One workplace shift I’ve observed in recent years is the widening distance between how people perceive their capabilities and the real depth of competence they demonstrate.

What used to be an occasional misalignment has become a fairly recurring theme. It shows up in hiring conversations, cross-functional work, performance reviews, and even in the everyday ways teams collaborate under pressure.

For organisations building for scale and for individuals shaping long-term careers, this shrinking boundary alters how talent is hired, developed, and trusted. And unless we address it with intention, it will quietly become one of the biggest barriers to performance and transformation.

This isn’t a judgment on anyone’s talent or intent. It is a reflection of the environment we’ve collectively created - one where signalling progress has become easier than building it. Recognising this shift is not about discouraging confidence. It’s about grounding it.

The conditions that allowed this gap to widen

Several forces have unintentionally weakened the boundary between self-image and true competence.

The first is the rise of visibility and personal branding culture. Today, people talk about their achievements far more than they reflect on them. Social media and professional platforms reward projection, often more than reflection and depth. This doesn’t come from dishonesty - it is simply the ecosystem we now operate in. When visibility becomes easier than mastery, it subtly shapes how people assess themselves.

The second driver is the sheer pace at which work is changing. AI, automation, and new tools emerge so quickly that even highly capable professionals feel a quiet insecurity beneath the surface. To navigate this, many project confidence as a coping mechanism. It helps them appear adaptable even when they are still learning their way through new demands. And when everyone around them seems equally self-assured, overestimation becomes normalised without anyone consciously intending it.

A third contributor is the growing imprecision in feedback. In fast-moving environments, managers often avoid difficult developmental conversations because they fear slowing things down or discouraging their teams. The result is praise without precision, encouragement without direction. Over time, when people don’t receive clear, grounded input about their strengths and gaps, their self-assessment is shaped more by assumptions than by evidence. This quiet drift is one of the biggest reasons the boundary between perception and competence has thinned so quickly.

The organisational cost of this shrinking boundary

This blurred boundary affects teams in several ways.

Hiring becomes increasingly difficult. The confidence and polish start masquerading as competence. Interviewers have a harder time distinguishing between genuine depth and well-rehearsed responses, which leads to costly hiring mistakes. A few months ago, I interviewed a mid-level HRBP who carried a strong narrative about his impact.

The resume listed multiple org-wide projects, culture initiatives, and strategic partnerships with business leaders. The confidence was unmistakable. But as I went deeper, the details didn’t hold. When I asked how they influenced a resistant stakeholder, or how he diagnosed the root cause of a performance issue, or how he measured the success of an intervention, the answers drifted back to generic statements. The lived experience was thinner than the story suggested. It also became clear that he wasn’t misrepresenting himself - he genuinely believed he was far more advanced than he actually was.

I think most people don’t set out to inflate their competence. They simply start believing their own summaries.

Team dynamics also suffer. When people overestimate their skills, they take on responsibilities they can’t fully deliver on. I’ve seen situations where someone, convinced they were ready for a stretch assignment, took on work far bigger than their current capability. Weeks later, the team had to quietly step in to fix delays and manage expectations with stakeholders. Not because the person lacked potential, but because their self-perception ran ahead of their skill. On the other end of the spectrum, some of the most capable people I’ve worked with routinely underestimate themselves and sit out of opportunities they’re ready for. Both patterns slow teams down.

Performance reviews become emotional. Individuals compare feedback with an inflated internal narrative. One manager recently told me about an employee who became visibly upset when told that their contributions hadn’t yet reached the “strategic” bar they believed they were operating at. The employee wasn’t being defensive out of arrogance – the gap between their self-view and actual impact had never been clearly reflected back to them. When this happens at scale across an organisation, reviews turn into negotiations of identity rather than conversations about growth and development.

Cross-functional relationships weaken. Anyone who has been in a cross-functional meeting has seen this play out – people interrupting to assert their expertise, discussions becoming debates rather than collaborations, decisions slowing because individuals are more invested in being right than in collectively solving the problem. People listen less, interrupt more, and protect their egos far more than they protect team outcomes. In short, the organisation loses speed because too much energy is spent managing perceptions instead of solving problems. 

Across all of these examples, the cost is the same - time, clarity, and collective momentum. 

When so much energy goes into managing perceptions, far less remains for solving problems and moving the organisation forward.

How leaders can reset this boundary

Leaders play an enormous role in shaping the culture around competence. The first step is to create an environment where people can openly acknowledge what they don’t know without fear of judgment.

  • Make learning a visible and normal behaviour: When leaders openly acknowledge what they are still learning, the need to over-project reduces.
  • Bring clarity back into feedback: Vague encouragement helps no one. Clear, behavioural, evidence-based feedback helps individuals see themselves accurately. It also builds trust because people feel guided, not judged.
  • Reward depth, not just polish: If confidence and visibility are celebrated more than craft and competence, the boundary will keep thinning. Leaders must be intentional about what they recognise and why.

Leaders ultimately shape the scoreboard. When organisations reward depth, rigour, and real impact, people invest in building competence. When they reward visibility, the gap widens. The culture follows whatever is recognised most often.

The healthiest teams I’ve worked with have one thing in common: their self-image and their competence are closely aligned. They have confidence, but it is supported by substance. They take pride in their work, but they also remain grounded in reality.

What individuals can do

This boundary cannot be restored by leaders alone. Individuals can strengthen it through simple, honest practices:

  • Seek feedback from people who have no incentive to soften the truth.
  • Track outcomes, not activity. Effort feels good, results calibrate perception.
  • Reflect on failures - they reveal more than successes.
  • Build depth in a few areas - it stabilises confidence.
  • Stay curious as curiosity keeps competence growing at the same pace as self-belief.

For all the conversations we have about skills, careers, and performance, we rarely talk about the tension between who we believe we are and who we actually are. This tension, if left unchecked, becomes one of the biggest barriers to individual growth and organisational effectiveness.

Ultimately, organisations that thrive in the next decade will be those where self-image and competence stay closely aligned - where people know what they are good at, where they acknowledge what they are still learning, and where the gap between perception and performance is kept intentionally small.

Protecting this boundary is not just a matter of personal growth - it is a strategic necessity for any company building for scale and longevity.