Unconscious Disbelief

How to overcome the bias that’s stopping you from identifying incredible female talent

Confidence is a funny thing. And it’s everything. Studies show that confident people have the greatest social equity and enjoy the most success. Studies also show that many extremely competent women lack this career-enhancing air of confidence.

Human instinct is geared towards picking winners based on confidence. Confident people are easier to back, support and vouch for - something that is critical in the early stages of entrepreneurship. Chances are that every person a confident founder comes into contact with will respond well to them. Which is why they find themselves invited to influential meetings, introduced to important people, land key sales deals, and get the runs-on-the-board needed to attract investment.

So what happens to a talented and competent founder without this air of confidence? Simple. They are overlooked. It’s due to an unconscious disbelief that they have what it takes to win. In a majority of cases, these founders are women.

Humans are finely tuned to seek out confidence signals and pick up on extremely subtle cues. Like when someone expresses an opinion as a question rather than a statement, sits at the back of the room instead of at the table, stays silent during tough decision making discussions, passes on an opportunity, or, more subtly, seems overly grateful for a simple gesture.

Every woman I know has done most of these things at some stage of their career. Many never stop, never really able to shake them off. The irony is that when you delve into the expertise and experience of these women they are highly talented A-graders. So why is this happening?

Diversity studies have identified a number of factors that contribute to the self-doubt that women carry. Most have manifested without harmful intent. Distilling volumes of work into a single concept that’s easy to follow goes something like this:

From a young age, women focus on building competence above everything else. They believe that being great at whatever they do is the most important factor in their success. Because competence is so important to women, when they are challenged on some element of their work, or not consulted on their area of expertise, or not recommended or backed by their peers, they perceive that it is due to their lack of skill.

Think about how that must feel. It’s like someone is saying to you that you are not good enough. That’s not usually what’s happening but that’s often how it is received. Womens’ confidence takes a big hit, which comes across in their behaviour, which shows up on the innate confidence radar of people they come into contact with, and results in more unconscious disbelief. It’s a downward spiral.

I see the impact of this every day.

I recently attended a high-level business event. I was chatting to a female colleague when the host approached and invited people in our group to meet the guest of honour — but not her. Her confidence hit the floor. She seemed to visibly shrink and then made an excuse as to why he wouldn’t be interested in meeting her anyway, implying that her work wasn’t that impressive.

I’d already met the guest of honour and wanted her to have the same experience and opportunity. I reassured her, took her over to where he was talking to others, and waited with her. He warmly shook her hand as she introduced herself. She quickly realised he was genuinely interested in her work, which he knew about, and complimented her on. I watched her physically lift. A very different outcome than if this hadn’t happened!

Multiply this near miss by many moments across weeks and months and you start to see the degree of impact a lack of confidence can have on a career.

To reverse this trend we all need to see past our unconscious disbelief mechanisms. We need to support the women around us to grow in confidence by backing them, calling out their achievements in public, making a point of asking for their opinion, and genuinely valuing and seeking out their contribution.

Equally women need to continually remind themselves of their past achievements and reinforce in themselves that they are great at what they do. Their competence is rarely the issue!