Appearing self‐confident and getting credit for it: Why it may be easier for men than women to gain influence at work

Abstract

Appearing self‐confident is instrumental for progressing at work. However, little is known about what makes individuals appear self‐confident at work. We draw on attribution and social perceptions literature to theorize about both antecedents and consequences of appearing self‐confident for men and women in male‐dominated professions. We suggest that performance is one determinant of whether individuals are seen as confident at work and that this effect is moderated by gender. We further propose that self‐confidence appearance increases the extent to which individuals exert influence in their organizations. However, for women, appearing self‐confident is not enough to gain influence. In contrast to men, women in addition are “required” to be prosocially oriented. Multisource, time‐lag data from a technological company showed that performance had a positive effect on self‐confidence appearance for both men and women. However, the effect of self‐confidence appearance on organizational influence was moderated by gender and prosocial orientation, as predicted. Through self‐confidence appearance, job performance directly enabled men to exert influence in their organization. In contrast, high‐performing women gained influence only when their self‐confidence appearance was coupled with prosocial orientation. Our results have practical implications for gender equality and leadership. They suggest that HR and senior management should play a key role in building more diversity‐friendly organizations. In particular, ensuring that the same job requirements—explicit and implicit—are applied to both female and male employees is crucial for fair individual outcomes in organizations.

Women's career equality and leadership in organizations: Creating an evidence‐based positive change

“…These findings are from numerous contexts and stakeholder groups such as CEOs and Board members in businesses (Glass & Cook, ), women and men engineers (Guillén et al, ), women engineers (Singh et al, ), women and men employees in the United Kingdom (Fritz & van Knippenberg, ) and in Germany (Mölders et al, ), “professionally‐employed new mothers in the United States as they transitioned back to work” (Ladge et al, ), and experiments looking at perceived riskiness of hiring women compared to men leaders (Van Esch et al, ). The studies focused on women in contrast to men or system‐level phenomena.…”

“…One answer is influence. Guillén et al () found when women engineers appear to be self‐confident—or “are perceived as being able to meet his/her performance standards, or has a sense of agency at work”—these appearances are “precursor(s) of individual influence in organizations” with career effects. Self‐confidence appearance also needs to be accompanied by prosocial or communal orientations.…”

Assessment of third-year medical students’ comfort and preparedness for navigating challenging clinical scenarios with patients, peers, and supervisors

“…For example, a higher prevalence of imposter syndrome is well documented amongst medical students and females medical students are twice as likely to endorse symptoms compared to males [21,22]. Studies in other context showing that the consequences of appearing confident are also different across gender [6,7,23]. Together, these data directly implicate the development of enhanced medical student training to address issues rooted in differences across key aspects of diversity related conflict, providing data for those areas on which to focus.…”

Can institutionalized workplace structures benefit senior women leaders?

“…Institutionalized workplace structures provide formalized support for women. Researchers have found that in terms of exerting influence, women lack confidence because of the gender assessments of their ability (Eagly & Carli, 2007;Guillén, Mayo & Karelaia, 2018;Ridgeway & Correll, 2004). Here, individual-level explanations enhance or hinder women's organizational mobility according to scholars (Cook & Glass, 2014: 92).…”