How to Lead High-Confidence, High-Certainty People Without Crushing Their Value

I am not a psychologist. What follows are field notes from leadership experience. They come from working closely with engineers who were often right, admitted when wrong, and yet carried a presence that could overwhelm the room.

Every leader eventually meets this kind of person. They think quickly, speak with conviction, and rarely hedge their words. When they are correct, it lands with authority. When they are wrong, they are willing to admit it fully. Yet the way their correctness comes across can leave others feeling small. It is not malice. It is not ego run wild. It is simply the force of certainty expressed without cushion.

The psychology beneath the surface

Later, when I reflected on the experience, I found language from psychology that gave me better tools to understand it. Researchers talk about two forms of pride: authentic pride and hubristic pride. Authentic pride is the satisfaction of achievement. Hubristic pride shows up as a signal of superiority. In practice, the people I worked with leaned toward hubristic pride in how they communicated, even when they did not mean to.

There is also the idea of interpersonal dominance. It is not a personality defect but a communication style. Some people speak in a way that conveys control and authority. They may not even realize they are doing it, but the impact is real. Others in the room hesitate, disengage, or withhold contributions.

Why this gets misdiagnosed

It is tempting to mislabel these people. They can look like narcissists. They can sound like know-it-alls. But in my experience, those labels miss the mark. Narcissists resist correction. Know-it-alls cling to being right. The people I worked with did neither. The difference was stark: when shown they were wrong, they owned it. The problem was not a refusal to learn. The problem was the social impact of always being so right, so certain, and so vocal about it.

The risks of ignoring it

If unaddressed, this style does damage. Team morale suffers. Collaboration narrows. Others stop speaking up. Over time, you risk isolating the very person who is delivering valuable insight. They become a high-performer no one wants to engage with.

What worked for me as a leader

I had to learn not to crush confidence but to channel it. A few moves helped:

Redirect their certainty into defined roles. Ask them to be the technical reviewer, the devil’s advocate, the one to test the team’s logic. It harnesses their conviction in service of the group.
Balance the room. Acknowledge their point, then immediately bring in others. “That’s a strong argument. Sarah, what’s your perspective?” This ensured their dominance did not silence quieter voices.
Highlight their openness. I celebrated the moments when they admitted being wrong. I pointed out to the team, “Notice how quickly they changed their mind when shown better evidence.” That built psychological safety and showed the behavior as strength.
Model shared pride. I tried to show that confidence can celebrate the group, not just the self. When I modeled authentic pride, it gave permission for others to do the same.

The leadership takeaway

Confidence is not the enemy. Unchanneled confidence is. The best leaders do not try to break high-certainty people down. They redirect, balance, and coach them so that their value is multiplied instead of diminished.

The people I worked with are some that I still respect greatly. They pushed me to sharpen my own leadership. They taught me that sometimes the job is not to silence the loudest voice, but to tune it so the whole team can benefit.

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