During the first Her Turn session in Tallinn, one theme appeared with particular clarity: confidence. More precisely, the feeling of not yet being ready. Many women recognised themselves in thoughts such as: I need more experience first. I need one more training. I should wait until I am fully prepared. Someone else is probably more qualified.
At first glance, this may look like a personal confidence issue. But research suggests that women’s self-doubt around leadership is rarely only personal. Confidence is closely connected to self-efficacy: the belief that one is able to organise and carry out the actions needed to achieve a goal. This belief is not developed in isolation. It is shaped through experience, feedback, role models, encouragement and the wider social environment in which a person learns to assess their own abilities.
This distinction matters. If we frame the issue only as “women need to be more confident”, we risk placing the responsibility on women to fix themselves. A stronger and fairer question is:
What makes capable women doubt their readiness, and what conditions help them recognise and act on their own leadership potential?
Confidence is not the same as competence
One of the most important insights from research is that self-perception and actual competence do not always move together. A person may already be capable, prepared and demonstrating leadership, while still feeling that they are not ready. This is particularly relevant in contexts where leadership is still associated with traits culturally coded as masculine, such as assertiveness, authority, decisiveness and visibility.
Role congruity theory helps explain this tension. It argues that prejudice against women leaders emerges when there is a perceived mismatch between the social role of “woman” and the social role of “leader”. (Alice H. Eagly and Steven J. Karau, “Role Congruity Theory of Prejudice Toward Female Leaders”)
Women may therefore be judged less favourably as potential leaders, and leadership behaviour may be evaluated more negatively when it is performed by women rather than men.
This creates a double bind. If a woman is collaborative, modest and careful, she may be seen as not sufficiently leader-like. If she is assertive, ambitious or direct, she may be judged as too difficult or insufficiently likeable. Research on backlash against agentic women shows that women can be penalised when they behave in ways that are associated with competence and authority but conflict with prescriptive gender expectations.
In this sense, self-doubt is not irrational. It can be a learned response to repeated signals that women must prove both competence and likeability at the same time. The result is not only external inequality, but also internal hesitation: Am I allowed to take this space? Will I be judged differently if I do?
The “I am not ready” mindset
Leadership aspiration is not formed in a vacuum. A meta-analysis of gender differences in leadership aspirations found that men report higher leadership aspirations than women, with the gap appearing especially relevant in male-dominated contexts. This should not be read as evidence that women are naturally less ambitious. Rather, it points to the way ambition is shaped by social expectations, perceived opportunity and the costs associated with visibility.
Research also shows that gendered cultural beliefs can influence how people assess their own competence. Shelley Correll’s work on biased self-assessments found that beliefs about gender can affect self-evaluations in career-relevant domains, even when actual ability is taken into account. In practice, this means that women may step back not because they are unqualified, but because social signals have made their qualification feel uncertain.
Recent experimental evidence adds an important layer. Exley and Kessler found a significant gender gap in self-promotion: women described their own performance less favourably than equally performing men, including in situations where participants had information about their actual performance. This suggests that the issue is not simply a lack of evidence.
Even when women have proof that they performed well, they may still find it harder to present their competence confidently.
For leadership development, this is crucial. Women may receive positive feedback, complete training, gain experience and still feel that they need one more confirmation before stepping forward. The issue is not only confidence. It is whether women are able to internalise evidence of their own capability in environments where that capability has often been questioned, minimised or made conditional.
The impostor phenomenon: useful, but incomplete
The term “impostor phenomenon” was first introduced by Pauline Clance and Suzanne Imes in their work with high-achieving women who felt like intellectual frauds despite clear evidence of success. Since then, the concept has become widely used to describe persistent self-doubt, fear of being exposed as inadequate and difficulty internalising achievement.
The concept is useful because it gives language to an experience many women recognise. A recent meta-analytic review found that women tend to report higher impostor phenomenon scores than men, although the wider literature has also shown mixed and context-dependent findings. This means that the concept should be used carefully. It can help women name an experience, but it should not be used to suggest that the problem exists only inside the individual.
More recent scholarship argues that impostor feelings should be understood in context. Feenstra and colleagues argue that the impostor “syndrome” should not be reduced to an individual psychological flaw, because it is also shaped by social identity, stereotypes, belonging, exclusion and organisational culture. This is particularly important for initiatives like Her Turn. The aim should not be to tell women simply to “stop doubting themselves”. The aim should be to create spaces where women can understand where self-doubt comes from, examine it honestly and rebuild agency without ignoring the real barriers they face.
Recognition matters
Confidence grows when people are able to connect their actions with visible evidence of impact. It weakens when their contribution is unclear, unrecognised or attributed to others.
This is especially important in collaborative environments. Heilman and Haynes found that ambiguity around individual contribution in mixed-gender teams can negatively affect evaluations of women’s work, particularly in male-typed tasks. In a later study, Haynes and Heilman found that women and men allocated credit differently after successful joint work, with women more likely to undervalue their own contribution when they believed they had worked with a man on a male-typed task. This matters because leadership often develops through group work, project work, community work and collective action.
Women may coordinate, support, solve problems, manage communication, create trust and hold processes together, but if these behaviours are not named as leadership, they may continue to see themselves as helpers rather than leaders.
This is particularly relevant in youth, civic and community contexts, where women often carry substantial relational and organisational responsibility. These forms of leadership are essential, but they are not always recognised as leadership. When they remain invisible, women may underestimate the leadership experience they already have.
From individual confidence to collective conditions
The practical question is therefore not only how women can become more confident. It is how programmes, organisations and communities can create better conditions for women to practise leadership, receive recognition and build a stronger leadership identity.
Research on women’s leadership development argues that effective programmes should address gendered organisational realities without presenting women as deficient. Ely, Ibarra and Kolb describe leadership development as identity work: becoming a leader requires not only skills, but also the ability to see oneself, and to be seen by others, as a legitimate leader.
This explains why women-focused leadership spaces can be valuable when they are carefully designed. Their value is not in separating women from wider society, nor in suggesting that women need “special fixing”. Their value lies in creating space for reflection, practice, peer learning, feedback and critical discussion of the gendered barriers that shape leadership journeys.
There is also evidence that targeted educational interventions can increase women’s leadership self-efficacy. Isaac and colleagues found that a course designed for women in early academic STEMM careers increased leadership self-efficacy, personal mastery and self-esteem, while reducing perceived constraints. Importantly, the intervention did not rely only on motivational language. It helped participants recognise stereotypes, understand barriers and develop strategies for leadership practice.
This is the kind of approach needed. Confidence is not built through slogans. It is built through experience, recognition, feedback, role models, supportive networks and opportunities to act before feeling completely ready.
What this means for Her Turn
The Tallinn session showed that self-doubt is not a marginal issue. It sits close to the centre of many women’s leadership journeys. It influences whether women speak in a room, apply for an opportunity, propose an idea, accept responsibility, negotiate, claim credit or describe themselves as leaders.
For Her Turn, this creates a clear direction for future work. Leadership development should include space to explore questions such as:
What does “ready” actually mean, and who defines it?
What evidence of leadership do women already have, but fail to recognise?
How do stereotypes shape the way women assess their own competence?
What forms of leadership are undervalued because they are collaborative, relational or care-based?
How can peers and organisations give feedback that helps women connect their actions with their impact?
How can women practise visibility and self-promotion without feeling that they are betraying authenticity or humility?
These questions move the discussion beyond individual confidence. They help women understand self-doubt as something that can be examined, challenged and transformed, not alone, but collectively.
Conclusion: ready is not a fixed point
Many women wait to feel fully ready before stepping into leadership. But readiness is rarely a fixed point that arrives one day with certainty. More often, readiness is built through action. It grows when women are trusted with responsibility, when their contributions are named, when their mistakes are treated as part of learning and when leadership is no longer defined through narrow stereotypes.
The message is not that women should ignore fear or pretend to be confident. The message is that self-doubt should not be allowed to make decisions on their behalf.
Women do not need to become perfect before they lead. They need spaces where they can recognise that they are already learning, already contributing and already capable of shaping change. Sometimes the first step is not feeling fully ready. Sometimes the first step is accepting that being ready enough is already a valid place to begin.