Unite 26 | The Confidence Con: Why Your Culture Is Setting You Up to Fail

Too many workplaces treat confidence as a personality trait. The loudest voices get heard in the room and win the promotions, while quieter, more reflective people can get left behind. For communications and HR leaders who spend their days advising and winning over stakeholders, continuing to believe that, shapes how they show up.

Advita Patel, Director at CommsRebel, argues we’ve all been sold a lie about confidence. Going back to the word’s Latin roots, she reframes it as “with trust”: trust in your ability to handle whatever life throws at you. Volume and certainty don’t come into it. She also unpacks why confidence and self-esteem aren’t the same thing, and why you need both to thrive.

Drawing on interviews with more than 100 leaders and a survey of more than 500 people, Advita maps confidence across three layers: you, your team, and your organization. She then breaks down the seven habits of confident leaders, with practical ways to build them into your week, including her six-month energy audit and a Friday reflection ritual.

What you’ll learn

Watch the session to discover:

• What the seven habits of confident leaders look like in practice, including why energy underpins all the others
• What Advita’s research reveals about confidence in the workplace
• How confidence plays out across three layers, particularly when you can’t tell whether it’s you, your team, or your culture holding you back
• How to spot (and fix) where teams build or break confidence, including ideas getting talked over, mistakes being punished, and the loudest voice winning