Overconfidence and Its Consequences – Are You Truly Competent or Just Pretending?
A question for you—without judgment or criticism. Take a moment to mentally note how you would answer the following: How do you rate your performance compared to that of your colleagues and other employees in the organization?
Would you say you belong to the top 1%? The best 5%? Maybe the top 10 or 20%? Do you see yourself among the best 30%? Haven’t nodded yet—then perhaps you consider yourself among the top 50% in your company?
You’ve noted your answer and may wonder what this is all about. Let’s first look at how others have responded. In 2022, the Global Coaching Group asked more than one hundred thousand people worldwide this very question. The results are striking: 70% said they are among the best 10% in their company. 82% believe they are in the top 20%. And 98% think they are in the top half, with only 2% placing themselves in the bottom half.
Statistically, this doesn’t add up: if 98% of employees think they are in the top half, the lower half would hardly exist. From this we learn that people who consider themselves successful tend to overrate their success and misjudge their actual performance.
Overconfidence Is Everywhere
Overconfidence—or the overconfidence effect—is the overly positive misjudgment of one’s own abilities. People who overestimate themselves believe they are superior to others. They think they can achieve more, endure longer, or have greater influence than is truly the case. Psychologists call this a cognitive bias.
The best-known aspect of this bias is the Dunning-Kruger effect, which describes a blind spot regarding one’s own competence. People greatly overestimate their abilities and fail to recognize their own lack of skill. This effect shows up in every area of life—whether at work or in everyday situations.
The Dunning-Kruger Effect in Action
The Dunning-Kruger effect, identified by psychologists David Dunning and Justin Kruger, shows that people with little knowledge are often the most confident. They significantly overrate their skills and can’t see how little they actually know.
A striking example is McArthur Wheeler, a bank robber from 1995. On a warm summer day in Pittsburgh, he smiled at a bank’s surveillance camera and robbed it without wearing a mask. Only hours later, he repeated the same method.
That evening the police caught him. Wheeler kept saying, “But I wore the juice.” At first the phrase seemed nonsensical. But his idea had a peculiar logic: he had rubbed lemon juice on his face, believing it would make him invisible to cameras—based on the fact that lemon juice can be used as invisible ink. Beforehand, he tested the idea with a Polaroid camera, which happened to produce blank photos because of a technical defect. He took this as proof that cameras couldn’t capture him.
So he entered banks with lemon juice on his face—an error with serious consequences.
It doesn’t have to be bank robbery. Overconfidence appears everywhere: drivers who believe they are better than average, talent-show contestants who think the world has been waiting for their voice, even university professors who consistently rate their own competence as above average.
Consequences of Overconfidence in Companies
When leaders and employees overestimate their competence, promised results often fail to materialize, creating tension within teams. We all know the colleague who loudly boasts about achievements during meetings, while everyone else knows the project succeeded only because others picked up the slack. The combination of incompetence and overconfidence is a dangerous mix, making it essential for leaders to watch for warning signs during hiring.
The Higher the Position, the Greater the Overconfidence
Have you ever been promoted? Did you notice that suddenly everyone laughs at your jokes, listens intently to your stories, and greets you warmly?
Typically, as people climb the hierarchy, they also begin to see themselves as more amusing, interesting, and capable than others. While natural to some extent, this mindset creates problems. Those convinced they are among the top 10% struggle to accept feedback from the remaining 90%, whom they perceive as less capable. Worse, they eventually value only the opinions of those who confirm their self-image. The higher someone rises, the harder it becomes to ask for help or to improve.
And unfortunately—dear men—research shows it is usually us who overestimate ourselves the most.
A Look at Gender Differences
According to an Australian study, men generally rate their intelligence higher than it actually is, while women tend to underestimate their own.
David Reilly’s team at Griffith University asked several hundred women and men to estimate their IQs before taking an IQ test. The results were clear: men are more prone to overestimating their intelligence.
The greatest overconfidence was found among men with particularly strong masculine personality traits—a phenomenon that may begin in childhood, when boys are often encouraged to act more self-assured than girls.
According to Reilly, this gap may partly explain the gender pay gap and differences in salary negotiations, as less confident women may undervalue their skills and negotiate less aggressively.
Recognizing Blind Spots in Your Own Competence
Whether male or female, being open, reflective, and objective with yourself and others helps identify blind spots in your abilities and prevents you from falling victim to distorted perceptions.
To avoid the trap of overconfidence as a leader, I share practical, real-world strategies in my book The Hero’s Journey of a Leader – How to Become the Best Version of Yourself as a Leader. A realistic self-assessment not only drives continuous improvement but also leads to achievements that others genuinely recognize.