Guessing is not a strategy: How to build decision velocity with AI and real-time data
June 10, 2026 | Live Webinar
Confident or Cocky?
Bob Weinstein is a journalist who covers technology, project management, the workplace and career development.
It’s not hard to become cocky when you’re very good at something. Smart IT people can very easily fall into the cocky moat. Most times they’re not even aware of it. That’s because it doesn’t happen quickly, but over time.
Take programming, for example. Many programmers who went on to be christened software developers (experienced senior programmers who earn a lot of money and get to work on massive software projects) love what they do. In fact, most of them can trace their passion all the way back to their teens, when they spent all their spare time dabbling and experimenting with code. Some top developers are self-taught. While their friends played baseball and soccer, they burned the midnight oil mastering programming languages.
They took their passion into the workplace and built formidable careers, often moving off onto different IT paths. They became consultants, security or networking specialists and senior project managers with the responsibility of overseeing massive, multimillion-dollar IT projects. The best of the lot somehow managed to keep their feet planted firmly on the ground, never letting their abilities and power inflate their egos to the point where they became cocky.
Somewhere along that mystical self-development path they learned the difference between cocky and confident. A senior IT project …
Please log in or sign up below to read the rest of the article.
ADVERTISEMENTS
|
"Sacred cows make the best hamburger." - Mark Twain |