From Task Manager to People Developer

Why Self-Doubt Might Be Your Superpower

"The worst thing you can do with imposter syndrome is to give in to it... The best thing you can do is lean into it—to use that self-doubt as fuel for learning, connection, and growth." ~ Arthur C. Brooks

What You'll Learn

• Why self-doubt signals healthy learning orientation rather than incompetence.

• The fundamental difference between managing tasks and developing people.

• How imposter syndrome can actually improve your leadership effectiveness.

• Specific questions to transform 1-on-1s from status updates to development conversations.

• Why embracing uncertainty creates stronger teams than faking confidence.

You've been leading people for a while now—maybe years, maybe decades. You've developed systems, built teams, delivered results. You know what you're doing.

Yet there are still moments when you feel uncertain. When someone on your team asks a question you don't have an answer for. When you wonder if you handled that conversation right. When you see other leaders who seem more confident, more decisive, more... certain.

And a small voice whispers: Maybe I'm not as good at this as I should be by now.

Here's what most leadership development won't tell you: That self-doubt isn't a sign you're failing. It's a sign you're still growing.

The Identity You Never Fully Resolve

Whether you've been managing people for three months or thirty years, there's a fundamental tension at the heart of leadership: You were likely promoted, at some point, because you were great at doing work. Your job now is to stop doing it and start growing others who can.

That shift—from individual contributor to people developer—isn't a one-time transition you complete in your first year of management. It's an ongoing practice you must choose repeatedly, at every level:

• Every time a crisis hits and you want to jump in and "fix" it yourself

• Every time it feels faster to do the work than to teach someone else

• Every time you're tempted to demonstrate your value through your own output rather than your team's growth

The temptation to retreat into doing never fully goes away. Because doing provides certainty. Developing people requires embracing ambiguity.

And ambiguity triggers self-doubt.

Why Self-Doubt Signals Leadership Potential

Most leaders respond to self-doubt in one of two ways, both of which undermine effectiveness:

Response #1: Hide it and fake confidence. Pretend you have all the answers, make decisions quickly to appear decisive, avoid showing any vulnerability.

Response #2: Retreat to what you know. Stay deep in the work where you feel competent, essentially doing your old job plus managing.

Neither develops people. Neither builds high-performing teams.

Here's the reframe: Self-doubt isn't a bug in your leadership operating system. It's a feature.

Research shows that leaders who experience moderate self-doubt are often more effective than those who are supremely confident. Why? Because that self-doubt signals three things that make great leaders:

1. You're in a learning zone, not a comfort zone. If you felt completely confident, you'd probably be coasting. Self-doubt means you're stretching, which is exactly where growth happens—for you and your team.

2. You haven't confused competence with omniscience. Leaders who think they should have all the answers become bottlenecks. Leaders who know they don't have all the answers involve their teams, ask better questions, and create space for collective problem-solving.

3. You're focused on growth, not validation. Your self-doubt keeps you oriented toward continuous improvement rather than protecting your ego.

Arthur C. Brooks, Harvard professor and organizational behavior researcher, puts it this way:

"The worst thing you can do with imposter syndrome is to give in to it—to let it convince you that you don't belong or can't succeed. The best thing you can do is lean into it—to use that self-doubt as fuel for learning, connection, and growth."

When you lean into self-doubt consciously rather than letting it drive you unconsciously, you become the kind of leader people actually want to work for.

The Real Job: From Managing Tasks to Developing People

Let's get concrete about what this shift looks like in practice.

Managing Tasks looks like:

• "Did you finish the report?"

• "Let me show you how I would do this."

• "Just send it to me and I'll fix it before it goes out."

Developing People looks like:

• "What challenges did you encounter while working on this?"

• "Walk me through your thinking process."

• "What would it look like if you took this to the next level?"

Task management is transactional. People development is transformational.

Task management asks, "What needs to get done?" People development asks, "Who are my people becoming?"

Here's the paradox: In the short term, doing the work yourself is faster than teaching someone else. In the long term, teaching someone else creates leverage that makes you exponentially more effective.

But you can't get to the long-term payoff if you stay stuck in short-term thinking. And short-term thinking is exactly where unconscious self-doubt drives you. When you feel insecure about your value, your brain screams: "Prove your worth by producing visible results NOW!"

The conscious alternative is to recognize that self-doubt and lean into a different question: "How can I add value by developing capabilities rather than doing the work myself?"

The Questions That Change Everything

The shift from task manager to people developer happens most powerfully in your 1-on-1 conversations.

Most 1-on-1s are glorified status updates:

• "How's Project X coming?"

• "Any blockers I need to know about?"

• "What's your priority this week?"

These questions keep you in task-management mode. They check boxes rather than build capability.

Developmental 1-on-1s ask different questions:

• "What's challenging you right now that's pushing you to grow?"

• "What's one skill you're working to develop, and how can I support that?"

• "Where do you feel stuck, and what experiments could we try?"

• "What feedback do you have for me about how I'm supporting your growth?"

These questions shift the conversation from task completion to capability development. They signal that your job isn't to monitor work—it's to grow people.

Modeling Imperfection as Strength

One of the most powerful things you can do as a leader is share your own learning edges—not in a way that undermines confidence, but in a way that normalizes growth.

Instead of: "I've got this all figured out."

Try: "I'm still learning how to balance strategic thinking with staying connected to details. It's an ongoing challenge."

Instead of: "Let me tell you the right way to do this."

Try: "Here's what's worked for me, though I'm sure there are other approaches. What's your instinct?"

Instead of: Hiding when you don't know something.

Try: "That's a great question. I don't know the answer. Let's figure it out together."

This isn't weakness. This is modeling a growth mindset. When your team sees you learning openly, they're more likely to take risks, experiment, and stretch themselves.

Your team doesn't need you to be perfect. They need you to be real, curious, and invested in their growth.

The Practice This Week

Here's your challenge: In your 1-on-1 conversations this week, make one deliberate shift:

1. Start with development, not tasks. Open with a growth-focused question: "What's one thing you're working to get better at right now?"

2. Share your own learning edge. Identify one area where you're still developing and share it authentically: "I'm working on asking more questions and jumping to solutions less quickly."

3. Notice your emotional tone. Before the conversation, check your mindset. Are you genuinely curious and open? If not, take a moment to shift. The questions only work when the emotional attitude matches the words.

That's it. Just practice this shift in one conversation and notice what happens.

Here's the beautiful paradox: The less you try to prove your competence by having all the answers, the more competent you actually become.

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