Don’t trust false confidence, but don’t ignore assuredness.
False confidence is the conviction that things will go well but with no experience or knowledge to support that confidence. “I know I’ll win the lottery on Friday” is the ultimate example of false confidence.
Assuredness is a convicted confidence, informed by knowledge, experience, and memory. I am reasonably assured that my ensembles will sing well in their concert, because I know the work they’ve been putting in and I know they have a history of performing well in their concerts, over many years.
I can have that assuredness, sometimes even when my ensemble members cannot. Four weeks ago, when my students were having trouble with memory, pitch accuracy, phrasing, and sense of ensemble, I didn’t panic. I was assured that it would all work. My work and their work would bring them where they needed to go – plus or minus 10% – in the time allowed.
I can imagine some students new to the ensemble might have needed to lean on someone else’s assuredness – they didn’t have the knowledge, experience, or memory to be assured themselves. And that is why we continue communicating our assuredness with our ensembles. “My confidence isn’t false, it is based on the following factors. Keep doing the work and we’ll get right where we need to go.”
Differentiating between false confidence and assuredness is an essential task for leaders. If I feel confident about something, I must ask myself why, and how much I trust the feeling. Plenty of leaders have gotten into trouble mistaking false confidence with assuredness – even leaders with the experience, knowledge, and memory to know better.
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