Self-assured vs. Bossy

In the years I’ve related with peo­ple, I’ve noticed that Amer­i­can busi­ness and pol­i­tics reward those who stick their necks out.

There is a fine line between being self-confident and being full of your­self. It’s a spec­trum. You can guess which side I fall onto — I often go out of my way in try­ing to not appear egotistical.

I also real­ize this is a at least partly a func­tion of per­son­al­ity type. Some peo­ple need affir­ma­tion from oth­ers like a fish needs water. Oth­ers are happy to work in rel­a­tive obscu­rity. Nei­ther way is right or wrong. How­ever, either way can be wrong if they are left unchecked.

Those char­ac­ter­is­tics are not directly related to being self-assured or bossy. Self-assured is almost always good. Bossy is almost always bad. But bossy peo­ple can get lots of things done!