Recently, I looked back over hundreds of exploration calls I’ve had with people considering coaching, to see what patterns emerged in the reasons they approach me.
One thing came through very strongly. Many of the people who contact me are already successful. They are senior leaders, Heads of Service, Directors and experienced professionals. They have built considerable expertise, and in many cases, other people can clearly see what they are capable of.
The difficulty is that they don't always see it themselves.
Confidence, self-doubt and imposter syndrome come up more than anything else. People talk about not feeling good enough despite evidence to the contrary, questioning whether they are ready for the next level, lacking confidence in senior settings or worrying about how others perceive them.
For some, this shows up as reluctance to speak in meetings or challenge more senior colleagues. For others, it is a reluctance to make themselves visible and talk about their achievements. Some have reached a senior position and are questioning whether they really belong there.
I have written before about how the voice in your head can get louder without becoming more accurate. The fact that you feel as though you are not good enough does not mean that you aren't. But when that feeling starts influencing how you behave, it can affect how other people experience you as a leader.
You may hold back when you have something valuable to contribute. You may overprepare because you are worried about getting something wrong. You may minimise your achievements or wait for somebody else to recognise what you have done. You may avoid putting yourself forward for an opportunity until you feel completely ready.
Over time, this can create a gap between what you are capable of and the impact other people see you having.
Being good at what you do will only take you so far
Another strong theme is career progression. Many of the people who approach me aren't trying to become competent at what they do. They already are. They want to progress to Director, Executive Director or other senior leadership positions, and they recognise that what has brought them this far won't necessarily take them to the next level.
As you become more senior, there is less emphasis on your technical expertise and more on your ability to influence, think strategically, communicate with authority, manage complex relationships and lead when you don't necessarily have all the answers.
This can require quite a shift in leadership identity.
I see this with people who have recently been promoted, as well as those preparing for their next move. They know how to do the work, but they are having to think differently about who they need to be as a leader.
That doesn't mean becoming someone else. In fact, trying to adopt a leadership persona that doesn't feel like you can create its own problems.
Coaching can help with that transition by giving you space to examine how you lead, how you are experienced by others and what kind of presence feels both effective and authentic.
The challenge of being visible when you are introverted
Given the work I have done for many years with introverted leaders, visibility is another recurring issue.
I hear from people who know they need to raise their profile but don't want to shout about themselves. They see colleagues who are much more comfortable talking about what they have achieved, contributing spontaneously in meetings or making themselves known to senior decision-makers, and wonder whether they need to behave in the same way to get ahead.
They don't.
But being introverted doesn't mean that you can ignore visibility altogether.
One of the challenges I have seen throughout my work with introverted leaders is the assumption that good work should speak for itself. Unfortunately, organisations don't always work like that. If the people making decisions about opportunities, promotions and succession don't know what you have contributed or what you are capable of, they can't take that into account.
The answer isn't to become more extraverted. It is to find ways of increasing your visibility and influence that work with who you are rather than against it.
Sometimes there is more going on than confidence
It is also important not to treat every confidence issue as though it exists entirely within the individual.
My research into the experiences of introverted women leaders reinforced this for me. Confidence and leadership identity don't develop in isolation from the environments in which we work.
If you have repeatedly been overlooked, excluded or made to feel that you don't quite fit, that has an impact. If you are the only person who looks like you at your level, you may be dealing with an additional layer of scrutiny or questioning whether you belong. If the dominant image of leadership in your organisation looks and sounds very different from you, it can be difficult not to internalise some of those messages.
This is particularly relevant for the Black women and other underrepresented leaders who approach me. Some specifically seek me out because they want to work with someone who understands that developing confidence and influence cannot always be separated from the environment in which they are trying to lead.
There is a difference between lacking confidence because of an inaccurate belief you hold about yourself and having your confidence eroded by repeated experiences of being undervalued. Often, both things can be happening at the same time.
Understanding what is actually going on matters because it changes what you do about it.
What coaching gives you
Looking across all these exploration calls, I don't think the people who approach me are lacking ability. More often, something is preventing their ability from being expressed, recognised or fully believed.
That something might be self-doubt. It might be the way they communicate or make themselves visible. It might be that they need to develop their strategic influence as they move into more senior leadership. It might be the environment they are working in. Or they may have reached a point where they need to work out what they actually want, rather than continuing along a path simply because they have been successful on it.
Coaching provides the space to examine that properly.
My approach draws on coaching psychology, my research and my own leadership experience. It isn't about giving you a list of things to do to become more confident or telling you to fake it until you make it. It is about understanding what is driving what you are experiencing, recognising what may be getting in the way and working out what will enable you to move forward in a way that is right for you.
If you have read this and recognised yourself in it, you may already know that something needs to change.
You don't necessarily need to know what that change is yet.
If you would like to explore whether coaching with me could help you work that out, you can book an exploration call with me here. We will talk about what is happening for you, what you want to be different and whether I am the right coach to support you.
Many introverted leaders don't struggle with knowing what to say. The real challenge often comes when they're questioned, challenged, or unexpectedly placed under the spotlight. I spoke to Oge Okosieme on the podcast about this. Oge introduced the concept of an "authority leak"—those moments when our nervous system takes over, we lose our grounding, and we begin to over-explain, apologise, or pull back from our own expertise.
Drawing on both her own experiences and years of working with senior leaders, Oge explains why these reactions aren't a confidence problem—they're a biological response to perceived threat. Together, we unpack practical ways to recognise your triggers, interrupt unhelpful patterns, and remain calm, clear, and credible when it matters most. Click the link above to listen to it.