Women are regularly exhorted to demonstrate self-confidence as a strategy to progress their careers, raise their pay, and become more successful at work. Self-help guides commend women to “lean in” to reach their goals, “stand their ground,” make strong eye contact, attune their voices, postures, and gestures to come across more assertively, and to “fake it ‘til they make it.” Women have to do all this while balancing on a knife edge the need to remain likeable/warm by appearing unintimidating, unforceful, and undomineering.

常有人劝诫女性要以自信的形象示人，并以此策略争取升职加薪、取得更大的职场成功。各类自助指南则建议女性，如果想实现自己的目标，就要“主动向前”、“坚持自己的立场”，在与他人进行眼神交流时要目光坚定，要学会调整自己的声调、姿势和手势，让自己显得更为自信，要“假装自信，直到‘弄假成真’”。与此同时，女性还要表现出可爱/温暖的一面，以免给人留下凶狠、强势、专横的形象，平衡二者关系的难度一如在钢丝上跳舞。

While confidence is an ostensibly gender-neutral concept, our research found that confidence is not just gendered — it’s weaponized against women. When women fail to achieve career goals, leaders are prone to attribute it to a lack of self-confidence. And when women demonstrate high levels of confidence through behaviors, such as being extroverted or assertive, they risk overdoing it and, ironically, being perceived as lacking confidence.

虽然从表面上看，“自信”算不上性别议题，但我们的研究发现，“自信”一事不仅“男女有别”，而且已经成为针对女性的武器。在女性未能实现职业目标时，管理者倾向于将其归因于女性缺乏自信。颇具讽刺意味的是，在女性通过外向、果断的行事风格展现出高度自信时，又有可能被抨击为“因缺乏自信而过度表现”。

No matter the outcome, women’s lack of career progression is blamed on them, an attack they share with other underrepresented groups. This leads women to beat themselves up, which can weaken self-esteem and, in a downward spiral, further erode self-perceptions of confidence.

无论结果如何，在职场发展不顺时，女性都只能自己去当“背锅侠”，其他未得到充分代表的群体也深受此种不公待遇之害。受此现象影响，女性（在发展不顺时）只能怪罪自己，这种自我打击又会削弱女性的自尊，形成恶性循环，进一步伤害女性在自信方面的自我认知。

What Men and Women Told Us About Confidence

两性眼中的“自信”有何差别

To understand the impact of confidence on men and women’s career trajectories, we conducted psychoanalytically informed, in-depth interviews with 30 male and 36 female senior leaders, who work as directors, partners, and executives in accounting and finance in the United Kingdom. We asked each person to describe the key moments that shaped their career progression, and how they experienced these moments based on their gender. In particular, we wanted to understand if and how they drew on confidence in their personal narratives, without directly using the word.

为了了解“自信”对男、女员工职业轨迹的影响，我们借助精神分析法对30名男性和36名女性高管进行了深入访谈，受访人士均在英国会计与金融领域身居要职，担任着董事、合伙人或各种执行官的职务。我们要求受访者向我们介绍那些对其职业发展产生了重要影响的关键时刻，并站在自身性别的立场上阐述其在经历这些时刻时的体验。我们尤其想要（在不直接使用“自信”一词的情况下）了解他们是否从其个人叙述中获得了自信，如果是，又是如何获得的。

The vast majority of the women we interviewed (33 out of 36) raised confidence (or lack thereof) as a central factor obstructing their own and other women’s career progression. For example, one female interviewee castigated herself for failing to negotiate a substantial pay increase to meet the level paid to a male colleague, saying: “I should have had more confidence in myself to push for more.” Another female leader said: “If a job has 10 attributes and a woman has nine, she won’t put herself forward, even while the man has four. I want to do anything I can do [as a leader] to help women with their confidence, to back themselves, and to put themselves forward.”

大多数女性受访者（36人中有33人）都认为自信（或缺乏自信）是阻碍自己和其他女性取得职业发展的核心因素。例如，一位女性受访者因未能通过谈判将自己的薪资大幅提升到与男同事相同水平而感到非常自责。她说：“我应该对自己更有信心，争取更高薪水才对。”另一位女性高管说：“假设有份工作要求应征者具备10项技能，某位女员工具备其中9项，那么即便男性竞争者只具备其中4项技能，她也不会毛遂自荐。（作为一名管理者）我愿意竭尽所能来帮助女性提升自信，为她们提供支持，推动她们争取更多发展机会。”

In stark contrast, the men we interviewed did not mention confidence as a factor relevant to their own career trajectories. In fact, when confidence was raised by six of the 30 men interviewed, it was mentioned only in relation to women’s careers and, in particular, women’s perceived lack of confidence.

与之形成鲜明对比的是，男性受访者在谈及自身职业发展时，均未将“自信”列作相关因素。事实上，在接受采访的30名男性受访者中，有6位谈及了“自信”一事，不过针对的只是女性的职业发展，而且说的还是“女性明显缺乏自信”。

For example, one male leader opined: “I find our women … lack self-confidence because they undersell themselves and point out their own weaknesses rather than promoting their strengths. I’m not sure why that is, but sometimes our women partners can be a little aggressive in an interview. I’m not sure if they lack confidence or are overcompensating for something.” Another male leader said: “There was a woman in my team who tried to be like an alpha male. She was clearly acting a role. I tried to get her to be herself. You’re more successful when you’re yourself rather than trying to be ‘one of the lads.’ It was her self-confidence. She was extremely capable and if she had the confidence to match, she would have been more successful.”

比如一位男性高管说：“我发现女同事们……普遍缺乏自信，她们喜欢低估自己的能力、指出自己的不足，而不是彰显自己的优点。我不太能理解她们为什么要这么做。不过有时公司的女性合伙人在面试中可能会显得有点咄咄逼人，不知道是不是因为她们缺乏自信或出于某种过度补偿的心理。”另一位男性高管说：“我们团队里以前有位女士，一直想把自己弄得比男人还男人，显得非常刻意。我也试过鼓励她展现自己真实的一面，做自己就好。在你做回自己、而不是想要‘和男人称兄道弟’时，你会取得更大的成功。这是她的自信来源。她的能力非常强，如果拥有与自己能力相匹配的自信，她本可以取得更大的成功。”

In other words, confidence is a highly gendered word aimed at and adopted by both women and men to explain away the slower progression of women at work.

换句话说，在解释女性职场发展不顺的原因时，男性员工和女性员工都常提及“自信”一词，而且具有高度性别化的特征。

The Downsides of Confidence

“自信”的负面影响

Our research not only exposes the gendered nature of the confidence critique, but it also disrupts the positive association between confidence and workplace success. While it’s true that attending to self-confidence has some benefits for women, for instance in our study it helped them to break down issues into realizable actions, facilitating a positive sense of agency, and providing a psychological salve for anxiety, in the longer term, these are outweighed by broader negative impacts on women’s mental health and gender equality.

我们的研究不仅揭示了“自信”批判的性别化本质，还破除了“自信”有助于取得职场成功的迷思。虽然关注“自信”问题对女性确有一些好处，比如我们在研究中发现，保持“自信”可以帮助她们将问题分解为可操作的行动，培养正面的主体支配感，并在身陷焦虑时为自己提供心理安慰，但从长远来看，这些都无法弥补“自信”议题对女性心理健康和性别平等方面产生的更广泛负面影响。

First, we found that the therapeutic effects of focusing on confidence are only temporary. Confidence was linked to more detrimental, longer-term effects, such as self-criticism, self-doubt, and overall poorer mental health. For instance, even when some women were unfairly treated in an evaluation or promotion, or suffered intimidation by male colleagues, they felt regretful that they did not “put themselves out there” or “seize opportunities” in those difficult moment(s). Rather than attributing culpability to their supervisors or colleagues, women tended to take full responsibility for matters outside of their control and, moreover, self-blamed. In psychoanalysis, self-blaming is a destructive and painful response to a physical loss or disappointment. The women in our study recognized that they had been unfairly treated. However, rather than directing their energy towards the organization, they were more likely to self-blame as a way to maintain the fantasy that their ambitions could be attained by exuding the right amount of self-confidence.

首先，我们发现，关注“自信”问题只能带来暂时的治疗效果，却会产生更有害、更长期的影响，比如自我批评、自我怀疑以及心理健康的整体恶化。例如，即使一些女性在考评或晋升中受到了不公平的对待，或遭受了男同事的恐吓，她们也只会为自己在那些困难时刻没有“主动向前”或“抓住机会”而感到后悔。女性员工不会把责任归咎于上司或同事，而是倾向于对她们无法控制的事情承担全部责任，对自己“求全责备”。在精神分析中，自责是对实体损失或失望的一种具有破坏性的痛苦反应。在我们的研究中，受访女性承认自己受到了不公待遇。但她们并未将问题归咎于组织，而是更倾向于“反求诸己”，从而保持幻想，让自己相信只要表现出适当的自信，就能实现自己的雄心壮志。

Second, a focus on self-confidence is an individually oriented strategy, and distracts senior leaders from addressing more entrenched organizational barriers to gender equality, including stereotyping, work design, and the privileging of line roles over functional roles, which are more likely to be filled by women.

其次，对“自信”的关注会使高层管理者更多地从“个体”角度考虑问题，而无法集中精力解决那些阻碍两性平等的更为根深蒂固的制度性障碍，包括刻板印象、工作设计方面的问题以及更看重业务线而非职能部门（更可能由女性负责）的传统。

Third, the overt focus on confidence leaves intact the underlying assumption that continuously exuding confidence is a positive aspiration. Our research on inclusive leadership presents a more nuanced picture. While confidence may be valuable in some situations (such as uncertainty), demonstrating humility and vulnerability has a humanizing effect necessary for creating psychological safety in others, and relatability. In other words, reflection, and openness can be healthy and valuable in terms of creating a more inclusive workplace.

第三，公开提倡“自信”会让大家从心底认为持续展现自信面貌是一种积极姿态。而我们通过对包容性领导方式进行研究发现，实际情况要微妙得多。虽然自信在某些情况下（如不确定的环境中）可能有其价值，但展现自己谦逊、脆弱的一面可以让自己显得更有人性，而如果想让他人感到安心、有归属感，这种人性化因素必不可少。换句话说，要想打造一个更具包容性的工作场所，自我反思、敞开心扉同样具有积极价值。

How Leaders Can Respond

管理者的应对之策

At a practical level, leaders can help address the over-emphasis on confidence as a strategy to advance women, and other underrepresented groups, by:

在实践层面上，管理者可以通过如下方式帮助解决过分强调“自信”的问题，进而提升女性和其他代表性不足群体的职场地位：

1. Declaring a moratorium on the word “confidence.”

Until leaders can be certain that the confidence narrative is not gendered and weaponized against women, we recommend that the focus on confidence be suspended, particularly in feedback sessions, performance, and promotion reviews. This will force leaders to look for alternative ways to build women’s capabilities (e.g. through visible leadership opportunities), and analyze more deeply organizational roadblocks to their career progression.

1、宣布暂停使用“自信”一词

在管理者能够确定“自信”一词不会成为性别议题且不会被用作攻击女性的武器之前，我们建议先暂时放下对“自信”的关注，特别是不要再将其设为反馈会及业绩、晋升评估中的议题。如此可以推动管理者寻找其他方法来培养女性员工的工作能力（例如为其提供管理团队取得高光业绩的机会），更深入地分析阻碍女性职业发展的制度性障碍。

2. Valuing vulnerability.

A more diverse workforce is calling into question old styles of leadership behavior and normative standards that have privileged incumbent groups. Placing more value on demonstrating humility and vulnerability can help to correct the overweighting of value placed on exuding confidence. Leaders have the opportunity to foster and applaud the demonstration of these behaviors rather than tamping them down.

2、重视展现脆弱一面的价值

随着员工队伍的日益多元化，偏向“当权群体”的传统管理模式和规范标准也日渐遭到质疑。如果我们能更加重视展现谦逊、脆弱一面的价值，就可以更好地解决当前过度重视自信的问题。管理者应该鼓励、提倡相关行为，而不是予以打压。

3. Redesigning training programs.

Some organizations offer “women only” confidence building courses, reinforcing confidence as a gendered need. If individuals do require help in building their self-esteem, then as a bare minimum we suggest that such courses are based on individual needs, i.e. not limited by gender identity.

3、重新设计培训计划

有些组织会提供“仅限女性”的自信培养课程，进一步强化了只有女性才需要提升自信的刻板印象。如果个人确实需要那种帮助其建立自信的课程，那么我们建议至少应当根据个人需要而非性别认同提供相关课程。

Women are frequently proffered admonitions about confidence, intended as “well-meaning” career advice, only to find themselves walking an enervating tightrope of exuding just the “perfect” amount of self-confidence: a psychological challenge men rarely face. Not only is this damaging to women’s mental well-being but the focus on self-confidence also deftly distracts leaders from addressing structural barriers to gender equity. We suggest that this risk/reward profile means it is now time to declare a moratorium on the confidence narrative.

置身职场，常有人告诫女性要保持自信，虽是出于善意，却将女性置于一种男性鲜少遇到的艰难境地，只能想方设法表现出“恰到好处”的自信。过度关注“自信”议题不仅会损害女性的心理健康，还会分散管理者的注意力，使其无法更好解决那些阻碍性别平等的制度性问题。我们认为，鉴于我们付出的风险成本和所能收获的回报，现在是时候暂停讨论“自信”问题了。

关键词：职场

达伦·贝克（Darren T. Baker）朱丽叶·伯克（Juliet Bourke）| 文  

达伦·贝克博士是爱尔兰都柏林大学迈克尔·斯莫菲特商业学院（UCD Michael Smurfit Graduate Business School）社会商业专业助理教授，专注从伦理和精神分析的角度对商业及社会遇到的重大挑战和机遇进行分析，涉及领域包括可持续性、企业社会责任、多元化和跨部门领导力等。