Help, I’m an Imposter!
Four conditions that make access leadership feel impossible — and what to do about each
Scott Artley Consulting © 2026
“Help, I'm an Imposter!”
Four conditions that make access leadership feel impossible — and what to do about each
What if they figure out I have no idea what I'm doing!? It's a common experience to feel like leading an organization's accessibility function is like building the ship at the same time you're sailing it. And it's just as common to feel like we must have been home sick that one day when everyone else got the combo shipbuilding-and-sailing-at-the-same-time lessons.
“Imposter phenomenon” typically describes an internalized lack of confidence, or a fear of personal incompetence being revealed to others, despite demonstrated success. The problem is located in the individual and their internal state. But Clance and Imes, who named it in 1978, called it a phenomenon — not a syndrome. A syndrome is something wrong with you. A phenomenon is something that happens.
That feeling isn't a confidence problem. It's what a structurally incoherent job feels like from the inside — a mandate far larger than the authority, budget, and time attached to it. What follows names the organizational dynamics that get misread as personal failure, and shows you how to start using the unspoken social forces underneath them.
Start here: What condition are you facing?
Bring a defined leadership problem to the framework, scoping the issue as tightly as you can. Check it against all four conditions. Overlap is to be expected, but choose one condition that offers the most useful entry point. Read the guidance, think about how it applies, and identify your next move by finding a point of leverage and action.
Clarity — The role, goal, decision, or boundary has not been defined.
Clout — You need influence or authority that was never formally handed to you.
Crew — The work is isolated, overly dependent on you, or missing reciprocal relationships.
Capacity — You are depleted, and different kinds of empty need different responses. Three worked examples of the framework in use are on page 4.
1. Clarity: find the edges of your job
Access work is especially complicated because it involves moral importance, legal stakes, and coordination across multiple organizational domains at once.
Ask: “Help me understand…” Use sincere questions to surface assumptions and locate decisions; choose your degree of directness based on authority, urgency, and risk. What is decided and what's still at play? What can I know, and what questions remain? Who should be part of the decision?
Do: You are the access “reminder-er.” Build systems to remind your circles of influence how to produce accessible outcomes; you do not personally execute everything.
Remember: You get to decide when you will restrain and when you will overperform. Make the choice before something or someone else chooses for you, because the job will always choose to do too much.
2. Clout: cultivate and leverage informal power
Ask: Which source of informal (“soft”) power is available here — and what will it cost if I overuse it?
Do: Use the smallest amount of influence that can produce a reasonably effective result. People with formal authority should first consider spending that clout, and only then critically examine whether informal or backchannel tactics are fair in your case.
Remember: Build a balanced portfolio of influence. The real test of leadership: how you give power away
| Persona | Powerbase | What it gets you | Watch for |
|---|---|---|---|
| Problem-Solver | Expertise | Cracks the hard problem | Becoming the bottleneck |
| Charmer | Trust | A yes before analysis | Power that does not transfer to action |
| Connector | Network | A coalition, quickly | The middle becoming a full-time job |
| Visionary | Framing | Changes what the problem is | Follow-through gaps burning trust |
| Conscience | Moral authority | Stops a bad decision | Being typecast as the scold |
| Persona | Antagonist version | Ally version |
|---|---|---|
| Gatekeeper | Holds lines, often without even saying “no” | Waves it through; holds a foot in the gate |
| Enforcer | Makes things harder, quietly | Makes noncompliance uncomfortable |
| Cartographer | Lets it die in the wrong meeting | Names the right meeting, person, and timeline |
| Agenda-Setter | Defines access as out of scope or a cost | Defines access as a craft or a right |
A practical, research-informed framework for accessibility leaders to diagnose challenges through Clarity, Clout, Crew and Capacity—and choose one realistic next move.
Created by Scott Artley and first presented at the Leadership Exchange in Arts & Disability Conference in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania in August 2026.
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