--- title: "Episode 42: Imposter Syndrome in Leadership: Quiet the Inner Critic — with Dymon Lewis" description: Velocity coach Dymon Lewis on why executive presence starts before you enter the room, how to quiet imposter syndrome, and what leaders must unlearn. --- [![Velocity Advisory Group](https://www.velocityadvisorygroup.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/05/Velocity-Logo-2023-Wide-1.png)](https://www.velocityadvisorygroup.com/) ☰ Menu - About - [Meet Our Team](https://www.velocityadvisorygroup.com/about/) - [Meet Our Coaches](https://www.velocityadvisorygroup.com/coaches/) - [Careers](https://www.velocityadvisorygroup.com/careers/) - [Speaking Engagements](https://www.velocityadvisorygroup.com/velocity-speakers/) - Solutions - [Culture & Engagement](https://www.velocityadvisorygroup.com/culture-engagement/) - [DISC Assessments & Training](https://www.velocityadvisorygroup.com/disc-assessments-training/) - [Employee Experience](https://www.velocityadvisorygroup.com/employee-experience/) - [Executive Coaching](https://www.velocityadvisorygroup.com/executive-coaching/) - [Family Business](https://www.velocityadvisorygroup.com/family-business/) - [Leadership Development](https://www.velocityadvisorygroup.com/leadership-development/) - [Sales Training](https://www.velocityadvisorygroup.com/5cs-of-selling/) - [Strategy & Implementation](https://www.velocityadvisorygroup.com/strategy-implementation/) - Resources - [Activating Greatness Podcast](https://www.velocityadvisorygroup.com/podcast/) - [Blog](https://www.velocityadvisorygroup.com/blog/) - [Case Studies](https://www.velocityadvisorygroup.com/case-studies/) - [News and Announcements](https://www.velocityadvisorygroup.com/news-and-events/) - [OrderDisc](https://orderdisc.com/) - [Upcoming Events](https://www.velocityadvisorygroup.com/upcoming-events/) - Industries - [Construction](https://www.velocityadvisorygroup.com/construction/) - [Financial Services](https://www.velocityadvisorygroup.com/financial-services/) - [Life Sciences](https://www.velocityadvisorygroup.com/lifesciences/) - [Contact](https://www.velocityadvisorygroup.com/contact/) Activating Greatness Podcast Episodes August 17, 2026 | Episode 42 # Imposter Syndrome in Leadership: Quiet the Inner Critic — with Dymon Lewis ## Stop Trying to Prove You're Smart: Dymon Lewis on Storytelling, Imposter Syndrome, and Unlearning **In this post:** *Velocity coach Dymon Lewis explains how she manages imposter syndrome in leadership with a pause, a night's sleep, and simply getting started. She also shares why executive presence starts before the meeting and why leaders must unlearn strengths that once earned promotions.* Dymon Lewis had been promoted for all the right reasons. She was direct. She ran a great meeting. She delivered on time, and clients trusted her. None of it made her immune to hard feedback or to imposter syndrome in leadership, a struggle she expects to face for her entire career. Then, in the middle of COVID, the feedback turned. Direct reports and peers told her she wasn't very kind and wasn't very friendly. She had never heard that before. Her first explanation was that remote work hid her personality. If she could take the team out for a drink, she told her people manager, they would see who she was. Her manager's answer: That was not going to happen anytime soon, so Lewis would have to figure it out now. "I had to unlearn how I ran internal meetings, how I approached being a people manager," Lewis said on *Activating Greatness*, the leadership podcast from Velocity Advisory Group, where she works as a Leadership and Culture Advisor and Coach. That moment sits at the center of her approach to leadership. The strengths that earn a promotion rarely carry a leader all the way. Some of them have to come out of the toolkit so better ones can go in. ## A Toolkit Built Without a Roadmap Lewis is a first-generation American whose parents did not come from a corporate background. She learned the professional world through mentors, sponsors, and a habit she recommends to everyone: steal. When she became a manager, she built her style from two colleagues. One was excellent with clients, repeating back what he heard and keeping meetings moving, but she did not admire him as a manager. The other, her weekly people manager, was a great storyteller who helped Lewis map her career, though the two ran meetings differently. "I took from her what I needed. I took from him what I needed, and I slapped it together and said, that's mine now," she said. Her career began as a project coordinator, sending invites and scheduling sessions. Today she designs and facilitates leadership programs, and she said she is not even halfway through the journey. ## Why Numbers Won't Carry a Vision Host Alec McChesney put a claim to Lewis: Not all storytellers are great leaders, but all great leaders are great storytellers. She tied the idea to vision. "If you want to take people on a journey with you, you've got to paint the picture of where they're going," she said. Numbers and splashy initiative names will not do it. She has sat through leadership announcements that left her cold. The speakers had ideas and technical language but no story. "I don't know what any of this means. I don't feel connected to it," she said of those moments. A clear story does not require agreement. People can hear a vision, dislike it, and still follow a leader they believe in because they understand where the organization is going. Good stories also require reflection. Leaders who cannot pull from a "Rolodex of experience," Lewis said, usually have not taken the time to examine their own careers. When she prepared senior leaders to speak in a financial services development program, she gave them one instruction: Skip the story about how amazing you were. Tell one about a time you failed. "Those are the stories that people are going to resonate with," she said. Jeremy Maskel, another *Activating Greatness* guest, made a related case in his episode on [leadership communication that sticks](https://coaching.velocityadvisorygroup.com/activating-greatness-podcast-episodes/ep-18-say-it-so-it-sticks-jeremy-maskel). ## Presence Is Earned Outside the Room Lewis did theater in middle school and college, and she loves the stage. She does not think presence belongs to one personality type. In Velocity's [Birds](https://www.velocityadvisorygroup.com/disc-assessments-training/) framework, some Eagles and Parrots love the microphone. Lewis has also watched calm, understated Owl leaders command a room. The difference, she said, is what happens before the meeting starts. A leader who yells, dismisses people, or keeps the team guessing cannot fix that with one strong presentation. "Everything leading up to you being in front of people is part of your executive presence, and I think leaders don't remember that sometimes," she said. > "Everything leading up to you being in front of people is part of your executive presence." > > *Dymon Lewis, Leadership and Culture Advisor and Coach, Velocity Advisory Group* A soft-spoken leader whose people feel heard and respected starts with an advantage. The delivery can come through practice: Write down the story, rehearse it, and have someone record you. A former employer called the ideal "leading like a swan," calm above the water while the feet work hard below. Lewis pairs it with a caution: Stay human. You should not have to become someone new when you stand up. Brooke Page-Thompson explored the same theme in her episode on [authenticity and culture shift](https://coaching.velocityadvisorygroup.com/activating-greatness-podcast-episodes/ep-2-the-culture-shift-brooke-page-thompson). FREE ONE-PAGE CHECKLIST ### The Executive Presence Checklist Use this one-page checklist to audit what your team experiences before you ever take the stage, from how you run meetings to how people feel heard. [Get the free checklist](https://coaching.velocityadvisorygroup.com/leadership-library/executive-presence-checklist) ## Imposter Syndrome in Leadership: The Critic in Her Own Head Lewis first met the term imposter syndrome in a *Harvard Business Review* article while helping run a leadership program, and she recognized herself immediately. Mentors and managers kept telling her she was more capable than she believed. "I'm my toughest critic," she said. She expects to wrestle with it for her entire career. Her tools are simple. The first is what she calls the power in the pause. Stop and ask why you feel incapable. Are you missing a technical skill, missing information, or working from vague instructions? Then break the task into five, 10, or 20 smaller pieces. The second is sleep. She cannot count the nights she went to bed certain she could not do something and woke at 6 a.m. with a plan. The third is motion. "Just start working," she said. "Sometimes just the physical action of starting will get you a lot further than you expect it will." McChesney said roughly 70% of the show's guests, including CEOs of public companies, have admitted to imposter syndrome or asked why they were invited. ## Rapid-Fire Leadership Lessons - **Daily habit:** Arranger, a StrengthsFinder theme. She plans weeks ahead, fitting people, resources, and tasks together to keep the team running smoothly. - **Most underrated skill:** Connecting with team members as individuals. Mentoring only people who resemble you, she said, is "very destructive in an organization." - **Stop doing:** "Stop treating your personal style as a standard of excellence." - **Best advice:** "Stop trying to prove that you're smart." Trust that you were hired because you belong there. HOW VELOCITY HELPS ### Velocity Executive Coaching Lewis described two challenges most leaders face privately: the voice that says they do not belong, and the habits that once earned praise but now hold them back. Both are hard to see alone. Velocity's Executive Coaching pairs leaders with a Velocity Coach for confidential one-on-one work, a space to pause, examine what is driving the doubt, and replace outdated behaviors with ones that fit the role. The result is presence built day to day, long before the next big meeting. [Explore Executive Coaching](https://www.velocityadvisorygroup.com/executive-coaching/) ## The Takeaway: You Were Hired for a Reason The best advice Lewis ever received was a reassurance: Stop trying to prove you're smart, because the person who hired you already believes it. The line answers imposter syndrome, and it also answers the urge to cling to old strengths. Unlearning, Lewis said, takes humility. "You have to be able to look in the mirror and decide I need to be different," she said. Leaders who do that work, and who reflect on their failures honestly, end up with better stories, stronger presence, and teams that follow them for the right reasons. ## Listen to the Full Episode Hear Dymon Lewis's full conversation with host Alec McChesney on *Activating Greatness*. [Find it on YouTube](https://www.youtube.com/@VelocityAdvisoryGroup), or listen on [Spotify](https://open.spotify.com/show/4LcgAut0KyYiGyDhFvMjPD) and [Apple Podcasts](https://podcasts.apple.com/podcast/id1868386871). FREE GUIDE ### The Fit-In Tax Are you spending more energy managing how you come across than leading your team? This self-authenticity guide helps you spot what fitting in costs you and lead as yourself instead. 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