It was one of those days when I knew I looked good. You’ve had those days. When you look in the mirror, check yourself out and point your two finger guns at yourself with a little smile. That’s how I was when I went to my friend Gina’s Junior prom. White jacket tuxedo, black tie, black buttons, hair slicked back. I felt like The Great Gatsby ready for a party. Walking towards my living room to meet my date, I could hear my own theme music playing.
We took the obligatory pictures with our parents. “Trent hand her the flowers. Gina, pin the boutonniere on his lapel.” All the while, I had a special smile inside of me. Earlier in the day, I received my driver’s license. I was now street legal. Sixteen and a half. Hopped up on two cherry cokes, raging hormones and ready to party.
“Mom, can I have the keys to the good car tonight?” She just laughed in my face. So did my father. Their laughter made me laugh. Like when villians tell James Bond their plot with a maniacal laugh. “Trent, you’re not driving tonight. Gina will drive.” Crash and burn. Crash and burn.
There is a fine line between confidence and cockiness which I just crossed. Companies walk this fine line all the time some cross on the tight rope others like me crash and burn. But, not getting the keys to the car wasn’t my biggest flameout of the night.
Welcome to Swimming in the Flood; a podcast where we develop the resilient leader’s mindset by navigating difficult currents in business. My name is Trent Theroux.
I thought I was humiliated when my parents didn’t give me the car keys. At least that was only in front of one girl. A couple hours later much worse would come. But now that I’ve become a parent, I fully support mine for not handing me the keys that night. I was more cocky than confident in my driving skills.
Dr. Marci Fox, author if Think Confident, Be Confident, writes, “Confidence comes from believing in yourself and having the skills to back it. It’s seeing yourself in a realistic way and recognizing the strengths, assets, smarts, and resources that you bring to any situation. Cockiness, on the other hand, is bragging or showing off without actually having the skills or know how to back it up. By knowing the difference, you can feel good about yourself and know that you are capable and a likable and good person.”
Have you noticed some companies walk this line between cockiness and confidence? One that come to my mind quickly is Southwest Airlines. It comes to me when they offer those cheeky sayings from the flight staff.
“Southwest Airlines is pleased to announce that we have some of the best flight attendants in the industry. Unfortunately, none of them are on this flight!” It takes a special type of courage to pull this off.
Or, “We’d like to thank you folks for flying with us today. And, the next time you get the insane urge to go blasting through the skies in a pressurized metal tube, we hope you’ll think of Southwest Airlines.”
But maybe one of my favorites is when the attendants sign the flight instructions. In this case rap, (I sincerely hope that Puff Daddy forgives me.)
Before we leave, our advice is
Put away your electronic devices
Fasten your seat belt, put your trays up
Press the button to make the seat back raise up
Sit back, relax, have a good time
It’s almost time to go so I’m done with the rhyme
Thank you for the fact I wasn’t ignored
This is Southwest Airlines, welcome aboard!
What type of confidence do you need to have in your business and your employees to allow this type of corporate messaging? Most companies run all their press releases and public services messages through all nine levels of legal hell before the statements are issued. Southwest encourages riffs.
Part of this stems from the culture developed by the late Herb Kelleher, founder of Southwest. (We talked about him in our podcast titled – We will miss you.) Part of this swagger comes from knowing that Southwest has finished at or near the top in every airline metric over the past decade. This type of consistent excellence affords companies the runway (hah. Pun intended.) affords companies the runway to strut a little.
So how do we ask developing resilient leaders know where we stand on the cockiness/confidence continuum? When is it right to show that swagger versus stagger?
I am now going to give you my unscientific, non-peer reviewed, resilient leader theory on cockiness versus confidence. Are you ready? Got your pencils out? Here’s it is. Strut Like Maverick. You heard it. Strut Like Maverick.
The theory is simple. Here’s how it works. Code-named “Maverick”, Pete Mitchell, the impetuous daredevil Navy-pilot ace, was accepted into Miramar’s elite Fighter School, also known as “Top Gun”. There, the impulsive pilot will compete with the best of the best.
Before he gets to the school, Tom Cruise, who plays Maverick in the movie, and this reference works a little better if you’ve seen the movie, teeters on the precipice of cockiness versus confidence. By all accounts, he is an arrogant SOB that we root for, but at the same time know that he’s going to fail somewhere.
He is the premier fighter pilot in the Navy, no small feat. Flying faster than the speed of sound, dodging missiles and landing a multi-ton jet on a space the size of a floating welcome mat, yeah I can understand his confidence. Aviator glasses, flybys of the control tower, racing on motorcycles are all manifestations of Maverick’s confidence.
Do I consider that to be wrong? No. Develop the skills that you have to the point that you are the preeminent expert in your field, the greatest talent available. I recently hired a corporate attorney to handle a special project for my company. He told me his rate was $600 per hour. I felt like an arrow was shot through my heart. The attorney didn’t blink. Why? He knew that he was worth the rate. Was he cocky? No, he was extremely confident that his skills commanded $600 per hour.
And, that’s what we are really talking about here, the level of confidence that an expert in their field has and how its presented to the market. Maverick can take Polaroids of a Russian MIG fighter at an inverted negative 4G dive, my lawyer can charge me $600 per hour starting when he clicks his pen open. What do you do that makes you confident enough to Strut Like Maverick?
Tom Cruise may have crossed the line by trying to sing, “You’ve Lost That Lovin’ Feeling” in a bar. That was cocky and for it he crashed and burned. As developing resilient leaders, we should take care to look for the line. It’s there. We need to watch for it.
My “You’ve Lost That Lovin’ Feeling” moment came about an hour after we arrived at the prom. I’ve never been shy about dancing. I’ve never been any good at dancing, but never shy. My dancing motto has always been that you need to use the entire floor. Let it all shake out.
I was dancing with one of Gina friends when I noticed a large crowd standing behind me. Gathered behind me. Naturally, my cockiness turned to two thoughts; 1) I look good in this white jacket tuxedo and 2) they are into my dance moves. Unfortunately, neither was true.
A minute later, Gina grabbed me by the hand and pulled me off the dance floor. “Trent, your tuxedo pants split open.” What???!!! “It was actually pretty funny. We were standing back there watching this white and black flash over and over with each dance step.” I was mortified. Crash and burn.
Gina took off my boutonniere and use the pin along with the pin from her wrist corsage and some from her hair to do some makeshift sewing on the seat of my pants. I went from a guy who only moments ago felt like he was in a James Bond film to standing in a corner having getting stitched up hoping that he wouldn’t get jabbed in the ass.
“Trent. For the rest of the night, I suggest we dance only to slow music.” And, that’s what we did. It would take a while to rebuild my confidence up to the point of cockiness. But, I can tell you that I’ve never been cocky about my dancing again.
Folks, thank you for listening to Swimming in the Flood. Resilient leaders face challenging currents and it is tough navigating, but with one tack or another we can get there together.