Sometimes the most experienced person in the room sounds the least certain. They pause before answering. They qualify their opinion.

They can see several possible explanations, competing priorities, and risks that other people may not yet have noticed. Meanwhile, someone with far less experience may speak with complete confidence.

It can leave experienced professionals privately wondering:

Why don’t I feel as confident as they do? Shouldn’t I be more certain by now?

Perhaps. But perhaps your uncertainty is telling a more interesting story.

When learning expands what we can see

The Dunning-Kruger effect is often used to describe the idea that when our knowledge or skills in an area is limited, we may also be less able to recognise what we do not yet know about this topic.

Subsequent research has challenged some of the ways the Dunning-Kruger effect has been interpreted and measured. Rather than using it to make assumptions about other people's capability, it may be useful as a prompt to reflect on how our own confidence aligns with our knowledge and competence and awareness of what we still have to learn.

The more helpful question is not: Who is confident but may know less than they think? It is: How well is our confidence aligned with what we know, the experience we bring, and our awareness of what we may still need to understand?

Early in our careers, we learn clinical frameworks, professional standards and approaches that help guide how we assess, make decisions and provide care. These are important. They give us a firm foundation for clinical reasoning and decision-making.

Then experience shows us the complexities that surround our practice.

We discover that the same approach does not work for every client. Culture, trauma, relationships, resources, organisational expectations and competing ethical responsibilities all influence what is possible.

We begin to recognise that good professional practice is rarely as tidy as the textbook suggested. We know more. We can also see more of what we do not know.

The confidence paradox

As our knowledge and experience grow, our confidence does not always increase in the same way.

A newer practitioner may sometimes feel certain because they can see one clear path. A more experienced professional may hesitate because they can see several paths, along with the consequences attached to each one.

That hesitation may be a sign of thoughtful professional judgement.

Of course, we should not romanticise every loss of confidence as wisdom.

Unrealistic expectations, toxic supervision, chronic workload pressures, burnout, and psychologically unsafe workplaces can gradually erode professional self-trust.

When people repeatedly work in environments where their judgement is questioned, their concerns are dismissed, or best practice is difficult to deliver, it can change how confidently they trust their own professional judgement.

There is a difference between uncertainty that comes from appreciating complexity and uncertainty that develops through repeatedly having our judgement questioned, our concerns dismissed or working in conditions that make best practice difficult to deliver.

What has shaped your own professional confidence?

Has it grown through reflection, constructive feedback and supportive relationships?

Or has it become dependent on appearing certain, never making a mistake and meeting expectations that were never entirely reasonable?

Confidence is not competence

In my experience, busy workplaces can unintentionally favour the person who responds quickly and speaks with conviction.

Clinical work often requires decisions to be made with incomplete information. Teams need recommendations, clients and families may want clear answers, and services often operate under time pressure. In these environments, a thoughtful pause can be mistaken for a lack of knowledge or confidence.

Yet this confidence tells us how certain someone feels.

It does not automatically tell us whether their judgement is sound.

Instead of asking only, “How confident are you?”, we could become more interested in questions such as:

What information are you drawing on?
What other explanations have you considered?
What remains uncertain?
Where might consultation be helpful?

These questions give us insight into how a person thinks, reflects and responds to complexity. They also help us calibrate confidence rather than simply trying to increase it.

Grounded professional confidence

The goal is not to become endlessly doubtful. Clients, teams and workplaces need us to make decisions. Mature practice requires us to act even when complete certainty is unavailable. The shift is towards grounded confidence.

Grounded confidence allows us to say:

“I have experience in this area, and I trust my judgement.”
“This is my current view, based on the information available.”
“There are aspects of this situation I still need to understand.”
“I would value another perspective.”
“I can make a thoughtful decision without pretending to know everything.”

A small practice for supervision

In your next supervision session, choose one situation where you have been questioning yourself. Rather than asking only whether you feel confident, consider:

What do I know?
What evidence supports my judgement?
What remains uncertain?
Where would another perspective help?

You may discover that there is something more you need to learn.

This is what lifelong learning looks like.

You may also recognise that your hesitation does not reflect a lack of capability. It may reflect your ability to notice context, complexity and consequence.

The goal is not maximum confidence. It is confidence that is appropriately connected to competence, reflection and an honest appreciation of what we do not yet know.

Wise practice is not knowing everything. It is knowing what you know, recognising what you do not know, and remaining willing to learn from both.

Want to read more?

Peter Senge’s The Fifth Discipline explores how reflective thinking and systems awareness can help us understand complexity, question our assumptions and continue learning as our experience grows.

References

Gignac, G. E., & Zajenkowski, M. (2020). The Dunning-Kruger effect is (mostly) a statistical artefact: Valid approaches to testing the hypothesis with individual differences data. Intelligence, 80, 101449. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.intell.2020.101449
Kruger, J., & Dunning, D. (1999). Unskilled and unaware of it: How difficulties in recognizing one’s own incompetence lead to inflated self-assessments. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 77(6), 1121–1134. https://doi.org/10.1037/0022-3514.77.6.1121