Confidence is not competence
An ‘over and over’ again story about how women are held back by entitlement.
I’m writing about my experiences of working for almost 25yrs in creative professions, with mostly male leaders. Infact, I have never had a female boss in agencies. The only way I got to work for a woman is to start my own business, and that’s not for everyone.
I am not speaking about anyone specifically, its everyone and no-one. Let’s not turn this into a witch hunt, because with such gendered language, that would suggest a woman was to blame, and she’s not.
While I wish I did, I don’t have the solutions to the problems I will speak about.
This is an over and over again story about how confidence gets confused for competence. This is a story about entitlement.
Men have been raised to believe they are the alpha sex. Their dominance has been reinforced over and over again, by their mothers, their teachers, their employees, their leaders.
A great female said to me the other day that girls ask their mothers what they can do to help get dinner, while boys ask when will dinner be ready. It’s ingrained, deeply.
Research has shown even the way we speak to our children differs depending on their sex. We give boys directions, while girls get lengthy explanations. We are teaching boys to tell, and girls to influence.
When you think about what we admire in our leaders, it’s confidence, in fact its over-confidence if you consider confidence only stands out when it is there in abundance. And because of the way we raise our kids, confidence is not found in equal measure between men and women.
So the confident men become leaders. To combat this, Sheryl Sandberg wanted us to just ‘Lean in’, be as confident as the men and beat confidence at it’s own game?
There’s a problem with that. Leaders with confidence are diametrically opposed to leaders with competence.
Over-confident leaders lack self awareness, of their actions or their limitations, they are tone deaf. They make reckless decisions because they don’t take the time to digest the evidence, they think they know better intuitively. They are self-serving in their priorities without curiosity or without empathy for others. They are not technical experts, because they’ve relied on charm and charisma instead of developing a skillbase.
Oh, you know that guy? Yep, me too.
So what does working for a confident leader mean in practice?
It means you do the hardwork, and he will take the credit. Even if he does by miracle credit you, in his head he believes he made it possible and so you should be grateful. He will take the keynote when the industry gets interested, because remember he made it possible, and obviously he will present it better.
You should accept you are there to serve him. Just the way his mother did.
What does that mean in the Pandemic economy?
Male leadership is a massive issue in this economy downturns. Women are being fired at a significantly higher rates than men. PWC reported in 2018 that female CEOs are 45% more likely to be fired than their male counterparts. And just last week, ABC reported that women have lost their jobs at 3x the rate of men. And are being asked to reduce their salaries to get new jobs.
Because the men are the bosses, and they are firing the women. And because they don’t respect what we bring, they will pay us less.
How could it be different?
If we were to depart from our obsession with confidence, and promoted for talent, we would have a very different criteria. We would be looking for technical expertise, integrity, empathy, competency, curiosity, humility, self-control, emotional intelligence.
Oh you know her? Me too.
Looking at how women score on these attributes, we would have 55-60% female leaders.
So how do you rise through the ranks?
There’s no single answer to this.
You might decide to turn your humility into assertiveness. You might decide to build your personal brand and take the side lights. You might apply gentle persistence and gradually be heard at the table.
Only one thing is certain. In doing all that, you will get a new label. It wont be competent. It wont be knowledgeable. It wont be capable.
You’ll be called difficult, and challenging, and tough, and a ball breaker. Why? Because you used the same tactics as a man. And they do not believe you are not entitled.
So what do we do?
From here on in, let’s make a pact.
Let’s raise men who are not entitled, but who can hold their own against men who are. I will do this by showing them a woman can do everything a man can do, and by ensuring they ask if they can help prepare the dinner.
Let’s ensure our teams understand we are interested in talent, and one criteria applies to both sexes.
Let’s never pay confidence credit unless it comes from a place of deep competency.
Let’s not be afraid of the word difficult. It will die off with the middle aged entitled men. In the meantime, wear it like a badge of honour. Because it means you have a point of view and that you have expressed it, and that’s the kind of woman I want to work with.
I'd love to hear what you’re thinking.