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Confident Humility: Paradox of Successful Leadership

The right kind of confidence isn’t a central point between fear on one end and arrogance on the other.

Vinita
Code Like A Girl
Published in
9 min readFeb 19, 2025

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Credit: Author

How do I balance myself on the confidence humility see-saw? What if my confidence is seen as arrogance or my humility as a sign of my lack of assertiveness? How do I come across right?

These thoughts just aren’t mine. Many females including those who are highly successful, and probably most men struggle with this fine balance. We want to be like Goldilocks from the fairy tale Goldilocks And the Three Bears. Neither too much confidence nor humility. Nor too less. Just the right amount.

Confidence and humility are often misunderstood though. What words come to mind when you think about confidence — power, authority, boldness, worthiness, self-assurance? How about humility — submissive, unassertive, passive, insecure?

Humility doesn’t translate into incompetence or lack of self-confidence. It means staying grounded, admitting that you don’t know everything, and accepting that you still have a lot to learn.

“It’s not thinking less of yourself, it’s thinking of yourself less .”
— C.S. Lewis

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Written by Vinita

Author: Books on Mindset, Imposter Syndrome. Scaling products → Scaling thinking (⊙_⊙) Former AVP Engineering, Swiggy. I write about work, progress and success.

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