Jill Ridley-Smith

For leaders, when does confidence spill over into arrogance? I was asked this on a panel recently and I was indebted to fellow panellist Meeta Sahni for her excellent answer, that those who are confident but not arrogant are leaders who listen to others.

I was reminded of this reading a recently published piece of research from my MBA school Kellogg on Executive Presence. Brooke Vuckovic has a fascinating formula (see image). I like it. Credibility and confidence go hand in hand, and false confidence is arrogance. Ease is an interesting one and I see it as integral to great leadership.

All the best leaders I’ve worked with convey “ease”, although it’s difficult to exactly pin down. It’s more than them being unflustered; it’s the confidence I have in them that they are unflusterable.

Yet it was the formula denominator – ego – that really caught my eye, as large egos are directly related to arrogance in my mind. Her advice for those with oversized egos (and by the formula, then potentially reduced Executive Presence) is to foster humility by stopping thinking about themselves too much. The advice is the same for those with very small egos: to focus more on their purpose, their values, their contributions, not themselves.

Why do I care though? We’ve all worked with arrogant leaders and has that meant they are bad leaders? Geniunely its a fine line, and a small amount of arrogance I don’t think makes someone a bad leader. But it becomes an issue depending on what is driving the arrogance. If its arrogance from ignorance, people with this trait don’t know what they don’t know and can often bulldoze their way to at least temporary success. But credibility rapidly deflates when the leader’s ignorance becomes apparent, which no doubt it will at some point. Then there is the “born to rule” syndrome, those who believe their natural place in the pecking order is at the top. Managing these people (upwards and sideways) makes for unpleasant workplaces and in such environments, good people will quit and find happier jobs elsewhere.

So if you want to be a confident leader, but not an arrogant one, then considering your presence through the lenses of credibility, ease and ego is a good way to begin.