Why Your Brain Is Sabotaging Your Leadership (And How To Stop It)

Forbes

08-07-2025

Peter Accettura: executive leadership coach; enhancing resilience, executive presence, and decision-making confidence.
In companies across America, a peculiar phenomenon unfolds: Highly competent executives hesitate to speak up, second-guess strategic decisions and wait for permission that they may never receive. Meanwhile, less qualified colleagues bulldoze ahead with unwavering certainty. What's happening here isn't a leadership crisis—it's a confidence crisis, and it's rooted in how our brains work.
The Latin origin of "confidence" (confidere) means "to trust fully," yet most leaders have it backward. They're waiting to feel confident before taking action, when neuroscience reveals the opposite is true: Confidence follows action, not the other way around.
The Competence-Confidence Disconnect
Here's what keeps executives awake at night: Competence and confidence are only weakly correlated. The 1999 Cornell University research by Kruger and Dunning demonstrates this disconnect dramatically—less competent individuals often overestimate their abilities, while genuine experts may undervalue theirs.
This creates a dangerous leadership paradox. The most qualified person for a promotion might hesitate to pursue it, while someone with marginal skills charges ahead. I have seen this play out in my executive coaching: brilliant leaders whose inner critic drowns out their track record.
But here's where it gets interesting—and hopeful.
Your Brain On Success: The Dopamine Loop
Dr. Ian Robertson's research in The Winner Effect reveals that every time we achieve something, even small wins, our brain releases dopamine. This neurotransmitter doesn't just make us feel good; it rewires our neural pathways to increase motivation and risk tolerance.
The process creates a self-reinforcing loop: action to evidence to belief to more action.
This means confidence isn't a personality trait you're born with or without. It's a neurological pattern you can deliberately cultivate. Each strategic risk you take, each difficult conversation you initiate, each bold decision you make literally rewires your brain to believe "I can handle this."
The Confidence Gap That's Killing Organizations
Recent data from the Russell Reynolds Associates Leadership Confidence Index shows that as business complexity increases, leaders' confidence in their preparedness is declining. More troubling: While 90% of senior managers express confidence in leadership, only 77% of employees agree, according to Energage research.
This confidence gap isn't just uncomfortable; it's expensive. Gallup research demonstrates that employee engagement has fallen to its lowest level in a decade and that, when engagement falters, turnover skyrockets. Gallup also notes that the cost of replacing these employees ranges from one-half to two times their annual salary.
The Level 5 Confidence Model
Jim Collins identified what he called "Level 5 leaders" in his book Good to Great: Executives who combine fierce professional will with personal humility. This may seem contradictory, but in fact it's the essence of authentic confidence.
True confidence isn't loud, and it doesn't dominate rooms or demand the last word. Rather, it:
• Welcomes feedback without defensiveness.
• Admits mistakes and course-corrects quickly.
• Creates psychological safety for others to take risks.
• Makes bold decisions while staying open to input.
Contrast this with hubris: the overconfidence that breeds catastrophic strategic missteps. "[Hubris] has played a key role in some of the greatest blunders in modern history, including the sinking of the Titanic, the Vietnam War, the Chernobyl nuclear accident, and the 2008 financial crisis, not to mention governmental mismanagement of the COVID-19 pandemic."
Three Neural Pathways To Executive Confidence
Stop waiting to feel ready. Start with calculated action despite doubt. Your brain learns confidence through evidence, not affirmations. As Katty Kay and Claire Shipman write in The Confidence Code, "Confidence is the stuff that turns thoughts into action."
Each time you act despite uncertainty—speaking up in that contentious board meeting, proposing that unconventional strategy, having that crucial performance conversation—you're literally training your brain to associate leadership with capability. If going big is not initially in your toolkit, start small. But start.
Much confidence erosion happens not through external events but through internal stories. Your inner critic uses absolutist language: "always," "never," "not enough." Cognitive restructuring techniques from behavioral therapy can help identify and replace these distorted thoughts with evidence-based alternatives.
Ask yourself: Is this thought true? Useful? Based on data? Often, it's not.
Google's Project Aristotle research identified psychological safety as the number one predictor of high-performing teams. Leaders who create environments where people can speak up, make mistakes and challenge assumptions build cultures where confidence becomes contagious.
This starts with modeling imperfection yourself. Not lowering standards, but decoupling self-worth from flawless performance.
The Ripple Effect Of Neural Leadership
Authentic confidence creates exponential impact. When you lead with grounded self-trust rather than manufactured certainty, teams innovate more, engage more deeply and follow more willingly. Not because you have all the answers, but because you trust yourself to find them—or to adapt when you can't.
In today's business environment, this kind of neural confidence can be your competitive edge.
The question isn't whether you're ready to be confident. The question is whether you're ready to act. And let your brain catch up.
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