The Confidence-Competence Conundrum: How Leadership Development and Coaching Shape School Culture

All leaders need a degree of confidence- you are not likely to last long in your position without it. But what is the marker of too much confidence? And what happens with confidence is masking a lack of competence?  

When confidence outpaces competence, the results can be quietly corrosive. An unchecked overconfidence in one’s own leaderships undermines the very culture and climate that education leaders are entrusted to nurture. 

Overconfidence vs. Competence: The Leadership Pitfall. 

Before going on, it is important to define the following: 

Competence:  the combination of knowledge, skills, and attitudes that enable an individual to perform tasks effectively according to defined standards (European Commission, 2008). 

Capabilities: an individual’s potential to develop, adapt, to continuously improve and apply competencies across novel and changing contexts (Stephenson, 1992 & Fraser & Greenhalgh (2001). 

Capacity: the actual or potential volume or level of performance an individual or organisation can sustain or achieve, often within a specific system or resource framework (Fullan, 2005). 

Confidence: a person’s belief in their own abilities to perform tasks or handle situations successfully Bandura (1997). 

Overconfidence is not high self-belief- it’s an inflated sense of one's own ability or understanding, often without adequate evidence or reflection. In leadership roles, especially within education, overconfident leaders may make decisions in isolation, dismiss feedback, avoid vulnerability, and ultimately take the organisation down paths that are not in its best interests, missing the potential abilities of those around them. 

Competent leaders may not always appear as assertive, but they engage in reflective practice, welcome dialogue, and are aware of their vulnerabilities and their scope - an essential trait in complex, people-driven environments like schools. 

This imbalance between confidence and competence is captured in the well-known Dunning-Kruger Effect (Kruger & Dunning, 1999), where individuals with lower ability tend to overestimate their competence, while those with greater competence may underestimate their capabilities. When applied to leadership, this can lead to significant misalignments in school decision-making and staff morale. Even for the leader's own motivation, without competence, one of their three basic needs, demotivation and avoidance can emerge. 

Impact on School Culture and Climate 

The culture of a school is shaped as much by what is said as by what is modelled. Overconfident leadership often results in hierarchical, compliance-driven cultures with a vision that may be unrealistic. In these environments, staff may feel disempowered or disengaged, and professional growth takes a back seat to performance metrics or rigid directives. On the other side, overconfident leaders can be highly skilled in bringing people with them on the initial idea, selling it so well that those on their team fail to engage in critical dialogue resulting in ineffective or unsustainable practice, usually seeing burnout on a physiological and psychological level. 

When leaders demonstrate accurate self-awareness and emotional intelligence- admitting what they don’t know and actively seeking development, they model a developmental mindset that ripples across the school. The key here is self-awareness, leaders first need to be able to recognise and be conscious of themselves. With this awareness and the confidence to share professional vulnerabilities within appropriate boundaries, leaders engage their team and foster a psychologically safe environment, where risk-taking and collaboration are encouraged, and where learning is seen as a continuous process and part of the principles across all stakeholders. 

Striking the right balance between confidence and competence is one of the most critical, and often overlooked aspects of effective leadership. There is no doubt that confidence is essential; it allows leaders to inspire, take decisive action, and navigate uncertainty. But without the required level of competence to deliver on their vision, confidence can quickly become bluster and fill the spaces that others could have grown within.  

Competence without confidence, on the other hand, can result in hesitancy and missed opportunities for influence. The most effective school leaders operate within a dynamic balance: they are confident enough to lead with clarity and purpose, yet competent and humble enough to listen, adapt, and continuously learn.  

Leadership coaching plays a pivotal role in cultivating this balance and awareness, helping leaders reflect on their blind spots, grow their skills, and realise and align their self-perception with reality—all of which strengthens both the individual, the wider school culture and effective strategy towards bettering the systems we lead. 

The Role of Coaching 

This is where leadership development through coaching becomes essential. Coaching offers a reflective space for leaders at all levels and it can be as structured as needed- whether you are an emerging leader, in a period of transition or an executive leader. The purpose of coaching is to create the space to accept, challenge and let go. Through appreciative enquiry their Coachee’s assumptions and perspectives to develop self-awareness and align their true confidence with real competence, rather than being led by our conditioned beliefs of what a leader ‘should’ be. 

Crucially, coaching benefits leaders across the confidence-competence spectrum: 

• For the overconfident leader, coaching can gently confront blind spots, encouraging reflection and humility. 

• For the underconfident yet competent leader, coaching can provide the affirmation, fameworks to make sense of their limiting patterns of beliefs, and tools needed to step into their potential. 

• For novice leaders, coaching can accelerate growth by developing both skills and self-belief in tandem. 

Striking the right balance between confidence and competence is one of the most critical, and often overlooked aspects of effective leadership. There is no doubt that confidence is essential; it allows leaders to inspire, take decisive action, and navigate the increasing uncertainty and flux that is shaping education. 

Competence without confidence, on the other hand, can result in hesitancy and missed opportunities for influence. The most effective school leaders operate within a dynamic balance: they are confident enough to lead with clarity and purpose, yet competent and humble enough to listen, adapt, and continuously learn. They create feedback loops to hear from every facet of the system they lead to ensure that strategy is being implemented and what needs to be tweaked. Coaching provides the neutral space for leaders to make sense of all of this. 

As Elena Aguilar argues in her book The Art of Coaching (2013), coaching is not about telling people what to do but about “supporting transformation” by helping educators see themselves clearly and make intentional choices. 

Thinking in the Longterm 

Educators are under so much pressure to perform, sustain and grow; doing more for less. This demand is not new, it has been the case for years. What continues hand-in-hand with this is the level of burnout that leaders and teachers experience as a result. We have consistently heard horror stories of what is happening to leaders as a result leading to real psychological trauma or serious accidents. In this environment, overconfident leadership can exacerbate the issue- driving initiatives forward in the short-term with negative consequences on staff capacity and budget in the long-term. Often leaders come to us when the incident has already happened. Competent leadership supported through coaching and professional development can help prevent and navigate these pressures with empathy, strategy, and sustainability, ultimately fostering a healthier, more resilient school culture and workforce. But it requires you to prepare rather than react- a pattern that is rarely seen across the profession. Do you know where do you sit on this spectrum? 

If you are interested in exploring transformative coaching or team opportunities further for either yourself or your teams, we would be delighted to discuss how we can work together. Please book a free introductory call or contact us at info@glasshouselab.com. 

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References:

Aguilar, E. (2013). The Art of Coaching: Effective Strategies for School Transformation. San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass.

Bandura, A. (1997). Self-efficacy: The exercise of control. W.H. Freeman and Company.

European Commission. (2008). The European Qualifications Framework for Lifelong Learning (EQF). European Commission.

Fraser, S., & Greenhalgh, T. (2001). Capabilities for a more complete understanding of learning: How we use concepts in applied social science. Journal of Applied Social Science Studies, 121(3), 235-250.

Kruger, J., & Dunning, D. (1999).Unskilled and unaware of it: How difficulties in recognizing one’s own incompetence lead to inflated self-assessments. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 77(6), 1121–1134. https://doi.org/10.1037/0022-3514.77.6.1121

Stephenson, J. (1992). Understanding the concept of capability: The development of a framework for the analysis of individual and organizational learning. Journal of Management Education, 16(1), 45-57.