Confidence vs Competence: Why Both Matter

[00:00:00] Speaker A: Before we dive in today's episode, I want to take a moment to share something that's been on my heart, something I've been working on behind the scenes for a while now. I'm officially writing a book. This book is called let's Be A Practical Guide to Leading Through Change. And it's deeply personal to me. It's built from real experiences. The uncertainty, the challenges, the moments where I didn't have the answers but had to lead. This isn't just a leadership book filled with theory. It's about navigating uncertainty when there's no clear direction, building internal clarity when everything around us feels unclear, having courageous conversations, even when they're uncomfortable, and leading with value, especially when it's the hardest to do so. I'm also going into topics that don't get talked about enough, like what it feels like to be challenged, overlooked, and even bullied as an adult in a workplace. And how those moments shape the kind of leader you become. This book is for anyone who's ever thought, how do I lead when I don't feel ready? How do I show up when I don't have all the answers? And how do I stay true to myself in environments that challenge me? If this is you, this book is for you. I'll be sharing more about the journey behind the scenes moments, and opportunities for you to be part of it as we go. So stay tuned, because this is more than just a book. It's a movement around how we lead through change together. All right, let's get to today's episode. [00:01:25] Speaker B: Opinions expressed in this episode are personal. They do not necessarily reflect the views of this streaming platform. [00:01:35] Speaker C: Good day, wonderful people, and welcome to another edition of let's Be Diverse. I am your host, Andrew Stout. This episode is dedicated to all my loved ones who supported me through this journey. Those who have left us will always be in our hearts and will never be forgotten. Our topic today is confidence versus competence. Why both matter? And our guest today is is one super awesome human. Her name is Christina Yerudia. Christina, thank you so much for joining us today. So happy to have you. [00:02:04] Speaker D: Thank you, Andrew. I appreciate it. I'm really excited about this and this topic is something that I've struggled with, so I'm excited to dive in. [00:02:12] Speaker C: Awesome. It is actually going to be an interesting topic. I'm interested in getting into it as well. Christina, what's been energizing you these days? Give us the tea, give us the deets, give us it all. What's going on? [00:02:22] Speaker D: What energizes me So I have to say I've had a lot of really great conversations lately with ladies in the global mobility industry and some of the conversations we've been having are around body and improving our day to day. And I had someone tell me that you have permission to eat before 11am and as a woman who has struggled with diets and all of these other things, eating before 11am has always been something that I try to avoid. It's something that we've been told, oh, don't eat right away, the extended fasting or whatever. Andrew I started eating before 11am Since I got this advice and permission from another woman that gave me permission and that has been energizing me. Protein actually does work so I'm very excited. My body feels better. And ladies who are listening, please eat [00:03:11] Speaker C: before 11am Such an interesting thought that you have there because you are right. We hear different people telling different things and ideas and I was just talking about this on a previous episode of I am a firm believer that we are never going to change anybody's opinion on something. All we hope for is that I respect your opinion, you respect mine, and that's it. That's the way that it goes. Spending so much time on changing someone else opinion for me took up way too much energy. So last year I've changed that mindset. So that topic of what to eat or not to eat before 11 o', clock, it's advice, but it's probably not going to work for everybody. Some people it works, for some people it doesn't. We just have to figure out what works for us and what makes us feel better. So I'm glad that you are feeling better. That's the, that's the main objective. [00:04:02] Speaker D: Absolutely. [00:04:03] Speaker C: So before we begin, I always have a fun, thought provoking question. I ask all my guests to get things going. Are you ready for yours today? Christina? [00:04:12] Speaker D: I don't know. I think I'm ready. I'm as ready as I'm going to be. [00:04:16] Speaker C: Well, just remember there's no right or wrong answer. So no pressure. The question is, do you feel fate exists or are we entirely in control of what happens to us? [00:04:27] Speaker D: Okay, that's a horrible first question for me because this could easily overshadow the entire topic that we've put in place. But I will tell you, I'll keep it short so that we don't get off topic, but this may be another episode for you. I absolutely believe that there is something bigger than us. I would not call it fate. I'm a religious person so I believe that there's a greater, bigger something and something, someone out there taking care of me and everything that I embark on. So I wouldn't say that it's just left up to the universe necessarily. But at the same time, yes, there's something bigger and better than my understanding of the world. And things happen to me and for me. And if I'm in communication and open to what the universe or the, the greater being is, it allows me to have that and that access to. So things happen greatly. And I do believe that things happen for a reason and that I don't have all the answers. And that's okay. [00:05:26] Speaker C: That is a great message. And yes, we are not going to have all the answers. So I do love that answer. It's very poignant and I hope that a lot of people are listening to that answer and taking note of that. Thanks so much for that answer. [00:05:39] Speaker A: I loved it. [00:05:40] Speaker D: Thanks. I feel warmed up now. Now I'm good. And if anyone wants to debate that with me, I won't try to change your opinions, but I will have an open conversation with you. So feel free to reach out to me anytime. I'm open to conversations like that. [00:05:52] Speaker C: So to get us started here, Christina, who are you and what really drives [00:05:56] Speaker A: you to do the work that you do? [00:05:57] Speaker D: Sure. So I'm Christina Yaruttia. I have over 16 years of experience in a small industry niche of HR and it sits adjacent to talent and HRBPs and it's in global mobility. So my day to day is helping organizations move employees around the world, making sure that they're getting where they're going. And in that small niche industry, I've created a small space for women. So I'm really focused on supporting women who are the day to day caregivers of our industry. So we support women in a variety of different ways. But what really drives me in my passion is the people of the industry and the logistics of moving people and navigating change. So, you know, you know, I've lived abroad myself and I've spent a decade in Mexico. I've been in the US And I've really spent a lot of my career trying to understand what it is that makes each of us unique and successful in transition and how to make those transitions a little bit smoother for people. [00:07:05] Speaker C: I love that you've had the opportunity to live abroad and live in different countries, see their cultures, see how they live, see how they're brought up, because we were brought up different ways. So I just love that you were able to see that firsthand and my [00:07:20] Speaker D: son is a great example of that. My son's 6. He was born in Mexico. So we have a very unique family situation. Right. Like, I'm American, my husband's Mexican, and my son identifies as both because he's a third culture kid, and being able to live those experiences and see what each of us feel is part of our core identity. And I know we're going to talk about, like, the confidence and competence, and I think that that all ties back to our identity too. So as we talk about that, you'll see me reference a lot of the things that I learned while on my sabbatical it in Mexico. [00:07:57] Speaker C: I love that. So to start us off, Christina, how do you personally define the difference between confidence and competence, especially in the context of leadership and global mobility? [00:08:08] Speaker D: Okay, so I'll define them both first, and then we can kind of pull it into the different aspects of global mobility and like, how it applies to leaders. So first off, I think that competence is actually the question, can you do the job? While confidence says, do you believe that you can? So there's only one extra word in there, really. Right. And that word is believe. So they're not the same thing. Competence, you're pulling from your experiences, your learning, your mistakes, your repetition. Expertise and confidence is the perception that we apply to ourselves. And it can be our perception, our own perception of ourselves and how comfortable we are with doing something. And if we really are the expert in doing the thing that we're experienced in. And sometimes we allow other people's perceptions to muddy the water. So what I'd like to say is that there's an interesting part here because they don't always go together. Right. I've met some really, really incredibly competent people who are constantly questioning themselves and their abilities. And on the reverse of that as well. I've also met really incredible confident people who their. Their expertise, it doesn't match their certainty with which they speak at all. So if you look at that from like the global mobility and leadership lens, right. It's a perfect example. You can relocate an employee to 10 different countries. You can know immigration, you can understand, like, the tax and the compliances behind it. You can understand shipping or cultural changes, and you can really support the family inside and out. But then someone asks you to take all of what you know and walk into a boardroom and present on what you've done day to day, and immediately your confidence has changed, right? Because it disappears. You're scared. You don't know how to present it to executives. So your Competence didn't change in this situation. The environment did. So experiencing this, like whenever I lived in Mexico, right. When I returned last year, I came back with years of international experience, which was amazing. Right. I had leadership experience that I got. All of my leadership training and experience happened while I was in Mexico. My competence hasn't changed, but my confidence has because I've moved back to the US I don't know where I fit anymore culturally. And so we're looking at that, that tie in to belonging and understanding of who we are as a, as an individual. And that's where the confidence is sitting. Right. With your belief of who you are. So the, the big undertow here is confidence is situational while competence travels with you. And sometimes that means that confidence takes some time to catch up to the situation. [00:10:54] Speaker C: When you said you've had years of international experience, I'm sure you found when you were in another country that you were not accustomed to their culture. Even though you had experience in your field, you were not confident that you were able to maneuver in that atmosphere. That culture is something that I'm sure you probably realize as well, which is something that people do even in the same country, moving from one city to the next. [00:11:21] Speaker D: And again, just back to that confidence is situational. Right. I could be very highly confident that I know everything there is to know about my industry, but you shake that up and you put me in a different area or a different zone, and I'm not going to be as competent as I was. Confident and reverse, Right. So you're right. When I went to Mexico, I thought I knew everything. I had been in the industry at that point for over 10 years. I knew how to move people. I did not know how to handle a move myself because it became personal. The situation changed and my confidence dropped out from underneath of me and I was left with this sense of self. Like, what happened? Why am I no longer competent? But it wasn't that I wasn't competent. I was still competent. I just wasn't confident. [00:12:07] Speaker C: In your experience, Christina, do you think people tend to overvalue one over the other when making hiring or promotional decisions? And why do you think that imbalance exists? [00:12:17] Speaker D: Yes, we absolutely overvalue confidence, especially in the interview process. Right. I think that people who speak quickly, they make eye contact, they tell polished stories, they sound certain. And we tend to attribute that as a leadership quality. And it doesn't mean that this person is a great leader or that they should be in charge of any of your programs or anything, but because they come off with such great confidence and the air about them, we actually evaluate them and say because they come off confident, they must be able to deliver results. Confidence is a lot easier to observe. Right. Confidence is the way that you carry yourself, the way that you're able to speak. You're so friendly, you're able to show your voice in any room that you walk into. Now, competence doesn't always show up in the interview. You can talk about what you've done, but until someone has watched you do it, they don't know if you're actually competent. Right. You could lie about it. You could just be very confident liar or a confident fib teller, if you will. But I think that organizations have this thing where they sometimes confuse charisma with capability and those. Another two C's for you here. Right. So we have confidence and confidence. Now we're going to add two more C's, charisma and capability. And I don't think it means that confidence isn't important, because it is. But I think that leaders need to communicate clearly and inspire others. And that can be hard if they're not actually leaders or if they don't believe that they're leaders. Right. So confidence without competence creates a risk because it's kind of out there in the ether. Right. You're, you're overly confident and you don't have anything to back it up. That's only going to get you so far. But the opposite is equally true. Right. So people who are quietly solving incredibly difficult business problems, they're not naturally self promoters, but organizations lose talent when they overlook these individuals because they don't have the loudest voice in the room. And in my opinion, the best hiring decisions happen when we learn to separate those out and understand that presentations and the way that we present doesn't mean that that's what we can produce. [00:14:36] Speaker C: Yeah. Somebody who is passionate can seem confident in an interview or in a conversation. But yes, when you put them in front of a task, they're. They're not as competent as they seemed. But as we're giving them tasks, I feel it is the job of a leader to build rapport with that individual and find out what tasks they're good at and what tasks they're not good at. I'm not saying you can't give them anything to do and, and so we can't hire them. That's not what I'm saying. What I'm saying is you're hiring them for a core of what that job is. But there's some things that they're going to be better at than they're not is where I'm going. [00:15:17] Speaker D: Yeah. And I think, you know, Andrew, there's so many tools out there today that HR leaders are able to use. And it's not just in hr, but all across many different teams. Right. That can identify where your leaders are and your quiet leaders too. My favorite is the personality tests. I don't love all of them because some of them I think are a little bit different. But the CliftonStrengths finder is a great one. It's a paid tool, but that one, you know, it's sufficient. But my favorite One is the 16 Personalities. And it's a free resource at 16personalities.com and it identifies and groups your employees or yourself even into a profile. And based on these profiles, you can learn how to interact with, email each other. You can find their strengths and what they're really going to be good at. You can find out if they're quiet leaders or loud, boisterous leaders. And as a manager and a leader of a bunch of different people, if you're leading any kind of team at all, you're going to find out that every person on your team is there because they're different. And that's what makes us all so unique. Right. That we have different capabilities and possibilities that we can bring to the team. And we want to be able to make each of those employees on our team shine. So as a leader, it's your job to find out who are the people on your team, what are their strengths, what are their weaknesses, and then how do you, as a leader, play to their strengths and weaknesses to make the whole team shine? And the sum of the parts is bigger than the whole. [00:16:48] Speaker C: I did have a guest on one of my episodes who was a professional boxer. Now she's a professional speaker. She also coaches new boxers. And what she does is when she gets a new boxer that comes in, she finds out what their strengths are and what they're good at. Then she says, from there, I'm gonna train them on the skills that they're good at. I'm not gonna train them on stuff that they're not good at, but when I train them on the things that they are good at, that's gonna make them a more well rounded boxer. So when you think about that in a corporate setting, if we did that with our people, I think that we would see much more out of them and more engagement for sure. [00:17:35] Speaker D: Absolutely. And again, it goes back to that confidence. Right. You've hired these people because they, they met the criteria, right? They got through your applicant tracking system. They. They got through the interview process. They've shown some initial capability and competencies in that first couple of weeks, and now you're developing them to be confident in the skills that they brought. The reason that they're sitting in that room with you is because they are competent and they were confident enough during the interview process to get into that role. Now you need to build their confidence so that their sense of belonging on the team matches with what they feel internally. Knowing their value, knowing that you know their value, and then bringing them forward and having them grow. And that's how the team grows as a whole. [00:18:21] Speaker C: So, Christina, how does culture or environment impact a person's confidence at work, even when their competence is clear and proven? [00:18:29] Speaker D: So I think that this is the most overlooked leadership topic. I'm very passionate about culture and belonging, not only in, like, the general sense of the world of culture, but internal cultures and as well. So something I like to talk about a lot is how culture can either amplify confidence or erode confidence. So when I moved to Mexico, I was operating in a new language, another culture altogether. And it wasn't that I became less capable literally overnight, right? Because I. I walked across into Mexico, and then all of a sudden, things changed in an instant. But I wasn't as confident whenever I was doing business, the same exact business I was doing 24 hours before, I was doing the same business, but I was less confident. And the reason was because I sounded different than everybody else. Right back to that belonging piece, I sounded different. I didn't know any Spanish at the time. And even after I had started to learn the language and learn the culture and the customs, I still felt less confident because I was constantly in my head translating from English to Spanish, Spanish to English, back and forth, right? And trying to understand humor in a language that's not your own. If you ever listen to a joke in another language and you don't laugh immediately, it you're translating, right? It takes a minute for it to catch up, or it's a cultural reference that you don't get. So I tie all of this back into the way that humans find belonging. And the number one thing is learning different communication styles. I'm a very honest and consultative type of person, and I have teammates that are very direct and to the point. And working across cultures, you'll find this too, right? Working with a German person, people might find their. Their personality very strict and, like, to the point and not fun and jovial. Meanwhile, you Meet somebody from the Netherlands and maybe you have a different opinion about them. Right. Very contrast in how they look and how they speak and how they do a lot of things. But it's not just their voice. We're also looking at body language. Right. Are you crossing your arms and looking like, this is interesting. Are you crossing your arms because you're guarded? Are you trying not to offend someone? So you're carefully selecting words as you're pulling down. When you're doing that in your native voice, really easy to do. Right. Because you've learned the culture, what words are offensive in your culture, it's very hard to do that while you're learning another language and pulling things that you hear on the street. And you're. You're just like, oh, this fits here. Let me throw this into this sentence. And then finding out it's actually not okay to say that word. Done that, unfortunately. But it's exhausting. Right. [00:21:10] Speaker C: So you're. [00:21:11] Speaker D: You're constantly on. When you don't feel that the environment is a safe environment for you to learn in. So as leaders, we really need to make sure that we're watching to see how people feel, that belonging. And when someone new joins your company or if they've gotten promoted into a new role, if they've been moved around a couple of times. Right. I deal with employees who are moving all over the world, and when those employees are moving from point A to point B, they need so much support because they're learning and relearning and constantly changing and evolving. And that's when you need to step in as a leader and make sure that they. They are feeling connected back to that culture and connected back to the environment and the team. And it's easy to do that. Right. There's tons of ways that we can check in with our employees, and I'm sure that everyone has a way that they do it. But making sure that you're noting that those first 30, 60, 90 days, just as you're expecting something from your employee, your employee is expecting something from you. Even if it's silent, even if they haven't requested a 30, 60, 90 days from you, you should be giving that to your employees and saying, hey, I'm checking in on you. We're at 30 days. How are you feeling about not the job responsibilities? How are you as a human actually feeling? And is there anything I can help you with to make you feel safer, to make you feel happy, to make you feel connected? [00:22:30] Speaker C: Yeah, Communication is huge. Making somebody feel secure. Just mentioned the Word safe. I talk a lot about uncertainty. There's going to be uncertainty with them, but there's a lot of leaders that are uncertain how to build that relationship with that person, how to talk with them, how to communicate with them, how to find out what they're good at, what they're not. You mentioned the words amplify or erode. What's going to amplify things and what's going to make them erode, which means if it's eroding, which means you're losing engagement, which means you're losing them all together. [00:22:58] Speaker D: Exactly. And if you get to a point where you've eroded the trust of one employee, the unfortunate part is, even if you only have one miscommunication on, on your team or one employee that's feeling unappreciated or unengaged. Right. Only one. And it can in fact affect the entire team because one unhappy person will eventually rot through the culture of the team. And it happens very subtly, very quickly, without you being able to put a pulse on it, things will just start dropping. And by the time you do get it in front of you, people have either quietly quit, people have seen that you've treated somebody else differently on the team than they are, they don't feel appreciated, and then you're right back into the hiring phase and going through all of it again. So for the leaders of the leaders, identifying this and making sure your. Your managers are trained up for identifying those risks early, I think is really key. [00:23:56] Speaker A: Absolutely. [00:23:57] Speaker C: So we might have touched on this, but I want to delve in this a little bit deeper here, Christina. So for leaders, what are the risks of confusing confidence with competence when developing or trusting their teams? [00:24:09] Speaker D: I have two major ones for this. I think the first one, if you confuse confidence with competence, you run the risk of promoting the wrong people. The people who are always raising their hand. Me, please. The people that always have the opinion that always sounds certain when they're in the meetings, they come prepared with their notes and they sound as if they have it all figured out and you're. You're pinning them as the, the strongest leader. But in order to be a leader, people have to follow you. So I think that that's the first thing. And you can be really confident. And if you don't have the competence to back it up, people will eventually see through that and they're not going to follow that person. So you can promote them all you want, but no one is going to follow, follow them. Once that shine of confidence wears off, I think the Second one is that you unintentionally ignore future leaders. So some of the best leaders I've ever worked with were the quiet observers. And they're the ones that listened. They always came with questions. They developed trust with their teammates over time. And they weren't really interested in shining. They were interested in understanding how each person contributed to the success of the whole. So I think that as leaders, we have to create opportunities for all of the different personalities to demonstrate what they know, like you had said. Right. And I think that not everyone is going to shine. In every setting, there's going to be one of your team members who is an amazing presenter, and you want to put them in the opportunity to present as often as possible because they're great at it. But behind every great presenter is someone who really likes to dive into the details and search through data and create cute little graphs and spreadsheets and all of that good stuff. I am not that person. I am your presenter. I would be terrible if someone made me sit down and analyze data all day to create charts and graphs to present. That's not my skill. My skill is communicating the story behind it. So I think that as leaders, we just have to understand that. And I would encourage every leader to ask themselves one thing. Am I rewarding visibility or am I rewarding value? And knowing the difference between those two, [00:26:25] Speaker C: I love when you're talking about running a risk of promoting the wrong people. These are conversations that I'm having. The wrong people are put into these roles or these positions and they don't understand. As you were talking, I want everybody to understand that you are going to give some ideas and you're going to talk to leaders. It doesn't mean that because you're coming forward with these ideas that you're going to get everything that you want or that you're asking for. That is something that I think we have to understand. A good leader will listen, they'll take notes, but doesn't necessarily mean that they're going to do what you're suggesting. And I think we have to understand that. [00:27:02] Speaker D: I would agree with that and I would take it a step further. We can understand and accept that our leaders aren't always going to advocate for us. Our leaders are there to listen to us, and they're also there to be the intermediary between the business need and our needs and our place in the company. Right. That's what managers are there for. But there's also a place for us as employees. If you're not in a leadership role, Today, you can absolutely manage up to your manager, to your leadership and get what you need by having clear and direct communications with them, letting them know when something is not hitting the right way for you. And I always like to share this story because I've had this and I've dealt with it personally. When you don't feel valued with anybody, it doesn't matter if this is your leader, coworker, your husband, your best friend, you have to speak up, right? You have to say something. And you can say something that is respectful very easily, that says, I don't quite buy into that, that mode of how you're communicating with me. This style of communication doesn't work. If you have a problem where every email that you open from your leader is rough and ragged and it feels as if you're being attacked. Switch up the communication. Tell your leader on your one on one. Hey, you know what? I've noticed that I've been misinterpreting some of our emails lately. Would it be okay, okay, if when we communicate, we communicate on a team's message, like can we get on together just five quick five minutes every week to touch base? Hey, I haven't heard from you and I feel kind of lonely in the team. Can we schedule a weekly touch base to communicate about my role and what's expected of me? I need more clarification about something. And if you're asking for what you need, a good leader is going to give you one what you need. But if you don't tell them what you need, they don't know what you need. So please speak up and obviously do it with respect and advocate for yourself because no one else will. [00:28:59] Speaker C: Before we wrap up here, Christina, what is one key takeaway that you'd like all of our listeners to remember from this episode? [00:29:06] Speaker D: Okay, I'd like to leave people with this. Confidence gets you the attention. Competence is going to earn trust. Trust is what builds relationships and what builds lasting leadership. So if you're someone who's questioning yourself, remember that confidence is often something that you're going to have to do. It follows action, not the other way around. You don't have to feel ready today. You're going to have to do something to start. So even if you're not confident, start today. And the other thing I want people to take away, if you're already a leader, don't develop your people who already believe in them themselves. Please go back to those people who are quietly rotting themselves away and saying that they don't believe in themselves and help them to see their value and invest in the people who are consistently demonstrating their capabilities and curiosity. Please reward curiosity because it means that they have a willingness to learn and they're just looking for their place to shine. [00:30:06] Speaker C: I love what you just said there. An example would be you're running a business and you have your regulars that come into your restaurant or your store. Those are your 10 percenters. I'm never saying to never care about those 10 presenters, but we don't have to put so much emphasis and care into those 10 percenters or 20 percenters want to focus on. Is the other 70 or 80% that are not coming in or seeing you on a regular basis. Those are the ones that you want to turn into your 10 or 20 presenters. So we have to focus on those people. Get the word out. Communicate, advocate for yourself, build culture, amplify everything and be confident in what you're bringing to what you're doing. [00:30:50] Speaker D: Exactly. And, and I think that competence is what gives you the right to be confident. Right. And the goal isn't choosing one or the other. The goal is making sure they both grow and that they grow together. And that's where leadership has to buy into that and develop their people. [00:31:09] Speaker C: My call to action would be to like, share and follow this episode. Christina, I wanted to take the time to thank you for coming on today. What I admire about you is your ability to elevate everyone you meet. Your creativity, your thoughtfulness and consideration, your devotion to, your passion, to everything you do and your energy. It has been an absolute pleasure to have you on as a guest today. Thank you so much for joining us [00:31:35] Speaker D: and thank you for having me. This was fantastic. [00:31:37] Speaker C: I appreciate it. On behalf of myself and my guest Christina, I'd like to thank you all for listening today. And until next time, be safe. And remember, everyone, that if we all work together, we can accomplish anything you [00:31:52] Speaker B: have been listening to. Let's be diverse with Andrew Stout to stay up to date with future content. Hit Subscribe.