tewfik, published in the Academy of Management Journal, found that people with more frequent workplace impostor thoughts are rated as more interpersonally effective, because the discomfort shifts their focus toward others. The feeling can be a signal that you are growing. What matters is treating it as information instead of a verdict.