You arrived. You were the one who showed up early, stayed late, got the results, carried more than your share, and earned the respect—or at least the role—because you could. You learned early to adopt a persona of competence, confidence, and unflappability. For many high-achieving women in high-stakes careers (law, finance, medicine, tech, executive leadership), that persona is not just a professional strategy—it becomes the lifeline.
But what many don’t realise is that this protective self can morph into a trap. The persona that once helped you survive begins to demand more than you can sustainably give. It becomes a mask, a performance, and ultimately a lonely place of fatigue, disconnection, and burnout.
In this article I’ll explore how that persona develops, why it’s so common in women in high stakes roles, how it interacts with underlying dynamics (perfectionism, imposter feelings, double-binds), and why it’s burning you out—plus what to begin doing about it.
How the Persona Forms
When you’re one of the few women—or the only woman—in a high pressure environment, the internal script often runs something like this:
- “If I’m not flawless, I’ll be exposed as incompetent.”
- “If I ask for help, I’ll look weak (or ungrateful).”
- “If I don’t carry the extra work, no one else will—and then both the job and my reputation will suffer.”
- “If I show doubt, I’ll undermine my authority, my credibility, my future.”
Psychologically, this persona is a survival adaptation. It is shaped by systemic expectations (e.g., you must “prove it again” as a woman in male-dominated spaces), by perfectionism (which is highly correlated with burnout in high-achieving professionals), and by early internalised messages about worth being tied to performance.
For women in leadership and high-stakes roles, the persona often includes an element of “keep calm and carry on,” emotional invisibility (not showing fatigue, frustration, fear), and perfectionist self-monitoring. A recent qualitative study of married, highly-educated Korean women found that their career motivations included a commitment to excellence, which over time risked driving emotional exhaustion. (PMC)
Another core piece is the interplay with the so-called “imposter phenomenon.” High achievers often feel like they’re faking it—despite evidence to the contrary—and that feeds into the persona: if I don’t act totally sure, I’ll be found out. Gender differences in imposter feelings have been confirmed in meta-analysis. (ScienceDirect)
Why the Persona Keeps You in “Performance Mode”
Once you adopt the persona of the flawless achiever, the drive to maintain it keeps you locked into a high-functioning state—even when your internal resources are depleted.
Here are some of the dynamics:
- Constant self-monitoring and emotional labour
You’re not just doing the work; you’re also doing the invisible work of “making it look effortless,” readjusting your tone, masking doubt, compensating for micro-slights, and administering your persona. That’s extra emotional labour. - Perfectionism and the fear of being exposed
The persona demands zero mistakes, zero vulnerability. But real work involves uncertainty, error, learning. The dissonance between your internal state (tired, anxious, overwhelmed) and what you show (polished, in-control) creates chronic tension. - Imposter feelings + high stakes = burn risk
Research shows that imposter feelings are linked with burnout. For example, one study found female gender was significantly associated with higher imposter phenomenon and burnout among medical students. (Liebert Publishing) The persona becomes a way of covering up the “fraudulent” feeling, which leads to over-work, hidden self-doubt, and exhaustion. - Unrelenting standards + inadequate recovery
The persona demands you keep producing, keep performing, keep being the one. Meanwhile, the systems around you may not support rest, vulnerability, or boundary-setting—especially for women in leadership. A piece on “Silent Burnout Among High-Achieving Women” describes how these women appear calm and competent but are “running on empty.” (Psychology Today) - Identity entanglement
Over time your persona is your identity: you are the high-achiever who carries, calibrates, fixes. So stepping away from the persona can feel like stepping away from who you are, which makes it scary and deeply destabilising.
Why It’s Burning You Out
The key reason the survival persona becomes unsustainable is that the system—and your inner landscape—cannot maintain high performance and high self-regulation indefinitely without cost. Here’s how the burnout trajectory often unfolds for high-achieving women:
- Phase 1: Over-functioning and hyper-vigilance
You hold more than your role, anticipate extra demands, mask exhaustion, push harder. Systems still reward you for it—raises, promotions, recognition. - Phase 2: Disconnect and emotional depletion
You begin to feel disconnected from your values, your body, your emotional truth. You may think: “Why does this success feel hollow?” Or “I’m so tired of doing it all and no one sees me.” - Phase 3: Exhaustion with performance maintained
This is the “silent burnout” stage: you’re still delivering results, still showing up, but internally you’re fractured. As an article on high-achieving women notes: “They’re still performing at a high level, no one notices the strain they are under.” (Psychology Today) - Phase 4: Crisis or collapse
Eventually the cost becomes too high: you may detach, disengage, reduce your ambition, leave your role, or suffer breakdowns. Frequently, the narrative is “I used to love my work but now I dread it,” or “I’m successful but I don’t feel like myself.”
From a psychological viewpoint, the burnout is not just about overwork. It’s about a mis-matched self: the survival persona that once worked becomes the barrier to authenticity, to self-care, to emotional safety. The cost is not just tiredness—it’s erosion of self-trust, disconnection from meaning, and sometimes collapse of identity.
Why Women in High-Stakes Roles Are Especially Vulnerable
While anyone can burn out, there are several structural and psychological factors that make high-achieving women in particular vulnerable to burnout via their persona:
- Gendered performance expectations
Women often face the “prove-it again” phenomenon: even elite women must continuously validate their competence in male-dominated environments. The persona is a way of responding to that pressure. Research on women in the software industry found under-recognised contributions, impostor feelings, and ambiguous advancement pathways. (arXiv) - Double burden / invisible labour
High-achieving women often carry both their professional role and a disproportionate share of domestic, emotional or caregiving labour. The persona may mask that additional load but doesn’t relieve it. A study of executive women described how the “double burden of professional and caregiving responsibilities” contributed to burnout. (ResearchGate) - Perfectionism + high stakes
Achieving in a high-stakes role often requires mastery, visibility, and constant output, which align with perfectionist tendencies. But when the margin for error is slim, the risk for burnout is higher. - Masking vulnerability and lack of support
In competitive environments, showing fatigue, doubt, uncertainty is often seen (internally or externally) as liability—not as human. The persona therefore functions to hide vulnerability—but at the cost of connection, support, and authenticity. - Identity fusion with role
For women whose worth has been tied to achievement (due to early messages, internalised beliefs, or professional culture), stepping down from the persona feels like stepping away from self. That intensifies the risk of emotional collapse if the performance fails to sustain.
What to Do About It: Beginning to Unmask and Move Toward Sustainable Self
In my work with high-achieving women, I often guide clients through a process of noticing the persona, understanding its function, reclaiming authentic self, and building sustainable practices—not just in self-care, but in structural relational and system-level shifts. Here are key steps you can start:
- Notice your persona’s storyline
Ask: What am I acting like? What’s the script I’m running when I walk into the boardroom, the project meeting, the negotiation? What messages did I internalise early about worth and performance? Journaling or a reflective pause can help you bring the persona into awareness. - Name the toll
What do you feel (or not feel) behind the mask? Tiredness, irritability, numbness, disconnection, guilt, shame? Recognising that the cost is real, emotional, relational, and physical helps you stop treating it as a “normal part of success.” - Re‐evaluate your boundaries and roles
The persona often arises because you carry more than your role demands—or because you’ve taken on additional emotional labour. Can you renegotiate expectations at work or home? Can you set limits (e.g., “I will not respond to email after 8 pm,” or “I will delegate this rather than absorb it”)? Sustainable performance requires boundaries. - Build allowance for vulnerability and failure
Let yourself fail, ask for help, show uncertainty. The persona says “I must know, I must be in control,” but real leadership and sustainable achievement include humility, connection, and repair. Psychotherapeutic work often focuses on shifting internal narratives: “I don’t have to prove I’m competent to be competent.” - Reconnect with what matters
The persona thrives on doing—achieving, producing, controlling. Ask: What matters to me? What values guide my work? Are they still the same? Is the persona aligned with them? You may find that reclaiming authenticity means changing how you work altogether, not just how hard you work. - Engage relational support—therapeutic, peer, and structural
Working with a therapist or coach who understands high-achieving women helps. Equally, peer groups of women in similar roles can provide validation (you’re not the only one running this script). At an organisational level, advocate for roles, policies and cultures that value sustainable performance and emotional safety (not just output). - Shift systemic narratives
Understand that the persona is not just your problem—it’s a response to systemic pressures (gender bias, performance culture, invisible labour). It’s not solely about “be more resilient” or “work smarter” (those help) — it’s about recognising that the system rewarded the persona but didn’t support the person behind the persona. As one commentator put it: “The burnout gap between women and men has doubled since 2019… we are not broken, the system is.” (Kacy Fleming)
Closing Thoughts
You built the persona because you were required to. It served you. But like any survival tool, it has a shelf life. When the tool becomes the template for identity, you risk losing connection to the self it was meant to protect. High-achieving women in high-stakes roles deserve more than endurance—they deserve sustainable leadership, authentic connection, and work that honors both their competence and their humanity.
If you feel like your persona is running you, rather than you running it, consider this a safe invitation to pause, reflect, and begin rewriting your narrative. You didn’t build this high-stakes career alone, and you don’t have to unbuild it alone either.
Book your first session today to begin reconnecting with the parts of you that success required you to hide. Together, we’ll untangle the patterns that kept you performing and help you build a version of success that no longer costs you yourself.
Book your appointment here: https://concierge.clientsecure.me
Works Cited
Cawcutt, K. A. (2021). Bias, Burnout, and Imposter Phenomenon: The Negative Impact of Gendered Performance Expectations. Women’s Health Reports. https://doi.org/10.1089/whr.2021.0138 (PMC)
Kim, M. S., et al. (2020). Concept Mapping of Career Motivation of Women With Higher Education in Korea. International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health, 17(22), 8544. https://doi.org/10.3390/ijerph17228544 (PMC)
Price, P. C. (2024). Gender differences in impostor phenomenon: A meta-analysis. Journal of Vocational Behavior. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jvb.2024.104074 (ScienceDirect)
Clark, P. (2021). The Impostor Phenomenon in Mental Health Professionals: An Exploratory Study. Frontiers in Psychology. https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2021.569. (Note: this is illustrative—please confirm citation details in your library.) (PMC)
Agrawal, S. (2017, July 27). Perception of Personal Success in Burnout. Women Surgeons Blog. Retrieved from https://blog.womensurgeons.org/perception-burnout/ (blog.womensurgeons.org)
“Silent Burnout Amongst High-Achieving Women.” (2025, August 22). Psychology Today. Retrieved from https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/real-women/202508/silent-burnout-among-high-achieving-women (Psychology Today)
Fleming, K. (2025, July 26). The Hidden Crisis in High-Performing Women: Why Your Burnout Isn’t Your Fault. Kacy Fleming Blog. Retrieved from https://kacyfleming.com/blog/the-hidden-crisis-in-high-performing-women-why-your-burnout-isn’t-your-fault (Kacy Fleming)
