This page is part of a monologue. Relax, no need to read: it may not be useful for some.
Confidence is, to explain it relatively easily, being sure of something.
In a variety of situations, “over” confidence can cause problems with relationships and the work being done. The same for “under” confidence, i.e. lack of confidence.
- How confidence is “perceived” raises interesting question about whether a person showing “enough” confidence in fact has that quantity of confidence, or is a confident person, or both.
For a start, I am usually perceived as someone who lacks confidence. I have problem making eye-contact – this might be a suprising thing if you know me. I am not “shy” of making contact, but I know in situations of ambiguity, I could be seen to avoid eye contact. I am guessing here – I probably look and sound like somebody talking to myself, or to the “air” in front, rather than speaking to people in the room.
It’s easier for me to say, and there’s no cognitive or mental experiment to prove it conclusively: I often deliverately show lack of confidence because I do not have the full picture, or I am prevented from having full access to information. Looking back to previous projects and responsibilities I have had, this is the overriding pattern – that there’s no point demonstrating confidence when it is not 100% or even 90% sure of what’s going on. From various points of view – mental, cognitive, psychological and psychiatrical – there will be many more factors at play to which I resolve confidence this way. That’s for the experts to unpack.
Getting this far, it sounds like some definitions might achieve clarity:
Confidence
Dictionaries tend to say that confidence is the quality of being certain about your own ability, having trust in something external to you, e.g. people, systems etc.
As above, I made this even more general: the state of being sure of something. For example, I can be sure that my colleague will identify improvements, by the end of the week, to the work we are collaborating on.
Confident
This is easy, it is the “being certain” of confidence 🙂
Certain, certainty
The “certain” in “being certain” needs clarity too. At one extreme, it is about whether a knowledge is fact or immediately derived from such.
For example, my colleague is certain that my suggestions for improvement of our collaborated file is my latest version – this is corroboated by the “fact” that we discussed it briefly and we looked at the same file being the file my colleague will work on.
I am also certain that my colleague and I will complete this piece of work latest by Tuesday of next week. The “facts” for this is firstly, those who are waiting for this document have reviewed early draft and have approved of the future improvements in principle. Secondly, my colleague and I have a number of other things to do but this is the top priority between now and Tuesday. Thirdly, so long there is electricity and about 20 minutes of internet connectivity for the transmission of files and safe receipt, there is no other factors that could prevent the remaining work – any of us could work from any where.
That is certainty, being certain of dependencies and outcome.
Arrogance – cultural, physiological etc.
There is a fine line between confidence and arrogance, and this is where I suspect I suffer.
Arrogance has a picture of a “high nose”, or “high eyes”, treating others as “not that good compared to me”. A crucial point here is how an “arrogant” person treats knowledge and experience. The knowledge and experience that this person has could well be well-founded, valid, and respectable, but it is the “I am far, far better than any of you” attitude / standpoint / approach that constitutes the “arrogant” part. Worse, is the knowledge or experience that this “arrogant” person has is wrong, unethical, or irrelevant.
Further, and this is where it gets interesting. Cultural, physiciological factors, and many others, play a significant part in confidence. The fact that I speak louder, I am taller, my choice of words and my phrasing of points could well put me in a confident-favourable position, far higher than I really am (“inside”, psychological), and in other times, far lower.
Our culture communicates, and is a communication tool. Focusing on our body language and our manner of speech, somebody from the northern hemisphere might come across as very relaxed when communicating a point that requires oomph of confidence, compared to someone uttering the same point, but this second person is from the southern hemisphere who has grown up with the nurtured ability to voice over debates: literary in the “voicing over” and carrying their points in a “strong” manner.
Why am I not a confident person?
Are you saying being confidence comes across as arrogant? Yes, that’s the point I struggle with.
Do you mean you are a confident person, if you forget about the arrogant part? Ha, that’s a difficult one. But I think this is where the additional facets, and experience, is relevant. Read on…
As a young child I was both shy but arrogant. This got worse into teenage years.
- I was shy because, well, I think that’s my nature. I was arrogant because there were skills, knowledge and ways of thinking that I thought I had that were a bit “superior” to my peers. Whether this really was the case, it’s impossible to prove then, and now.
- it’s also worth noting that the arrogance is probably a defence mechanism, a kind of coping strategy.
It's one thing to blame the social and cultural environment, it's another to know what to do with it. And this is what I struggle with, to the point the "struggle" or "struggling" is the status quo.
What does this mean in practice. A bit of recalling of experience here might be useful to illustrate:
In all my places of work, so long there is time for me to “find my feet”, both in settling into the work and environment, and knowing the fullness of the work / projects I am doing, my confidence would and has come through. To gain some clarity:
“Finding my feet” means both I, my employer, colleagues and the “structure” all play a part in me getting enough grasp of the “how this place works” so I could do the work, knowing where the boundaries are, what buttons to press, when, or not to press at all. Further, to what extent managers and directors above me are very likely to support me, i.e. the boundaries can change so long both sides recognise changing nature of the boundaries without having to discuss and negotiate at length.
My confidence “coming through”. This part is evidence of evolution. As above, I was an arrogant person. Later in life, when my social circle enlarged, I discovered more in life and in people. With several change of addresses where I met more people in differing employment and social circles, I came to realise my arrogant attitude was being interpreted as … arrogant, or “proud” in the negative sense.
Perhaps I did have some quality that I was proud of, which made me feeling “confident” and “arrogant”. But lowering my level of portrayal of my confidence does not mean my confidence evaporates. I tested this which improved my relationship with others, en masse. It sounds like “dropping the guard”.
Again, in this monologue, I can say things to my favour. I have taken the approach not to unnecessarily portray confidence unless I have full grasp of knoweldge and facts, and my work leads me to be so. Even so, I make sure I don’t come across as arrogant. And I think this is the part where I might have overplayed it, that I still come across as lacking in confidence. That, at least to me, is why I come across as one who lacks in confidence.
More to illustrate?
In the past few weeks, I have helped out with equipment for hybrid worship. In introducing changes, I held back in my process, so to ensure people have time and space to provide feedback, or that they have time to manage their own uneasiness having to deal with new things. For others, this will come across as lacking in confidence.
On one occasion:
- I was the lead musician along with a singing group,
- and a second lead person for Zoom where I introduced
- change of seating arrangement
- and changes of microphone etc. etc. etc.!!
I was confident in what I was doing, including
- dealing with uncertainties and unexpected / out-of-bound things,
- and solved several problems including internet connectivity (loss of)
- and played my “music” part to a degree I was satisfied as per the occasion, I had no further capacity to be or do “more”, or “different”.
To come away from that, for someone to say to me you look and sound like a confident person, will be out of place, because I did not show that. And in fact, no one said that to me. But it is my confidence in my knowledge, skills and experience, in fact, my very high level confidence, that I could proceed to do a wide range of things, and what looked like an acceptable outcome.
To say this the other way, would others have the confidence in me for the music part, or the online (zoom) part, or even for me to deal with both in the same service? Yes. In my plan and my implementationi, I showed it, several times. And I achieve that without being arrogant, but with a lack of portrayal of full confidence.
Does this say something about expectation of others, for example in the work place?
Yes, the way we assess others, consciously / deliberately, unconsciously / by instinct, and somewhere in between, we often let others down. That’s another topic. Suffice to say there is danger in my being allocated projects, more likely “not”, that require a “confident” person.
