Ever heard the phrase "all talk, no trousers", or "you can talk the talk, but can you walk the walk"? Well my blog today is inspired off of that, in which I will be talking about confidence vs competence.
So I've wanted to write about this for a while, inspired by an article I read but I didn't know where to go with it but I received inspiration from things my mentors said today at church so here goes...
On Tuesday, I read an article by The Atlantic about women in business, and the authors said that the reason why there are more men in higher positions in the business world is because of confidence.
Interestingly, they also said that if life was one long grade school, women would be at the top, as they have been proven to be academically smarter, but because they lack confidence, though they have more competence than men, they do not take risks and so do not strive to get the best jobs.
But this is the part I want to focus on: firstly, the article talks about the Dunning-Kruger effect, in which the less competent (in this case men), tend to overestimate their abilities, whilst those more competent strangely underestimate their abilities. Moreover, they also spoke about a experiment carried about a psychologist Cameron Anderson, in which he created a list of historical figures and got a class to tick how many they knew, unknowing to them, he added names of made up historical figures, such as Queen Shaddock and Galileo Lovano. Instead of choosing to admit they did not know the fake names, some of the students claimed they did, and in this display of 'confidence', these students, despite lacking competence, were admired by the rest of the group and awarded a higher social status.
And I wanted to write about this because I believe this confidence vs competence complex is a very prevalent things in life. We tend to follow the people who speak the loudest and who have the appearance of intelligence (who fall on the confidence side of the complex) , when it is those who fall on the competence side of the complex who are our best assets.
So a real life example on someone who I met who I believe falls on the confidence side of le complex: On Tuesday, I was at a work experience scheme at Linklaters and I was sat on a table with Jimmy, Zimmy, Limmy and Bob (the example). So were talking about predicted grades and Bob was very vocal in expressing his annoyance at teachers determining our grades and "our future", he claimed, and gave valid reasons why. He was so vocal that we were all agreeing and also expressing our annoyance "YEAH!", "TRUEEEE", "SO UNFAIR"!><)*&%$£!!
Then I asked Bob what his predicted grades were and he said one of them was a C. I'm not saying anyone is better than Bob and that he deserved it but I was lowkey feeling: ...oh...I see why you said that now. In how Bob spoke and behaved, I could tell that this grade was not an unfair treatment on behalf of the teacher but rather a mess up on his behalf (he wanted an A). Bob was someone who always had something to say and would chat so much wass with so much 'authority' that we were prone to believing what he said and after using the power of the scream to express his points, when I asked him of his grades my guy developed a stutter.
Again not judging, people like Bob have the power to convince people of things without having any real competence.
This brings me onto the confidence vs competence complex in Christianity. Controversy OOOOOOO!!!!!
Hello, hi, Public Service Announcement, Ahem. IF YOU ARE SOMEONE WHO FOLLOWS CHRIST THROUGH SOMEONE ELSE YOU GOTS TO STOP.
Many Christians have the tendency of knowing God through what others say, and for those who are ignorant or lazy, they put their trusts in those who fall on the confidence side of the complex at the expense of having competence.
(Sorry if this blog is long, please bare with).
An example of someone who was victim of this of the young prophet:
You will find in 1 Kings 13, God had told the young prophet that on his way back from delivering a message to King Jeroboam , he should not eat or drink. This prophet was faithful to God and His Word, even risking punishment for refusing to eat with the King, which was considered an act of intimacy, an expression of friendship, back then. On his way back, an old prophet (who though bares the same name, was not a messenger of GOD) invited him to eat at his house and lied and told him that an angel said that it was okay for him to drink and so the young prophet did, and his on way home, the young prophet was devoured by a lion and died. Arguably, or at least from the 'naked eye' the young prophet was justified in believing the old prophet, after all, he was a pRopHEt, however, this goes to show the dangers of not only ignoring God's Word but 'listening to God' through others, especially through 'confidence complexers'.
An example of someone who valued competence over confidence is Jesus:
So in Matthew 4 after Jesus had fasted for 40 days, the devil tried to tempt Jesus with the illusion of the Word of God. For example, he said: "Iif you are the Son of God, throw yourself down, for it is written, He will command his angels concerning you [and save you]".
On the surface, it looked like the devil was spitting bars because it sounded 'Word-y' but it was not so.
And Jesus was able to spot this because He had studied the Word FOR HIMSELF, BY HIMSELF, which meant that he was unmoved by the attempts of the devil.
Jesus replied: "It is written, 'You shall not put the Lord your God to the test'", which is the Word of Deuteronomy 6:16.
Note how Jesus said "IT IS SAID" and not "MY PASTOR SAID", after all, a man of God isn't the Bible, they are just an avenue or platform for you to receive and understand God's Word and with that encounter, you go and find out about God FOR YOURSELF.
It just puzzles me how we put so much trust in other humans, when at the end of the day, (if they are true people) their source is from God and these are humans who do not know all, and without God, are bound by limitations and natural, restricted thinking.
In this light, and I cannot stress this enough, if you believe something and can not find something in the Word that backs it up, then you my friend, are a sheep of a 'confidence complexer'. People who talk to me about God know that I never listen to them nor share anything I know if I can not back it up with a scripture, because then I am just saying what I think ought to be said and not what is true.
This is why it is important, Christian or not, to not be easily swayed or even swayed at all by those who carry the power of the scream, because though they are talking loud, they are being loud about nothing.
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