4 Issues Really Assured Folks At all times Do (and Insecure Folks Nearly By no means Do)
A psychologist explains how to tell them apart.
EXPERT OPINION BY MINDA ZETLIN, AUTHOR OF ‘CAREER SELF-CARE: FIND YOUR HAPPINESS, SUCCESS, AND FULFILLMENT AT WORK’ @MINDAZETLIN
How can you tell a truly confident person from someone who’s deeply insecure and covering it up with a show of bravado? It helps to know the difference when you’re considering a new employee, business partner, friend, or even someone to date. A truly confident person can be an asset to your company, a reliable business partner, or a dependable friend. Someone who’s faking it may turn angry or hostile when you’re not expecting it.
“It’s easy to get hoodwinked,” writes Marisa G. Franco, a psychologist and professor at the University of Maryland. Her newest book is Worth: The New Science of Self-Esteem and Secure Attachment. In a thoughtful piece for Psychology Today, Franco explains how to tell a truly confident person from an insecure one. It’s worth reading all her tips. These are a good starting point.
1. Confident people are considerate of everyone.
“Seeing human beings in a hierarchy is a sign of insecurity,” Franco notes. An insecure person won’t respect you if they think you’re on the same level as them. And they may be rude or condescending to people they see as below them on the social or business ladder.
This reminds me of a post by speaker and podcaster Shola Richards that’s getting a lot of attention on LinkedIn. Richards argues that the way we treat baristas, hotel housekeepers, and other service people we’ll likely never see again reveals whether we’re truly kind or just pretending. From what Franco says, it can also reveal whether we’re really confident or insecure.
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2. Confident people don’t let their emotions derail them.
I’m not suggesting that confident people never get emotional. In fact, being willing and able to show their emotions in front of others can be a sign of confidence. (Winston Churchill and Steve Jobs both cried in the workplace.) But truly confident people don’t often get swept away by those emotions. It’s rare for them to lash out at someone because they’re feeling frustrated or upset.
Research shows more confident and emotionally healthier people generally are in a better mood than those who are insecure, Franco adds. “Their groundedness helps them make other people feel safe,” she writes.
3. Confident people admit when they’re wrong.
Truly confident people understand that being wrong about something doesn’t mean that they’re dumb or inexpert. It simply means that they were mistaken, perhaps because they didn’t have all the relevant information. So when they discover that they were wrong about something, they can often say so without shame, and without treating their mistake like a huge calamity. “They don’t try to avoid their own discomfort by blaming the situation on someone else or minimizing the impact,” Franco writes.
Source: www.inc.com
