Why do capable employees underperform despite having the right skills?

When leaders talk about “low performance”, the conversation often drifts quickly towards capability, motivation or even discipline.

But there’s an alternative explanation that rarely gets named.

Sometimes performance dips not because someone lacks skill, nor because they don’t care, but because their confidence has slipped. It creeps in slowly. It hides behind busyness. It disguises itself as personality. And because it isn’t openly discussed, it’s easy to miss.

A lack of self-belief is a hidden and quiet problem affecting performance. Leaders feel frustrated. They can see that someone is not delivering as well as they could. They know the potential is there. But they’re at a loss as to how to remedy it.

This is where confidence becomes relevant.

Low confidence does not always look fragile. In fact, it often looks the opposite.

It can look like:

Independence

Self-sufficiency

Quietness

Intensity

Reluctance to collaborate

Even arrogance

Take the example of the senior leader who arrived every morning, went straight to their office, shut the door and barely interacted with anyone. The team interpreted that behaviour as aloofness and disinterest. Stories filled the gaps.

In reality, this person was shy. Informal interactions triggered anxiety. Their well-being was low. They dreaded the small talk and unscripted conversations. So they withdrew.

That withdrawal had consequences.

Low visibility meant low influence.
Low influence meant lower engagement.
Lower engagement meant weaker organisational performance.

Confidence and performance are closely linked because confidence affects how visible, collaborative and decisive someone feels able to be.

And when someone’s self-belief drops, you often see a cluster of behaviours emerge. They avoid exposure. They hesitate. They second-guess. They isolate. Decisions slow down. Work requires more redoing. Deadlines start to wobble.

None of this necessarily means someone is incapable.

It may simply mean their self-belief has taken a knock.

Before jumping to conclusions about attitude or ability, it’s worth asking a more curious question:

Could this be confidence showing up as underperformance?

Continues:

Bit Famous works with businesses and organisations
to help them communicate with confidence.

By Penny Haslam

MD and Founder - Bit Famous

Workplace Confidence

FREE resources for leaders and people professionals from Penny Haslam and Bit Famous

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Signs that low confidence at work are affecting communication and performance

Low confidence often reveals itself first through communication.

These are the early clues. The behavioural tells. The things you can actually spot in a working week if you’re paying attention.

Avoiding visibility

One of the most common patterns is avoidance.

Avoiding presentations.
Avoiding speaking in meetings.
Avoiding situations where visibility is high.

Now, presentations are nerve-wracking for lots of people. That alone doesn’t signal a confidence issue. The difference is in the pattern. When someone consistently steers away from exposure, or participates only when directly asked, it may signal something deeper.

Avoidance is protective. It reduces the chance of being judged. But it also reduces opportunity, influence and growth.

Is someone in your team constantly seeking reassurance?

Do you have a colleague who, after almost every meeting, turns to you and asks:

“Was that alright?”
“Did I say the right thing?”

You reassure them. You coach them. You encourage them.

And yet the question keeps coming.

When reassurance becomes habitual, even after positive feedback, it can signal that their internal critic is louder than any external validation you offer. They struggle to hold onto evidence of their own competence. Their confidence hasn’t settled.

Over time, this pattern can create quiet dependency. It also drains mental energy that could be directed towards clearer thinking, stronger decisions and forward momentum.

Have you noticed this dynamic in your team?

Defensiveness around feedback

Defensiveness is another classic sign.

I recognised this in myself. When I worked in a large organisation, I took feedback personally. I didn’t see it as instruction or development. I saw it as exposure. As criticism. As confirmation of my fear that I wasn’t good enough.

So I braced.

I dreaded check-ins and appraisals. I imagined being scrutinised and told off. My low self-belief distorted the purpose of feedback.

When someone reacts defensively, shuts down, or avoids performance conversations altogether, it’s easy to interpret that as resistance. But it may actually be self-protection.

Not asking for help

This one is often misread.

Not asking for help can look incredibly confident. It can appear to be independence and strength.

But read between the lines.

Sometimes it’s driven by fear of being “found out”. If I ask for help, will that reveal I don’t know what I’m doing? If I collaborate, will someone spot my gaps?

Earlier in my career, I did this myself. I struggled alone. That probably made me harder to lead. It likely reduced the quality of my output because I wasn’t inviting input.

Avoiding collaboration can lead to missed details, rework and slower progress. It isn’t a capability issue. It’s a vulnerability issue.

Blaming, overexplaining and excuse-making

Low confidence can also show up more offensively.

Blaming others.
Making excuses.
Overexplaining decisions.

These behaviours shield the ego. If something fails, it must not be my fault. If I overexplain, I can justify myself before anyone challenges me.

Again, these are protective strategies.

But protection comes at a cost. Trust erodes. Accountability weakens. Relationships strain.

How communication patterns affect output

Here’s where it matters most for leaders.

Communication behaviours don’t stay in the communication lane. They translate into output.

You might see:

Deadlines slipping.

Work that needs redoing.

Details being missed.

Slow decisions.

Hesitation where clarity is needed.

If the individual is a manager or senior leader, the impact multiplies. Slow decisions stall momentum. Low visibility reduces influence. Teams struggle to engage with someone they rarely see.

And there’s a well-being link too.

Low confidence often goes hand in hand with isolation. People withdraw because collaboration feels risky. On a recent webinar, male attendees described feeling demotivated when their confidence dipped. Demotivation leads to procrastination. Procrastination leads to delay. Delay reinforces the belief that “I’m not performing well.”

It becomes a loop.

From the outside, it can look like a lack of care.

From the inside, it feels like self-doubt.

How leaders can rebuild team confidence without formal intervention

If confidence is quietly driving underperformance, the solution is not a sharper performance plan.

It’s a different kind of leadership intervention.

Not disciplinary.
Not diagnostic.
Developmental.

Here are three shifts. They are simple in structure, but powerful in effect.

1. Examine and reveal your own relationship with confidence

The first shift is inward.

Before trying to “fix” someone else’s performance, reflect on your own relationship with confidence.

Have you experienced imposter syndrome?

Have you indulged destructive thought patterns?

Have you taken feedback too personally?

Have you dreaded an appraisal?

Most leaders have.

But many never say so.

When no one talks about self-doubt, people assume they’re alone in experiencing it. This is what psychologists call pluralistic ignorance. Everyone privately struggles, yet publicly appears fine. The silence reinforces isolation.

The moment a leader appropriately shares their own experience of low confidence, something changes.

It normalises the struggle.

It reduces shame.

It lowers defensiveness.

This does not mean oversharing or turning meetings into therapy. It means modelling the reality that confidence fluctuates and that this is human.

When people realise self-doubt is common rather than catastrophic, they can get out from under it more easily.

That shift alone can soften underperformance rooted in fear.

2. Make confidence a team-level performance conversation

The second shift is collective.

Confidence is often treated as a private flaw. Something individuals must quietly sort out on their own.

I recommend you make it a strategic move to address it as a group.

Start relaxed conversations about self-belief as a team.

Not targeting one person.

Not diagnosing anyone publicly.

Not forcing vulnerability.

Simply acknowledging that confidence affects performance and that it takes time to build.

Weeks. Months. Not one meeting.

When framed as a performance enhancer rather than a personal weakness, confidence becomes legitimate to discuss. It moves from hidden to visible.

And visibility matters.

When someone who has been isolating begins to see that others also wrestle with doubt, the pressure eases. Collaboration feels safer. Asking for help feels less exposing.

Over time, that safety improves output.

Because confidence is not something you can give someone. They have to build it themselves. But you can create the environment where that becomes possible.

3. Change the structure of your meetings to build evidence of competence

The third shift is practical.

Look at the habits embedded in your meetings.

For example, the classic appraisal question:
“Have you got any feedback for me?”

It sounds open and mature. But thinking on the spot about something potentially risky is hard. Most people will default to something safe or superficial.

Equally, some weekly appreciation rounds become contrived. When people are scraping around for something to praise, it loses meaning. “I appreciate your hair today.” It becomes noise.

Instead, ask questions that build evidence.

I suggested asking:

What small thing have you done differently that you’re pleased with?
What tiny shift has helped you move something forward?

This reframes performance. It focuses attention on action. On experimentation. On growth.

Someone might say:
“I rang the client instead of emailing.”
“I tried a new AI prompt and it solved my problem.”

They sound small. They aren’t. Each small shift is proof of agency. Proof of competence. Proof that change is possible.

Evidence builds self-belief and self-belief strengthens performance.

And when a team repeatedly notices small improvements, confidence compounds.

Why confidence should be part of every performance conversation

Low performance is often framed as a capability issue. A gap in skill. A shortfall in effort. A problem to correct.

And sometimes that diagnosis is right.

But not always.

There are times when what looks like underperformance is actually uncertainty. When hesitation masks self-doubt. When defensiveness protects fragile self-belief. When isolation is less about attitude and more about anxiety.

If you’re leading a team that isn’t delivering at the level you know they’re capable of, it may be worth slowing down before escalating the issue. Instead of moving straight to tighter targets or sharper feedback, take a moment to look for the patterns beneath the output. Notice who avoids visibility. Notice who overexplains. Notice who rarely asks for help, or who seeks constant reassurance despite consistent encouragement.

These behaviours do not automatically signal low confidence, but when they cluster together, they often tell a story.

Confidence shapes how people show up. It influences how willing they are to contribute in meetings, how quickly they make decisions, how openly they collaborate and how visibly they lead. When confidence dips, performance frequently follows. Not because someone has stopped caring, but because self-doubt absorbs energy that would otherwise fuel progress.

As confidence strengthens, something shifts. Conversations become more fluid. Decisions become less laboured. Collaboration feels safer. Visibility increases. Performance rises not through pressure, but through steadiness.

When leaders recognise confidence as part of the performance equation, they widen the lens. They create space for development rather than simply correction. Over time, that shift builds individuals who trust their own judgement, teams who work with greater ease and organisations that move forward with clarity and purpose.