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 |
Every one of them cuts both ways, and the same person can be both to you in the same week. If you have ever walked out of a meeting wondering why a good idea quietly died, the answer is usually somewhere in this table.
3. Crew: who shows up, and how? (including you)
Accessibility is never solo work, and a healthy circle has a diversity of reciprocal relationships. Map out the crew who do (or could) show up. Then invert it to see where you need to show up.
Ask: Who is in my crew? What do they offer? Who is missing?
Do: Draw on your crew's capacity. Ensure you are giving back just as often, maybe even more.
Remember: People want to help. Recognize your crew as often as you can.
| Relationships | Who shows up, or could show up? | What will you supply? |
|---|---|---|
| Sources | Who do you ask when you don't know? | How will you become a source for someone else? |
| Askers | Who comes to you repeatedly to find out? | Whom will you start asking? |
| Backups | Who could answer if you were away? | Whom will you back up? |
| Community | Whose disabled expertise shapes decisions? | How will you build something reciprocal? |
4. Capacity: burning out? Rest alone won't fix it
The World Health Organization classifies burn-out in ICD-11 as an occupational phenomenon — not a medical condition. It names three components: energy depletion or exhaustion, mental distance from the job or cynicism about it, and reduced professional efficacy. Normalize and recognize the experience; this is very common in helping professions.
Ask: How will I recognize “red alert” signs of burn-out before it has taken over?
Do: Take the time to rest. Reconsider what is truly “urgent.” Protect taking more time and space whenever possible — even when it isn't ideal to do so, rest lets us see the bigger picture.
Remember: It's easy to misread your own burn-out situation. Measure your capacity through objective signals and outside voices. People in acute burn-out, crisis, or trauma activation: find other advocates, transfer work, and find other support; this tool is not for you today.
| If you are… | You may need… | Why rest alone won't fix it |
|---|---|---|
| Under-Supported | Scope, sequence, and a plan with finishable goals | Rest helps at first, then returns you to the same overload |
| Under-Challenged | More challenging work, a new domain, or more meaningful influence | Rest leaves the real depletion untouched |
| Under-Powered | A different route to power — or permission to move on | Rest returns you to the same blocked system |
| Morally Injured | Real authority to change the harm, or at least a witness who names it | Rest does not address the injury at all |
The fourth row is not burn-out. Moral injury is knowing exactly what the right thing is and being structurally forced to endure — and possibly enforce — the wrong thing. If you have been angry in this job, properly angry, that is usually what you were feeling. Rest does not touch it.
Choose one next move
DIAGNOSE THE SITUATION
In the next month, I want to focus on: __________________________ (a specific problem, issue, or need). The problem is most relevant to this condition: Clarity / Clout / Crew / Capacity (choose one entry point for this pass).
The core issue is really __________________________ (what's underneath the problem, and what are its stakes?).
CHANGE THE SITUATION
The key point of leverage on the situation is: __________________________ (what person, decision, process, relationship, resource, or boundary could shift the pattern?).
My next move is to __________________________ (choose a move proportionate to your authority, risk, and available support).
Next moves: three worked examples
When accommodation requests become emergencies
DIAGNOSE THE SITUATION
In the next month, I want to focus on reducing last-minute accommodation emergencies for our public programs. The problem is most relevant to this condition: Clarity. The core issue is really that no one has defined who receives requests, who can approve spending, or who communicates the response. The work therefore defaults to me, making me a bottleneck and giving participants inconsistent answers.
CHANGE THE SITUATION
The key point of leverage on the situation is defining the decision path and the boundaries of my role before the next request arrives. My next move is to draft a one-page routing map naming who handles intake, consultation, budget approval, participant communication, and follow-up — and bring it to the next program meeting for decisions.
Captions are supported but never reliably funded
DIAGNOSE THE SITUATION
In the next month, I want to focus on securing consistent funding for captions on our online programs. The problem is most relevant to this condition: Clout. The core issue is really that the need is understood, but I cannot authorize the expense, so access remains an optional, case-by-case negotiation.
CHANGE THE SITUATION
The key point of leverage in the situation is getting a clear funding choice into the right meeting. My next move is to ask the program director to co-sponsor a budget decision, present two costed options, and request a funding source and accountable owner.
The accessibility plan is consuming nights and weekends
DIAGNOSE THE SITUATION
In the next month, I want to focus on finishing the first phase of our accessibility plan without continuing to work nights. The problem is most relevant to this condition: Capacity. The core issue is really that I am under-supported: the assigned scope exceeds the available time and staffing.
CHANGE THE SITUATION
The key point of leverage in the situation is turning the broad mandate into a finishable sequence, including decisions about what stops, waits, or belongs to someone else. My next move is to bring my supervisor a proposal with revised task assignments and a timeline for completion, and request approval to pause two deliverables and transfer one recurring task.
Where this came from — and where it could go
Most of what's in this handout takes longer than seventy-five minutes to build. I want to start a standing cohort of new access coordinators: regular meetings, this kind of research and context and lived experience, and real emotional and logistical support. Not a conference session — a standing thing. If you'd want to be part of it, tell me.
I also work with organizations directly on access planning, accessibility assessment, professional education, and facilitation — including sessions built from this framework. If your organization is serious about getting past the access soloist problem, that's the work I do. Scott@ScottArtley.com | ScottArtley.com
Note: This is a research-informed practice framework, not a diagnostic instrument or a validated assessment. Research grounding: Clance & Imes on the imposter phenomenon; French & Raven on the bases of social power; WHO ICD-11 on burn-out; Farber and Montero-Marín et al. on burn-out subtypes.
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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