When you think about what separates confidence from arrogance, there can be a fine line between the two. Most people have opinions on what constitutes arrogance from personal experience; we’ve all come across people who we perceive to be arrogant, but where does the distinction come from – is it a matter of opinion?
The truth is that the lines between arrogance and confidence are intertwined and easily blurred. Thinking about this in a leadership context – if these attributes are difficult to define in others, how much harder is it for leaders to recognise in themselves when there is a lot more at play? Expectation from colleagues and wider teams, the pressure to ‘prove’ yourself as a good leader – it can be easy for leaders to try too hard to appear confident, and end up demonstrating over-confidence, or arrogance.
Confidence is absolutely essential for success in a position of leadership, but arrogance is a behaviour that could threaten your effectiveness as a leader.
In today’s blog, we look at how to recognise the critical differences between confidence and arrogance and how to manage these behaviours in the context of your leadership role.
When Arrogance is Presented as Confidence – Common Scenarios to be Aware Of
As a leader, your time can often be consumed thinking about the behaviours and actions of your team. Revisiting or auditing our own behaviours is not something we tend to do that regularly, unless something is highlighted and there is a reason for us to question it.
There is a certain amount of bravado you need to possess in leadership – your team are looking to you not just for specific guidance but to be the reliable figurehead to provide consistency and stability within the team. But this ‘fake it till you make it’ approach can often have the opposite effect on your team. The following are common behaviours that leaders can demonstrate when trying to double down in an effort to appear confident in their own decisions:
- Believing that their opinion is the ‘right’ one, without listening to all members of the team/stakeholders in order to make a fast decision to progress a project.
- Reluctance to admit when they are not 100% sure of which direction to take something, or even lying to their team or trying to cover up when things aren’t going right.
- The inability to want to take on board opinions from employees with less experience than them.
No leader gets it right 100% of the time. It can be tempting to try and overcompensate as a leader when you feel slightly out of your depth, but this is inadvisable.
Let’s look instead at how leaders can adapt their behaviour to increase confidence without displaying arrogance.
Increasing Self-Belief
You will have been appointed to your leadership role as a result of your expertise in your field. Naturally, you will have a certain amount of self-belief in your technical skills and abilities, but what about the people skills needed to do your job as a leader – how confident do you feel in them?
It probably won’t surprise you that a certain amount of leaders and senior leaders have imposter syndrome – or a lack of confidence in their own aptitude as a leader. Even if those around you have confidence in your abilities, this does not always translate into your own psyche.
To increase your self-confidence, it is not about taking on more work or striving for better results to ‘prove’ yourself. Instead, look to regularly self-reflect on your own leadership skills and competencies.
Increasing self-belief is achieved by reflection, in having honest self-assessments about your current strengths and weaknesses and demonstrating the ability to work on things about yourself that you want to improve. You can also ask your close team and your own management for leadership areas they think you could work on.
Practicing Humility and Honesty With Your Team
As a leader one of the most difficult challenges can be when the team are looking to you for guidance and you can’t give them the answers they are looking for. This could be either due to you not wanting to share negative news or updates, not being certain on the outcomes or decisions you and the wider management team are making, or due to a straightforward gap in your own knowledge.
Your team will always react better to honesty than you might think. If you don’t have the update, answer, skills or knowledge they are looking for, being honest about this is always the best course of action. No-one is going to benefit from you pretending to have all the answers. Be ready to admit when there is a skill or knowledge gap in your own skillset and be honest with your team about this. Despite what you might think, admitting your weaknesses is a way to develop your own confidence – it makes you human and increases your potential to learn.
Finally
Often, arrogance comes from overcompensation, when leaders who don’t feel totally in control of a situation look to mask this with supposedly confident behaviours.
Increasing and maintaining confidence in your leadership skills without this tipping over into arrogance is something that leaders must be aware of.
No matter how long you have been in your leadership role I would advise regularly revisiting your leadership style, being aware of the tone and content of your interactions and seek feedback from your direct reports and other colleagues in order to maintain mutual respect and strengthen your working relationships with your team.
Until next time,
Julia Carter
About Zestfor
Zestfor delivers training coaching and development programs and resources scientifically tailored to develop new and experienced leaders and their teams in technical markets – including Pharmaceutical, Life Sciences and I.T.
Our blend of in-classroom, online, and virtual live-stream delivery methods will engage and assure even the most introverted team members from the first meeting.
You can find out more about our leadership training and development programmes here.
