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We don’t talk enough about confidence in life or in the workplace. Too often, incidents that knocked our confidence in childhood go on to shape our professional lives. Interestingly, if you Google ‘why we don’t talk about confidence in the workplace’, lots of the results focus on the question from a female perspective, suggesting women are less confident overall. In fact, research by HP found that female business leaders are more confident in their hard skills, and even more confident in human skills than their male counterparts.
Confident leadership boosts business performance. Every North West SME leader needs to be confident to gain respect from their team, navigate challenges and make tough decisions. In this article we explore how a balance of confident humility leads to more effective leadership. We share practical tips to help you find your equilibrium, and discuss how evaluating your strengths can have a positive impact on your team.
Confidence versus humility
Confident leaders know their strengths and are confident in their abilities. They create clarity by communicating well, being open to learning, and making quick decisions. This builds a team culture of trust and respect, leading to happier, more productive teams.
Low confidence holds people managers back and impacts business performance in critical areas:
Managers avoid responsibility and decision-making
Staying quiet when you should be stepping up and speaking out
Poor communication within teams
Low team morale due to declining respect and lack of trust in the line manager
Declining productivity and engagement
Increased employee turnover.
Humility is about self-awareness, emotional intelligence and being true to yourself. It’s not being afraid to show your human side at work. Being a humble leader makes you more approachable, respected, believable, and trusted by your team.
Empathy, emotional intelligence, excellent communication are in-demand leadership skills. The London Business School asked several of their professors what leaders should focus on in 2026, and all have clear links with humility. Their answers included:
Be curious and humble
Get to know your team and be there for them
Find ways to build trust
Lead wellness by example.
What does confident humility look like?
Confident humility is a blend of self-belief and self-awareness. Understanding what this looks like allows us to communicate better, assert ourselves, be vulnerable and work more effectively with our teams.
If you don’t want to become a leader who’s too big for their boots, you need to balance your confidence with a sprinkling of humility. And if you don’t want to become known as a soft touch, you need to boost your confidence.
Do you lead your team in a fair and balanced way? If you’re unsure, talk to our HR experts and ask about Insights Discovery.
Real-life confident humility
Who springs to mind when you think about confident, humble leadership? President Obama led his country on the world stage with a strength and confidence we admired, while never losing sight of his roots and the people that helped him achieve success. His wife Michelle is considered a humble and confident leader in her own right. Nelson Mandela is also widely regarded in the same bracket. Closer to home, the former England Manager, Gareth Southgate, led his team in the most selfless way and retained the confidence to pick the players and team he believed in - refusing to be influenced by the media.
Why confidence and humility are essential leadership traits
According to the World Economic Forum, “Confidence, trust and a sense of direction do not emerge automatically during disruption. They are shaped by how leaders show up”.
We are living through times of rapid technological advances and economic uncertainty, which are both emotive and destabilising for businesses and employees. To navigate such times and emerge in a strong position, teams need confident leaders to create stability, steer them in the right direction and deliver results. At the same time, teams need humble leaders to understand how they are feeling, remove fear and provide certainty for the future.
The upshot of confident, humble leadership is increased respect, trust, productivity and employee engagement.
A warning about over-confidence
There’s a fine line between confidence and arrogance. Overly confident leaders focus on what they know they do well and tend to overlook their own weaknesses. They want to be seen as powerful and garner respect and recognition for their strengths and achievements, which can create distrust and resentment amongst employees.
Always be aware of where you need to develop and seek to improve your skills and qualities. Confident leaders understand the business vision and are able to pass on their strategic knowledge to their team. It’s about knowing what your team needs from you. You can be confident without belittling others or acting like you are superior.
Is your North West SME seeking leadership development support? Explore our Learning and Development services.
How to be more humble in the way you lead
Communicate openly and listen freely: ask for feedback, views and opinions and actively listen to what you hear. Communicate clearly and with respect, openness and understanding.
Read the room: understand your audience; what they already know, what they need to know, and most importantly how they are feeling.
Admit your mistakes: nobody is right all the time so be honest when you get something wrong or don’t know the answer. Never hide from asking for help.
Support your team to grow: humble leaders are lifelong learners. Invest in your team’s continuous learning, growth and development by helping them identify their learning needs and supporting them to achieve their full potential.
Appreciate the value of teamwork: recognise and reward the contributions of others - you did not get there on your own so don’t take all the credit.
Celebrate and socialise together: teams that play together stay together! Team away days and social events help with team bonding.
Treat everyone with respect: lead by example and show the same kindness, courtesy and respect to others as you would wish to receive from them.
Consider how the other person feels: empathy is a high-level people skill. When making decisions and communicating messages that will impact your team, put yourself in their shoes, think how they might feel, and adapt your leadership to suit.
What happens when you hit the sweet spot?
Achieving balance is one of the strengths of a good leader, and confident humility emerges when you find a balance between the two traits. In some situations you may naturally project more of one trait than the other. For example, on receipt of an award that you wouldn’t have achieved without the help, support and input of others, most (not all!) leaders would acknowledge their team’s role in that success.
Another example is when you need to exude confidence leading through change. Confidence and clarity about the direction of the business, why the change is happening and how it may affect your team is reassuring. While you may have concerns as to how the change will affect you, sometimes you need to mask these to avoid unsettling people.
Self-awareness will help you achieve balance. Exert too much confidence, and you could be seen as arrogant, a big ego, or that power has gone to your head! Become overly humble and people might perceive you as soft, indecisive or submissive - a weak leader. For sure, your team will let you know, directly or indirectly, if you are heading towards one of these extremes, and when you have hit the sweet spot.
The key to striking the right balance
When a team has a confident, authentic leader they believe in, it builds a culture of trust, respect and openness. Colleagues are more likely to collaborate, share ideas and feel engaged at work. Confidence and humility sit at opposite ends of the strength scale. Finding a mid-point where you and your team can function happily and productively can be transformational.
Team profiling
Evaluating your skills and strengths as a leader benefits the long-term growth and success of your team. The action of taking steps to identify where you need to improve is humble in itself and may inspire your team to do the same. The SMEs we support are increasingly interested in profiling exercises as a way of understanding and explaining people’s actions and behaviours.
Profiling is a great way to improve self-awareness and understand and accept others. At P3, we believe you have to understand your strengths to know your place in the team. We start with who you are, and identifying your strengths and weaknesses. Learn more about personality profiling.
Ask for feedback
Asking for performance feedback from your team is a sign of humility. They experience your leadership skills first-hand and are best placed to tell you about your strengths and areas for improvement. You might also explore leadership development tools, assessments or coaching to help you achieve a good balance of confidence and humility.
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