04/02/2022
It’s a common feeling: while you are busy doing a good job, others seem to be advancing much faster in their careers. What’s going on?
The answer in many cases is your contributions are not being seen and recognized. One important reason this happens is that people are simply not great at assessing competence — a crucial trait for succeeding at work — and perceptions of competence are just as important for success as actual competence.
But why do people view confident others as more competent, even when their performance suggests otherwise? One explanation is that we have a tendency to believe what we are told, and to confirm our beliefs by selecting information that supports them. The term for this is confirmation bias. So if you project confidence, others tend to believe you know what you’re talking about, and they will then filter ambiguous information (like how much luck may have helped or hurt you) to fit their initial impression.
While it’s unwise to project fake confidence when you know you won’t perform well, being too modest likely won’t serve you well either. As we saw in Schlenker & Leary’s study, people tend to penalize humble actors by deciding against them and choosing the confident ones. Modesty is regarded as hedging against possible failure, an attempt to take the wind out of critics’ sails. If the expert doesn’t trust in his or her abilities, how could anyone else?
In order to convince others of your abilities, you should make it a habit to communicate that you are good at what you do — without any self-deprecation regarding your core competencies.
