Introduction
When a company goes through the rigorous process of hiring and interviewing qualified individuals the idea is to select those who will fit the job description and the company culture. In other words, it is best to pick someone who is confident. Confidence demonstrates the possibility of a competitive edge, the ability to grow within the company, and minimal room for failure. It is also easier to gain respect from coworkers with confidence, especially for those in management positions. Nonetheless, there is a fine line where confidence becomes overconfidence. Overconfidence transforms itself from an advantage to a burden rather quickly. When an individual is overconfident it affects the work environment, and how an organization
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From the Holt’s Type Tests, there are a plethora of personality types that may have characteristics that can attribute to overconfidence. The methods I selected for the research were chosen to ensure the exploration of emotions, environment, and personalities are taken into account. My goal for this paper is to analyze and research the issues with overconfidence within organizational behavior and to state where the behavior trait originates.
Research Questions
To guide my search I compiled three key questions:
1. What are the risks of having overconfident employees in any organization?
2. How can an organization’s leadership approach overconfident employees without hurting their self-esteem?
3. Where does overconfidence stem from? Is it bred in the organization or can be identified during an interview process?
Question
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Employees and leaders who recognize an individual that is hurting the company by being overconfident can utilize a few tactics to put a stop to the person. The first is conducting a “pre-mortem” questionnaire, where others ask the individual to state their best guess and then list reasons why the idea or belief may not work (Camilleri, 2017). This reduces their confidence as they must express out loud multiple cases for failure and contradict their original opinion. I personally believe this a perfect strategy as it is professional and allows everyone to explore multiple possibilities. For example, consider hat occurred at the American Red Cross if we had implemented this tactic it might have allowed my supervisor to let the idea go or create a similar one with less extravagance. I could have asked her to list the arguments that contradict her belief that her dinner would unite the community and generate donors from the nearby area. It would have been realizations she made on her own instead of being told by others that it will not work. According to Reasons for Confidence Report & Research, it is proven that overconfidence is reduced by utilizing this tactic (Koriat, Lichtenstein & Fischhoff, 1980). The method is decent as it does not hurt anyone’s self-esteem and calls for the need to look at the “blind spots”. I do see how the overly confident individual might feel attacked by being asked to make
Too much confidence can cause a sense of arrogance, much like Odysseus. Not enough confidence can make you uninspiring and weak as a leader, much like David. People who live their own monomyth everyday, and have the right amount of confidence, achieve great things.
Donald Trump, an egotistical businessman, thinks so highly of himself that he has now become a joke in the eyes of the world. Trump has created his false self-image due to his excessive pride, called hubris. Hubris causes people to have mistaken identities, arrogance, and can lead to their downfall. In The Odyssey by Homer, Odysseus, a prideful warrior, tries to return home with his crew after fighting in the Trojan War. Odysseus’ hubris ends up leading to many problems for himself and his crew. Hubris played a negative role in The Odyssey due to Odysseus revealing his identity to Polyphemus, not telling his crew about Aeolus’ bag of winds, and staying with Circe for a year.
Former president Ronald Reagan summed up leadership by stating that “the greatest leader is not necessarily the one who does the greatest things. He is the one that gets the people to do the greatest things” (Daskal, 2015). Effective leaders inspire people. Leaders provide motivation and the direction to achieve goals; large or small. The character, actions and thoughts of leader can permeate an organization. And often, based upon the organizational culture, one can usually tell if the character, action and thoughts were good or bad. Therefore, I agree that arrogance can lead to jumping to conclusions, which can have a negative impact on the success of projects. This is why Kurt Vonnegut’s leadership quote is so poignant-“we are what we pretend
Uncertainty in organizations is a key element to be dealt with in the areas of technology, rules and rituals (Hofstede, 1980). The notion of uncertainty is frequently connected to the perception of environment as the ‘environment is taken to include everything not under direct control of the organization as a source of uncertainty for which the organization tries to compensate’ (Hofstede, 1980: 155). The organization deals with uncertainty in the way in which uncertainties are observed inside the business. According to Torrington, uncertainty avoidance is the degree to which the future is always unknown (1994). Some cultures socialize their participants to accept this idea and take risks. Whereas members of other cultures have been socialized to be made worried or threatened by this and therefore, search for reparation through the ‘security of law, religion or technology’. (Torrington, 1994:
More often than not, the outcomes of events that occur in a person’s life is the product of the idea of the self-fulfilling prophecy. It is that which “occurs when a person’s expectations of an event make the outcome more likely to occur than would otherwise have been true” (Adler and Towne, Looking Out, Looking In 66). Or restated, as Henry Ford once put it, “If you think you can, you can. If you think you can’t, you’re right!” This brief research paper touches on the two types of self-fulfilling prophecies, those that are self-imposed and those that are imposed by others. Additionally, it gives a discussion on how great of an influence it is in each person’s life, both positively and negatively, and how it consequently helps to mold one’s self-concept and ultimately one’s self.
Robbins , Stephen P. and Judge, Timothy, A. Organizational Behavior. Upper Saddle River, New Jersey. Prentice Hall. Pearson Custom Publishing. 2008 Print
Schermerhorn, JR. jr., Hunt, J. G., Osborn, R.N. (2000). Organizational behavior. NewYork: John Wiley & Sons, Inc.
I have noticed that my own illusion has kept me more optimistic towards bad situations. Therefore, if I believe I am in control of a certain situation, and it plays out how I want, it is a large boost in confidence. However, if the event does not play out in my favor I am still not extremely upset with the results. This is confirmed by Thomas Langen suggesting, “A study done by psychologists Alloy and Clements revealed that individuals with a high illusion of control have a sort of buffer against the emotional consequences of failed experiences. The participants worked on a series of block design problems that were unsolvable. The participants with high illusion of control had lower negative moods compared to those with low illusion of control. The study also found that these same findings could be applied to life. Individuals with high illusion of control were less discouraged and more motivated despite negative life events, even difficult long-term events were more likely to be pursued. Contrary, participants with low illusory distortions were likely to have more negative moods, and outlook on life
As discussed above, early research has documented the negative effects of managerial overconfidence. Naturally, the paradox of firms constantly hiring overconfident CEOs emerges. Instead of making distortionary investments compare to rational CEOs, overconfident CEOs may also exhibit some positive contributions to firms’ value. However, the existing studies discussed the benefits to shareholders of having an overconfident CEO are only confined to the moderate level of the overconfidence.
pp. 146-170. Kreitner, R., & Kinicki, A., (2004). Organizational Behavior (6th ed.). New York: McGraw-Hill/Irwin.
Robbins, S. P., & Judge, T. A. (2011). Organizational behavior (14 ed.). Upper Saddle River, NJ: Pearson.
My lab partner might think of himself too highly because of unrealistic optimism (overestimate the likelihood of positive events and to underestimate the likelihood of negative events). By using unrealistic optimism, my lab partner assumes he will win every football game and never considers losing a possibility or he may believe he will ace every test given to him because failure is not possible for him. Although, having a bit of this attitude is healthy in a person for my lab partner he uses too much of it, which results in him having unrealistic exceptions in himself and an inflated sense of
Sledge, Miles, and Coppage (2008) explain uncertainty avoidance as “the degree of risk aversion” (1670). In a country with high uncertainty avoidance there may be more policies and procedures in place. In a culture with low uncertainty avoidance companies could empower employees to develop new ideas.
an entrepreneur will never be uncertain of whether or not they will succeed. They are confident with the knowledge that they will make their businesses succeed (10 Qualities of successful entrepreneurs, 2010). They exude that confidence in everything they do.