CONFIDENCE AND HUMILITY: A POWERFUL COMBINATION

Confidence in what you know, and humility in understanding, accepting, and openly exploring what

you don't – this is the perfect partnership of qualities for leaders who wish to work in the spaces

between issue areas. It's essential for those who translate between sectors, from public to private,

or between disciplines. It's absolutely necessary for those who would wish to apply their own

expertise to a broader, or another, context.

When I asked Jeremy Farrar, then CEO of The Wellcome Trust, what characterised those people

who are most effective at working across scientific arenas, after a moment of thought, he said

'confidence and humility'.

As I say, a powerful combination.

I vividly recall my coach pulling me up last year when I suggested that, I didn’t wish to have more

confidence in my abilities as that would make me arrogant. She, rightly, challenged me – is it

inevitable that when you have confidence you must be arrogant? What other characteristics can

coexist with confidence?

An assumption error on my part, but one I suspect many others hold.

Now, as someone who spends much of her life walking a path between expertise and learning, often

stepping into situations in which I bring my skill set to bear in subject matter areas about which I

know little (interviewing Elon Musk was a prime example), I am learning that confidence and

humility can co-exist in harmony.

It is in these interstitial spaces in which great advances can be made. Thus, it is worth learning not

just to balance these characteristics, but to encourage them to work together.

Perhaps confidence and arrogance correlate, but they're certainly not necessarily causal. How can we move beyond a belief that that were we to stand and truly own our expertise, with that would

come an unattractive ego? In so believing, we reward our lack of confidence in ways that are not

helpful to ourselves or our ability to achieve and to realise our potential. It is damaging to our ability

to get things done.

It is quite possible to have confidence and, at the same time, not feel the need to be superior. I will

go one step further... by combining confidence and humility, we open doors to new understanding

and create opportunities for genuine impact across disciplines.

Is it time that you questioned your assumptions?