Bad managers. We’ve all had one. And professor Tomas Chamorro-Premuzic says that they usually have one thing in common: self-regard. He argues that we’re often duped into mistaking over-confidence for ability. But they’re not the same thing. And the kicker? That confusion might be one of the reasons we have fewer women in leadership positions.

Three Takeaways:

• We tend to value the wrong qualities in politicians and leaders - to our detriment. Chamorro-Premuzic explains that traits like charisma and appearance “don’t say anything about your ability to run a country or a state.”
• You need a complete picture of yourself in order to judge overconfidence, Chamorro-Premuzic says. So don’t just rate your own attributes: collect feedback from others, as well. “Once you do that you can see how these individual differences in either overestimates or underestimates relate to real world indicators of success.”
• Men often give themselves too much credit compared with women, Chamorro-Premuzic notes: “At the level of competence or actual talents, (there are) no significant sex differences or many differences favoring women. But, when you actually look at self-estimates of these abilities - or confidence - you find that men systematically overestimate their abilities compared to women.”

More Reading:

• Professor Tomas Chamorro-Premuzic lays out his theories on overconfidence in Harvard Business Review.
• Entrepreneur Magazine looks at the pitfalls of relying on confidence.
• Four female business leaders share their keys to success with The New York Times.