S2 EP5: Overconfidence Bias in Leadership and Communication

Most of us rate our own driving as above average. It can't be true for everyone, and it's the perfect way into a confidence problem that rarely gets talked about: overconfidence bias.

In this episode, Advita Patel flips the usual conversation about confidence. Instead of asking how to build more of it, she asks what happens when leaders and communicators have too much of it in the wrong places. She unpacks what overconfidence bias actually is, why it thrives at senior levels, and how it quietly shapes internal communication. Then she shares practical habits for spotting it in yourself and handling it in others, drawing on the BELIEVE framework and the Learning Circle from Decoding Confidence.

The goal isn't bigger confidence. It's calibrated confidence: confidence that matches the evidence, tested rather than assumed.

0:00 The driving paradox, and why we're all so bad at judging ourselves

3:15 What overconfidence bias is. The three types psychologists have identified: overestimation, overplacement and overprecision (the one Advita sees as most dangerous). Plus the Dunning-Kruger effect and why the people who most need feedback are the least equipped to notice they need it.

7:16 Why overconfidence thrives in leadership:

• We promote confidence and mistake it for competence, and that confidence is judged unevenly across gender, ethnicity and background
• Feedback dries up as people become more senior
• It works well until it doesn't, because it gets decisions through quickly and hides the long-term cost

12:20 Overconfidence in communication: the curse of knowledge, "we've communicated it, so why don't they get it?", the one-email myth, and why a certain tone reduces trust

16:11 Four habits to counter it, drawn from the BELIEVE framework:

• Learning: build a Learning Circle with a Believer, a Bridge and a Questioner, and notice which one you've lost
• Vulnerability: ask "what's one thing I got wrong recently?" and just say thank you
• Empathy: run a ten-minute pre-mortem before big decisions and announcements
• Integrity: say what you know, what you don't, and when you'll know more

21:28 When the overconfident person is your boss: ask questions rather than arguing, let the data do the correcting, be the Bridge to frontline voices, and choose your battles

23:51 Top tip: take a project you feel very certain about and test it against someone with a different view, or against data that goes against it

• Overconfidence isn't arrogance, and it isn't always bad. The problem is confidence that is never tested against evidence.
• The more senior you get, the more Believers you collect and the fewer Questioners you keep. That gap is where overconfidence grows.
• Sending a message is not the same as people understanding it. After your next big announcement, ask ten people what they think it meant.
• Expressing uncertainty clearly can make you more credible, not less.
• Your credibility comes from the quality of your advice, not from winning every argument.

• "It's not about having more confidence. It's about better aimed confidence."
• "Sending is not receiving."
• "Overconfidence feeds on the absence of correction."
• "A good question is much harder to dismiss than a disagreement."
• "Here's what we know, here's what we don't know, and here's when we can tell you more."

• The driving study. Ola Svenson (1981), Are we all less risky and more skillful than our fellow drivers?, Acta Psychologica. In the US sample, 93 percent believed they were more skilful than the median driver. A 2023 replication with over 1,200 participants found the same pattern. Original paper and the 2023 replication
• The three types of overconfidence. Don Moore and Paul Healy (2008), The trouble with overconfidence, Psychological Review. This is where overestimation, overplacement and overprecision come from. Read the paper
• The Dunning-Kruger effect. Justin Kruger and David Dunning (1999), Unskilled and unaware of it, Journal of Personality and Social Psychology. Read the abstract
• Confidence mistaken for competence. Tomas Chamorro-Premuzic, Why do so many incompetent men become leaders?, first published in Harvard Business Review in 2013 and expanded into a book in 2019. HBR article and the book
• The CEO acquisitions research. Ulrike Malmendier and Geoffrey Tate (2008), Who makes acquisitions? CEO overconfidence and the market's reaction, Journal of Financial Economics. Overconfident CEOs were 65 percent more likely to make an acquisition, and the market reacted significantly more negatively when they did. Working paper via NBER
• The pre-mortem. Gary Klein (2007), Performing a project premortem, Harvard Business Review. Read the article
• The uncertainty and credibility research. Anne Marthe van der Bles, Sander van der Linden, Alexandra Freeman and David Spiegelhalter (2020), The effects of communicating uncertainty on public trust in facts and numbers, PNAS. Across five experiments with 5,780 people, communicating uncertainty clearly (as a numerical range) had little or no effect on trust in the source. Read the paper

• Take the free Confidence Quiz. Find out where your confidence sits across all seven BELIEVE habits in about five minutes: decodingconfidence.scoreapp.com. You'll also find it in chapter 10 of the book.
• Decoding Confidence: The 7 Habits of Confident Leaders by Advita Patel. Signed copies are available at decodingconfidence.com, and you can also find it at Waterstones, Foyles and most online bookshops.
• Learn more about the BELIEVE framework and the Learning Circle at decodingconfidence.com.

Got a question, a topic you'd like covered in a future episode, or someone you think should be a guest (including yourself)? Email Advita at hello@commsrebel.com or connect with her on LinkedIn.

If this episode made you think, share it with a leader or communicator who needs to hear it. And if you enjoyed it, a rating or review helps more people find the show.