In a career, confidence is something that is very important. A success can be achieved if someone is confident in their abilities and ideas. It’s no wonder that self-confidence is the main criterion in most job vacancies.
However, sometimes a person’s self-confidence is misinterpreted as arrogant. It is true that there is a fine line between self-confidence and arrogance. How to tell the difference between the two?
Real confidence
Let’s start with the definition of each trait. Confidence is how a person recognizes and assesses his ability to do something. However, self-confidence that is too excessive or used to cover up feelings of insecurity or one’s true abilities will make a person arrogant.
Confidence comes from optimism; people who are completely confident don’t care about other people’s perceptions because they know the true assessment of themselves. Confidence comes from within so they don’t need affirmation from anyone.
It’s different from being arrogant which comes from worrying about other people’s opinions; Arrogant people always feel they are better than everyone else and care deeply about what people think of them. Positive affirmation from others is important for them to prove they are the best.
Confident and arrogant nature as a leader
The most obvious difference between the two traits is how they see problems. Confident people are not afraid to admit when they are wrong, because they are aware of their abilities and can learn to be better than those mistakes. In contrast to arrogant people, they are very difficult to admit their mistakes and often blame others to prove that they are not wrong and are still the best.
People who are confident will lead a job with appropriate abilities, but do not rule out the possibility for them to get ideas or suggestions from other parties and act as team players. A confident person will also not discriminate people according to position. The way he faces superiors or subordinates will be the same.
This is clearly very different from an arrogant leader. An arrogant person will not care about other ideas and will demand that others do things their own way. This is because they think that they are superior and others are inferior.
People with arrogant traits will also tend to look at people and treat them based on position or status. They will treat people in positions above them very well, but treat positions below them with ease.
Their communication style
The way the two communicate is also very different. Confident people will always take the time to listen to other people’s opinions. They also do not hesitate to share knowledge and knowledge for the common good.
Meanwhile, arrogant people will not spend time on it, they will tend to throw their own ideas and also to tell their successes to impress others. You could also say arrogant people tend to like to appear in public and spread charm.
The mindset of self-confident people vs. arrogant
Confident people will have the mindset “I can.” They don’t hesitate to learn more to ensure that they will be able to do something at their best.
Arrogant people tend to have the mindset of “I’m the best,” where they feel they are already the best from others, without any desire to continue to improve their competence.
That’s a glimpse of the difference between self-confidence and arrogance that you can observe in the workplace. Broadly speaking, self-confidence is a sign of self-acceptance of all the strengths and weaknesses in one’s abilities, while arrogance is excessive self-admiration without regard to the reality that exists regarding their abilities. From the explanation above, have you become a confident person?