An Overrated Trait

I avoid making friends with genuinely confident people because they are often blind to their own faults but dialled in to other people’s. Most of the managers in the companies I have worked in have been amongst the most ‘confident’ people in the organisation and in many cases I think it’s a surface confidence. When it goes beyond that it becomes a problem because they actually believe in the myth of their own brilliance. One manager in particular used to come to our centre and proceeded to deliver a word salad that meant very little in real terms but allowed him to look like he was actually earning his huge board level salary. He contributed nothing to our teaching but the other senior managers fawned over him. That’s a lot to do with the fact that the senior managers have to say how good each other are in order to keep up appearances.

In so many cases, confidence tips over into arrogance and affects so many people around them. You only have to look at 99% of our politicians in the UK and the rest of the world to see the problems that confidence leads to. A clear understanding of your limits and an acknowledgement of your weaknesses is absolutely essential. As soon as I meet any genuinely confident people I avoid them like the plague because I will have nothing in common with them and I want to keep it like that.