When Confidence Slips Into Arrogance

People often want to work on their confidence. On arrogance - not as often. But I guess that comes with the latter’s definition. To add to it, arrogance can appear as confidence, a desirable aspect. But let me tell you a story about my experience over four years ago that is still very much alive for me.

I was out on a surf safari with one of my favourite and experienced instructors. He is charismatic, knowledgeable, confident, and certain - incredible qualities that you want in a leader. Qualities that told me I’m in good hands and I can trust him. When he said, in the middle of the ocean, to wait, I’d wait. When he said to jump, I’d jump. When he said to paddle and to keep paddling, I’d paddle despite exhaustion. He was passionate about being on the waves, and it was contagious. He was confident, and that was too contagious. I loved the experience.

On day three, we woke up as usual, at five in the morning, to be ready for the early tide after a freshly boiled instant coffee and some bananas. He looked around and said that the surf isn’t good. That we should wait for an hour. We waited. An hour later, he said that the surf won't be good this morning and that we should just stay on the shore.

A few of us looked at each other and decided that we were going to go anyway and just paddle around, maybe fall off the boards, but at least get our hair wet since we were already up. We ended up having an amazing surf, one of the better ones of the trip and the waves were fantastic. He didn’t join us. Neither did he later acknowledge, after we shared how amazing it was, that he was incorrect in his assessment. He said nothing about it. And to his credit, perhaps it was amazing for us, while it wouldn’t have been good for him, for his level...

So, not a big deal, on one hand.

On the other, I noticed myself starting to wonder - why didn’t he say something about it?

Did he just not think it relevant?

Or did he not want to admit his judgment being off-target?

He just kept unusually quiet about it. My thoughts continued...

Was there a similar pattern in other areas, where I put as much trust in his judgments, because he was so certain about it, and I wanted to trust him, and where his judgment could’ve been off? Probably. Who can be 100% right all the time?

It's not about being always right, it's about choosing what to do when you are wrong, or make a miscalculation. If we don’t admit when we are wrong, it can have an impact of reducing trust others have in our abilities, just like I noticed my own level of trust reducing, to a healthy place of not taking anything for granted, to filter his claims and suggestions through my own judgement, which is a better place to operate from anyway.

Well, in any case, it did make me wonder, to this day, how confidence can so easily slip into arrogance and shoot us in the foot, if we want to instil trust, loyalty, and openness among the people we work with.

How is this connected to mastering self-talk, which is what this series is about?

Arrogance is often driven by beliefs like “I can’t show doubt”, or “I shouldn’t admit mistakes,” or “Admitting mistakes will reduce confidence of my team in me” or something along these lines. Beliefs that, when verbalised or noticed, can be challenged and expanded. So that we no longer identify so tightly with being always right. So that we don’t depend on it, while keeping it available to us.

Pay attention to your beliefs. Otherwise, they can have a tight hold on you.