Confidence Games

“Confidence is essential for gaining trust and building credibility.”

“Confidence is essential for gaining trust and building credibility.”

“You don’t need to be qualified for the job, you just need the confidence to pull off the interview.”

“She a great PM, but she needs to develop the confidence/executive presence to get to the next level.”

I hear stuff like this all the time. I’ve said as much to my teams in the past.

But I can see now that it’s not true. I take it all back.

Confidence is a big scam.

Confidence is performative, mostly. It’s how you act, it’s not how you are.

If you’re like me, and you sometimes experience self-doubt, insecurity, or performance anxiety, the idea that you need to be “confident” to be successful can be… defeating.

Maybe if I were more confident, I could be more successful. Most CEOs appear confident, right?

Most CEOs also appear to be over 6 feet tall. I have no doubt that being really tall could also help me be more successful.

Confidence, like height, is nice to have. But it’s not highly correlated with success. It’s like wearing a suit and tie to work: I don’t want to continue to do it just because a bunch of old white guys did.

I know lots of very successful, high-earning professionals who I don’t think would describe themselves as “confident.”

And that’s ok. Many of the most successful people I’ve known did not build their career on charismatic, compelling in-room performances. Most of them built their careers on a long track record of being good at their job.

While we are here interrogating our biases, let’s consider where our role models for confidence come from. Do they come from stereotypes for intelligent, compassionate, thoughtful people with excellent judgement and a track record of success?

Is a scientist confident? No. They are consistent and methodical in their approach, but a confident personality has not been scientifically shown to produce better results.

How about an airline pilot? We a pilot to be competent, but nobody is telling them they need to work on their “executive presence”.

Do we want a physician who performs the same displays of confidence as a business person? Hell no! Red flag! I want a doctor who is educated, trained, conscientious, compassionate, and thorough.

If we look beyond confidence, we discover that there are so many more important leadership skills being deployed by our best role models. They are concise, consistent, and decisive. They’re empathetic, curious, and understanding.

They are vulnerable! Our stereotypes for a confident leader seem to be mutually exclusive with somebody who is vulnerable, curious, open to being proven wrong. And too often, they reinforce patriarchal, gendered stereotypes that reinforce the idea that men are natural leaders.

Can you admit when you don’t know something? Can you identify what you have yet to learn, and can you admit when you’re wrong? Can you identify when by being wrong you have harmed somebody? Whatever their gender, these are behaviors of a leader I want to line up behind.

I won’t deny that it’s often helpful to appear confident. Let’s all agree that that performative confidence is a helpful skill for getting business done. (I like to say that in the saying “Fake it till you make it” that “it” refers to confidence, not your actual skills. Learn the skills, fake the confidence!)

Most confidence is fake. In fact, fake confidence is the best kind! Ask a professional athlete before a major competition: Are you feeling confident? Of course they will say they are. But what are they feeling inside? Not much different from you before your big meeting, I’ll bet.

Here’s the good news: Appearing confident doesn’t require inner peace, a deeply held and unassailable conviction that you’re right, perfect spelling and grammar, a louder voice, or a snazzier deck.

Fake confidence means trusting yourself to say and do the best thing you can under the circumstances. It means respecting yourself enough to have faith that your skill and hard work is going to deliver results in the end. That’s what the athlete is thinking: She knows herself, she trusts her body, and she intends to deliver the very best performance she can.

In a professional setting, interviewing a product manager or hiring a tradesperson, I am inclined to trust someone who seems to know what they’re doing.

But that trust grows much stronger when it’s inspired by evidence of the quality of their work.

(This, by the way, is why we have behavioral interview questions: To cut past our ability to bloviate and focus on our empirical experiences and the results they earned.)

Trust gained solely through performative confidence is often misplaced. It’s why they’re called “con men.” Let’s all try not be so eager to be fooled!

These are the messages I want to send into the world:

• I value competence over confidence.

• A leader is always learning.

• Vulnerability builds trust.

• Enhance your credibility by admitting when you’re wrong.

So if you are out there struggling with your own feelings of self-confidence, here’s my message for you: You’re ok, you’re good.

We all feel this. We might not admit it, maybe because we became successful by faking it. There’s nothing wrong with that. If it’s working for you, keep going!

For everybody else: Your job is hard enough without feeling like you need to make it look easy.

It’s especially screwed up to expect people from communities that have been historically marginalized to play this stupid game. I want to dismantle the stereotypes that clog the filter through which I understand the world. “Confidence” is a catch-all for a bunch of crap that perpetuate stereotypes related to gender, race, culture, language, and more.

I want to try to meet everybody where they are.

Reveal your talent, skills, and expertise through your work. Be decisive, concise, and consistent.

Be competent. Be amazing.

Be how you are, and that’s going to be enough.