How can you overcome imposter syndrome when transitioning to a leadership role in Web Applications?

Another step to overcome imposter syndrome is to challenge and reframe your negative thoughts. Don't let your inner critic take over and make you doubt your abilities and achievements. Instead, try to identify the source of your insecurity and question its validity. For example, if you think you are not qualified for a certain role or project, ask yourself what evidence you have to support that claim. Is it based on facts or feelings? Are you comparing yourself to others or setting unrealistic standards for yourself? How can you change your perspective and focus on your strengths and potential? By doing this, you can develop a more balanced and positive self-image that reflects your true value and contribution.

As a leader in web development, you get an opportunity to work on most complex pieces of the code while supporting fellow devs of your team. During standup, "identify struggling areas of your team, contribute to solve them" Plan knowledge sharing sessions and attend meetups and conferences to know what's trending and next possible area to learn. With a combination of using your expertise in architecture and preidentifying any possible risks/issues along with contributing in complex problems of other devs will keep you out of FOMO in web development.

You can put this feeling to check by: 1) Self belief: Remind yourself of what you have achieved. The best way to do this is by talking about it to someone that will appreciate what you have done. 2) Mentoring junior devs can be very helpful. It challenges you to learn and pay attention to new things that you may previously not be interested in.

Start by writing down on a piece of paper as many of the feelings you can identify as one word, leaving enough space after every line. Then for each feeling continue the follow sentence "I feel XXX, because I think I don't... ". The format of the sentence is important. Do this with all emotions you listed. Then use a highlighter and mark the word "I think". Read every sentence aloud stressing on "I think". Realise these feelings do not reflect the reality around you - they are manufactured by your mind chasing it's tail confusing not having clarity, some skills or knowledge for luck of capacity to do well on your new role.

It might also be time to look more closely at what your true strengths actually are in the lense of leadership. To a software engineer this might mean leaning on the ability to digest and share a technical vision instead of creating software and reviewing code. Additionally: understanding how those strengths fit with leadership styles can really propel the transition forward more quickly.

While it's incredibly important for each of us to have confidence in the skills we have developed so far and in our ability to continue to improve and develop new ones over time, it's equally as important to be realistic about the situation in which we may find ourselves. Every person and situation is different, and there are times when we've been promoted or talked into a role that does not fit our skillset at all. In fact, it may not actually fit our strengths, personality, passion, or interests. Sometimes focusing on your strengths is recognizing that your current role does not fit who you are. While it's possible that you could power through and still make it work, is that really what's best for you and your career?

When you become a leader your job changes from doing the job, to become facilitator for the team members to do the job, grow and go the their next level in ther carrier. Always find a balance between the team, the team members and the projects they work. When team members are empowered to make decisions and responsibilities, they will be more evolved in the business and you will have resources and time to find other ways to be useful for the team.

I think the first step is that understanding you are not the only one who doesn’t know everything. Focus should be on doing, practicing on what your core strengths are and open for learning new trends in the web development side. Once we have good hands on, then exploring architectural patterns and “why” and “how” behind it. Understand your customer domain and their key challenges and what kind of architectural tradeoff you are looking for. Brainstorming with your team and reassess your approach. Practice Retrospect, improve and share your learnings in community. Be empathetic to your team, trust them. and encourage them to take risks and appreciate their views. Learn from your mistakes and ensure you are not repeating it.

Remember your job as leader is to make sure the projects are completed on time and on budget. Focus on that and make sure your team members have some time and resources to keep evaluating the current and the trending technologies and report back to the team. Then you will have enough information to choose if you need to adopt a new technology or stick to the current one, paying attention to the price of change.

IME don’t be quick to label any difficult task as imposter. More often than not, you might have to understand the problem better to arrive at fairly good solution. Asking questions and doing more research might help you to achieve the goal. If not, asking questions can help you to get the help & direction.

NOTE: Actually, the first step to dealing with imposter syndrome is to understand what it is. This needs to be addressed very early in this article, otherwise the reader won't know if the content is even relevant to them. Imposter Syndrome is not a true mental health diagnosis. Instead, it is mental state of self-doubt and discouragement where you do not feel equipped or capable to do your own job. This anxiety is inevitably coupled with a fear of being "exposed" as a fraud. In this state, there can be a strong desire to hide your failure to look good at all costs which can end up becoming a self-fulfilling prophecy as your behavior inadvertently creates a new risk: being seen as sneaky and disingenuous.