Confidence vs arrogance

Dear Bob …

I thoroughly enjoyed your column on Confidence (“Apologies, confessions, and critiques,” Keep the Joint Running, 11/20/2006). As one who has been accused at various times of both Confidence and Arrogance, I feel that my perspective on the issue is that to a person who has no history with a particular individual, it is difficult to tell the difference between the two because they masquerade themselves with similar outward appearances. It is the experience that we have with the individual that would turn what would seem like arrogance into a more “healthy” confidence. I’m sure you got similar perspective from the reading of the books that you mentioned, but confidence to me is based upon being able to deliver as shown by experience, versus thinking that they can deliver based solely upon hubris. True confidence tends to be tempered by increased alertness and earnest effort, while arrogance tends to be more absolute and unthinking.

Criticizing other people’s work is an easy, although occasionally necessary way of stating a perspective. What you usually do is offer a better solution to examine, which is the best form of intellectual debate, which allows the reader to get the “aha” moment within their own mind, which will be much more powerful, than in your own mind, where it will produce less of a lasting impact.

– Confident

Dear Confident …

I’m not sure I could arrive at a crisp and clear dividing line between the two. In general, I figure confident people are comfortable acknowledging the good ideas and insights of others, where arrogant people, never being wrong, rarely acknowledge that anyone with a different perspective is ever right … and usually won’t have any basis for evaluation, since they rarely waste their time listening to anyone else.

Try this on for size: Confidant people figure they’re one of the capable people in the room. Arrogant people each figure he or she is the only capable person in the room.

– Bob