Confidence: How confident is Goldilocks?

Helen Broadbridge, a Trainee Solicitor at Macfarlanes LLP and member of the Equality, Diversity & Inclusion Committee will explore some of the qualities often suggested as lying at the root of women’s lack of progress, in this second of three articles.

As part of their seminal article The Confidence Gap, Katty

Kay and Claire Shipman asked the All-Star WNBA player Monique Currie whether her wellspring of confidence was as deep as that of a male athlete. She rolled her eyes. “For guys,” she said, “I think they have maybe 13- or 15-player rosters, but all the way down to the last player on the bench, who doesn’t get to play a single minute, I feel like his confidence is just as big as the superstar of the team. For women, it’s not like that.” 1

Attitudes towards women are gradually changing, but research still suggests that women pay a heavier price if their confidence is viewed as excessive. If a woman strolls into her boss’s office to give unsolicited opinions, if she speaks first in meetings, or if she gives advice above her seniority level, she risks being disliked. It is not only her competence that is called into question; it is her character. Thus, confident women find themselves in a Goldilocks conundrum - they need their confidence levels to be just right.

“Women do seem to toot their horns less than their male colleagues,” notes Hannah Riley Bowles, an expert in women’s leadership at Harvard Kennedy School. “The problem is when you stop there and say, ‘Okay, well, women just need to be more like men.’ The story of why women are more modest than men is much more complicated than that.” 2 Unless women can moderate their assertiveness with stereotypically feminine traits such as empathy or altruism, confidence will do little for their career progression. 3

Analysing data from a global technology company, researchers found that the outward self-confidence of men and women was not rewarded equally. “The more confident male engineers in our sample appeared to be, the more influence they had in the organization,” the researchers found. “Women were able to translate their self-confident image into influence only when they also displayed high pro-social orientation, or the motivation to benefit others.” 4

While men received a straightforward benefit from their confidence, women had to master the appearance of both confidence and humility. Too modest and women’s achievements are overlooked. Too confident and women face the ‘backlash effect’ – a professional and social penalty for failing to adhere to gender norms. For example, confident women were found often to be perceived as less likable and less hireable. 5 It can therefore be a fear of this backlash, and not a simple lack of confidence, that holds many women back from self-promoting. 6

“The focus on the confidence gap is troubling as it suggests something is wrong with women, and that we need to ‘fix’ them and have them act more like men,” says Jessi L. Smith, a psychology professor at the University of Colorado. “This misplaces the responsibility and the burden.” 7 The next edition will explore assertiveness and how women might walk the tightrope between confidence and backlash. ■

1. Kay, K & Shipman, C, 2014, ‘The Confidence Gap’, The

Atlantic. 2. Thomson, S, 2018, ‘A Lack of Confidence Isn’t What’s Holding

Back Working Women’, The Atlantic. 3. Guillen, L, 2018, ‘Is the Confidence Gap Between Men and

Women a Myth?’ Harvard Business Review. 4. Guillen, L, 2019, ‘Appearing self-confident and getting credit for it: Why it may be easier for men than women to gain influence at work,’ Human Resource Management. 5. Rudman, L.A, 2001, ‘Prescriptive Gender Stereotypes and

Backlash Toward Agentic Women’, Journal of Social Issues. 6. Lindeman, M. I. H., 2018, ‘Women and Self-Promotion: A Test of Three Theories’, Psychological Reports. 7. Thomson, S, 2018, ‘A Lack of Confidence Isn’t What’s Holding

Back Working Women’, The Atlantic.