Confidence is key: Lessons in competence

“To seem more competent, be more confident”—at least according to the title of an article by Jack Nasher that appeared in the Harvard Business Review on March 11, 2019.

Does acting confidently matter?

Readers are likely both judges and judged, both a boss and a subordinate. Research says that the answer to this question is yes. So, the reader gets the issue coming and going. Consider the following experiment:

The Set-Up. Take 60 imaginary people. Tell the 60 that they are facing a tennis tournament or a class final exam. The subjects are informed that individuals in one group forecast a positive outcome, while other individuals forecast a much less rosy outcome. The subjects are then asked to rate the competence level of the individuals.

The Result. The optimistic ones were rated as much more competent than their less optimistic counterparts. But it gets worse—even with an optimistic forecast and a horrible result, they were still rated almost twice as competent as those who accurately forecasted their poor performance.

Lessons

Nasher boils it down: