Latest / Women at Work: Career, Leadership & Modern Work / How Returning Mothers Navigate the Confidence Gap at Work
Transcript
- Lucas: You return from maternity leave. Your performance reviews are still strong. Your numbers haven't slipped. But you feel less sure of yourself in meetings — you hesitate before speaking, you second-guess your ideas. A study from McKinsey last year found that 43 percent of women coming back from leave report a drop in confidence, even when objective performance holds steady. Luna: That number is striking. And I think a lot of women hear that and think, 'Oh, that's just impostor syndrome again.' But is it really the same thing? Lucas: That's the right question. Psychologists distinguish between impostor syndrome and what some researchers call 're-entry shock.' Impostor syndrome is that persistent internal feeling of fraudulence regardless of context. Re-entry shock is situational — it happens when you step back into an environment that has changed while you were away, and you haven't recalibrated yet. Luna: So it's more about the transition than a personality trait. That makes a difference in how you address it. Lucas: Exactly. And the McKinsey data backs that up. They surveyed over 2,000 women who took parental leave across industries. The confidence drop was most acute in the first three months back, and it correlated strongly with two factors: how much organizational context they missed — like new projects, shifting priorities — and how much informal network contact they had during leave. Luna: So women who had colleagues check in occasionally, even just a text or a coffee, reported a much smaller dip. That's not about fixing the individual — it's about the system around her. Lucas: Right. And yet most companies treat returning from leave as a purely administrative process. Here's your laptop, here's your badge, your email is reactivated. No structured reintegration. No acknowledgment that your brain has been in a completely different mode for weeks or months. Luna: I want to get practical here because I know a lot of our listeners are either facing this now or manage people who are. One tactic that kept coming up in my research is what some coaches call the 'pre-meeting win list.' Lucas: Walk me through it. Luna: Before a meeting — especially a high-stakes one — you write down three things you've done well recently that are directly relevant to the discussion. Not affirmations, but concrete wins. 'I closed the Q2 budget reconciliation ahead of deadline. I caught a pricing error that saved us $15,000. I onboarded the new analyst and she's ahead of schedule.' Lucas: So you're literally reminding yourself of your own competence before you walk into a room where you might feel like a newcomer. Luna: Exactly. And it's not about ego. It's about countering the recency bias your brain applies — because the most recent feedback you got was probably about diapers and sleep schedules, not about financial models. Lucas: That's smart. And there's research that backs up the mechanism. A 2022 study from Harvard Business Review found that when people mentally rehearse past successes before a challenging task, their cortisol levels drop and their performance improves. It's not just feel-good advice. Luna: But I want to be careful here. The burden shouldn't fall entirely on the returning parent. Managers play a huge role. Lucas: Absolutely. And I'd argue most managers are flying blind. They've never been trained on how to reintegrate someone after extended leave. So they either overcompensate — 'welcome back, take it easy' — which can make the employee feel sidelined, or they undercompensate — 'you're back, catch up on your own' — which feels like abandonment. Luna: There's a middle ground. Some organizations have started doing structured 'return to work check-ins' at week one, month one, and month three. Not performance reviews — just alignment conversations. 'What's changed? What do you need? What's surprising you?' Lucas: And that's where a sponsor — not just a mentor — can be crucial. A mentor gives advice. A sponsor uses their political capital to advocate for you. For a returning mother, having a sponsor who says 'she's ready for that stretch assignment' can short-circuit months of self-doubt. Luna: The data backs that up too. In the McKinsey study, women with an active sponsor reported a 60 percent smaller drop in confidence. That's huge. Lucas: So the playbook is actually clear: pre-meeting win lists for the individual, structured check-ins from the manager, and active sponsorship from senior leadership. But very few companies do all three. Why do you think that is? Luna: I think it's because we still frame maternity leave as a disruption to be managed rather than a transition to be supported. It's seen as a break from 'real work,' and returning means you have to prove yourself all over again. That mindset needs to shift. Lucas: And the irony is that many of the skills developed during leave — efficiency, prioritization, crisis management, emotional regulation — are directly applicable to leadership. But because they happen outside the office, they're invisible on a resume. Luna: I've heard returning mothers describe themselves as 'rusty,' when really they're just out of practice with the specific rhythms of the office. The core competence didn't go anywhere. Lucas: That's the confidence gap in a nutshell. It's a gap between perceived ability and actual ability. And the fix isn't to tell women to 'lean in' harder. It's to change the conditions that create the gap in the first place. Luna: So if you're a returning mother listening right now, what's one thing you can do tomorrow? Lucas: I'd say: pick one meeting this week where you've historically been quiet. Before it starts, write down your win list. Then commit to making one substantive contribution — even if your voice shakes a little. The act of speaking rewires the expectation that you have nothing to say. Luna: And if you're a manager, what's your one move? Lucas: Schedule a thirty-minute check-in for the returning parent's second week back. Don't call it a review. Ask three questions: 'What's been the biggest change since you left? What's one thing you need to feel effective? And what's one thing you've learned during leave that could help the team?' That last question signals that you value the whole person. Luna: I love that. It reframes leave as a period of growth, not just absence. And it gives the returning employee permission to bring their full self back to work. Lucas: Ultimately, the confidence gap isn't a women's issue — it's a leadership issue. Organizations that close it don't just support mothers. They build a culture where people can step away and step back in without losing their footing. Luna: And that benefits everyone. Because at some point, almost every professional takes a leave — for parenting, for health, for caregiving. The question is whether the system catches you or lets you fall. Lucas: Next episode, we're going to look at another invisible hurdle: the way performance reviews penalize women for the same traits that earn men promotions. It's called the 'likeability penalty,' and the data will surprise you. Luna: Looking forward to it. Until then, keep the conversation going.