Most leaders don’t realise how low confidence at work shows up in hidden, disruptive ways, and yet according to research from Harvard Business Review, low confidence plays a significant role in workplace performance. It hides itself inside difficult behaviour, over-compliance, perfectionism, absenteeism, and even apparent aggression.
This case study shows how three capable team members – each lacking internal confidence in different ways – unintentionally create conflict, slow progress and drain leadership time… without anyone realising low confidence at work is the root cause.
Meet Alex’s Team
Alex is a competent, well-respected leader who manages a hybrid-working, high-pressure team.
Three members in particular are beginning to cause headaches:
- Jordan — appears confident, vocal, direct. But often escalates issues unnecessarily.
- Priya — kind, reliable, but increasingly absent and overwhelmed.
- Chris — technically brilliant but slow, overly detailed and constantly reworking tasks.
On the surface, they look like three separate performance problems. Underneath, they are all symptoms of low internal confidence – playing out in different ways.
Here’s what that looks like day-to-day.
Scenario 1: The ‘Confident’ Email That Causes Chaos (Jordan)
Alex introduces a small but necessary team change, which most people accept. A couple ask clarifying questions, but all seems fine.
Until 9:17am the next morning.
Jordan sends a long, highly charged email cc’ing the entire team… and Alex’s bosses. It reads assertive – even aggressive. It challenges the decision, undermines Alex’s authority, and spreads uncertainty through a team who were previously on board.
Suddenly:
- Alex’s morning is derailed
- The team becomes unsettled (“Should we be worried?”)
- Senior leaders question what’s going on
- A simple change becomes a political mess
- Trust erodes, resentment builds
- Tension rises unnecessarily
By the afternoon, Alex is so frustrated they’re already Googling Performance Improvement Plans. It looks like a confidence problem, but the wrong kind.
The truth:
Jordan isn’t confident at all.
- If he were confident, he would have spoken to Alex directly.
- If he were confident, he would have expressed his feelings constructively.
- If he were confident, he wouldn’t have needed an audience.
This wasn’t assertiveness. This was avoidance + fear + keyboard bravado – classic low-confidence behaviour masked as strength. Had Jordan known how to communicate assertively, had Alex recognised the underlying pattern early, had Jordan understood his own triggers – the entire conflict, fallout and wasted time could have been avoided. And the PIP? Utterly unnecessary.
Scenario 2: The Team Member Who Keeps Going Sick (Priya)
Priya is warm, dedicated, and well-liked. So when she starts calling in sick, Alex worries, but also suspects something doesn’t add up.
This pattern repeats:
- Priya takes on too much
- She doesn’t tell Alex she’s overloaded
- She becomes stressed, anxious, overwhelmed
- Instead of speaking up, she goes off sick
- The team must cover her workload
- Resentment quietly grows
Alex’s challenge?
They don’t know she’s drowning. Nothing in Priya’s behaviour signals “too much.” She never says no. She never pushes back. She never asks for support.
From the outside, it looks like:
- unreliability
- lack of resilience
- potential disengagement
In truth?
It’s a boundaries issue rooted entirely in low confidence because Priya fears disappointing people, she fears being perceived as incapable and she fears letting Alex down. So she says yes… until she can’t cope. Her sickness is not the problem – it’s the consequence of never saying no.
If Priya knew how to set boundaries, communicate workload, and ask for help, the pattern would break.
Instead, the team pays the price every time.
Scenario 3: The High-Potential Perfectionist (Chris)
Chris is brilliant. One of the brightest in the team. But work is always:
- later than expected
- overworked
- over-polished
- overloaded with detail
- lacking decisive action
Chris doesn’t feel confident enough to:
- make decisions early
- risk being wrong
- share draft work
- stop when ‘done’ is good enough
So he compensates with perfectionism – the silent destroyer of productivity.
This leads to:
- delays
- bottlenecks
- stress
- burnout risk
- invisible emotional load
- hidden fear of failure
Chris looks conscientious, but what Alex sees as ‘perfection’ is actually fear of judgement. Once again: Low confidence wearing a very professional disguise.
How Low Confidence at Work Impacts Leaders
Across these three individuals, Alex is experiencing:
- constant fires to put out
- emotional labour managing conflict, absence and delays
- performance conversations that feel uncomfortable
- frustration that seems personal, not organisational
- reduced trust in the team
- growing pressure from above
- dwindling wellbeing
The team isn’t bad. Alex isn’t a bad leader. The organisation isn’t dysfunctional. They’re simply dealing with the natural consequences of low internal confidence – something no one was trained to recognise or support.
How It Hits the Bottom Line
Low confidence at work costs organisations thousands through:
- repeated conflict
- unnecessary PIPs
- avoidable absence
- slowed delivery
- communication breakdowns
- lost productivity
- increased turnover risk
- leader burnout
And yet most organisations don’t name this problem.
They treat:
- the email, not the fear
- the sickness, not the overwhelm
- the perfectionism, not the self-doubt
Which means the cycle repeats.
What Happens When Confidence Is Developed
When teams learn the psychological foundations of confidence – self-awareness, self-regulation, boundaries, assertive communication, courage skills – everything shifts:
Jordan
Learns how to express concerns constructively. Stops hiding behind email. Communicates early, calmly, directly.
Priya
Sets boundaries. Signals workload early. Becomes reliable, steady, balanced.
Chris
Learns to make decisions sooner. Reduces rework. Delivers with clarity and confidence.
Alex
Gets their time back. Feels supported, not strained. Leads a team that feels grounded, not chaotic.
The cost disappears, the culture strengthens and performance rises. Not because the team became more skilled, but because they became more confident.
Final Thought: Leaders Don’t Need Perfect Teams. They Need Confident Ones.
When confidence is missing, everything becomes harder. When confidence is developed, everything becomes easier.
If you want to help your teams build confidence from the inside out – before behaviours escalate into conflict, absence or burnout – explore The Breakthrough Framework™ for leaders and early-career development.
It’s not just people development. It’s performance development.