Over the past several decades, women have made great progress in the corporate and academic worlds. Women earn more college and graduate degrees than men and make up half the workforce. But even as the gender gap has closed in some areas, it remains wide in others. Women are nearly absent in executive leadership positions–particularly in the finance and tech industries–and men continue to get paid more and rise through the corporate ranks more quickly.
A growing body of research suggests that this discrepancy is due less to a competence gap and more to a confidence gap. Women are just as if not more competent and skilled as their male counterparts, but often do not have the confidence needed to drive their careers forward and establish authentic, strong executive presence.
Sometimes the confidence gap remains even after someone has achieved great success in a leadership position. One of the most prominent examples of this is Cheryl Sandberg, COO of Facebook who, a year before publishing Lean In stated that “there are days I still wake up feeling like a fraud, not sure I should be where I am.”
Confidence, then, is not directly tied to level of success, competence or achievement. And closing this confidence gap is more complicated than training women to hold themselves differently or show more ‘confident’ behaviors. The gap stems from women’s deep, culturally rooted sense of self, identity and status in society.
Let’s take a look at how this confidence gap affects performance and risk taking.
Men initiate salary discussions four times more often than women do. And when they do, they ask for 30% more. For more on this, take a look at this article by Linda Babcock, Sara Laschever, Michele Gelfant and Deborah Small.
Women tend to underestimate both their abilities and performance while men tend to overestimate both. The result: men tend to take more risks and see failure as an anomaly rather than a confirmation of their low estimation of their own abilities. Joyce Ehrlinger has done some fascinating research on this. You can read about it here.
Projecting true confidence dramatically increases executive presence. If two people have similar levels of competence, the more confident one will advance more quickly. Notably, if the more confident person is actually less competent, they will still advance more quickly because they believe they have the right to do so.
There are many programs that purport to teach confidence. But many of them teach the appearance of confidence–stand up straight, speak from a lower vocal register, make strong eye contact. These techniques work, but only take you so far. If someone does not genuinely believe that they are good and have the right to be in a leadership position, it will register in small barely perceptible facial movements, physical and vocal adjustments.
So how to help people, and women in particular, grow their authentic confidence and presence?
Bringing awareness to the challenge and acknowledging its complexity is a key starting point. The confidence gap does not have a single point of origin. Some of it is due to intrinsic difference in the way men and women are wired, in the way our brains process information and release chemicals. Some of it is due to behavior taught and reinforced by our educational system, by participation in extracurricular activities and sports that teach the value of constructive failure and by family dynamics. And some of it is due to the sometimes negative reception that women get in some environments when they do speak up and embody the confidence embraced by their male counterparts.
With all of these variables at play, its difficult to know where to go first in closing the confidence gap. One way to get at it is to define confidence. Ohio State University Professor Richard Petty defines confidence as that which turns thought into action. If the action is scary, then courage may be needed as well.
This simple definition allows us to rationally confront a lack of confidence and resulting reticence to take action and risks. Without delving too deeply into root causes, we can bring awareness to the issue and, in a key moment of potential action, simply ask: Is the consequence of failure greater than the consequence of inaction?
Engaging in dialogue with our fear or lack of confidence can allow us to work with it. And engaging in dialogue with each other around the confidence gap–discussing it openly and without shame–can be a powerful way to begin letting go of old stories and conditioning and move forward together with confidence.