The Organisational Charlatan: Confidence Without Competence

Our March talk will be given by Dr Marie Dunnion, of the University of Birmingham School of Psychology.

Most of us have met someone at work who talks a great game – confident, polished, convincing – yet somehow the results never match the performance. Marie’s forthcoming book, The Organisational Charlatan, calls this False Performance: creating the impression of competence without the substance behind it. In workplaces that reward image over evidence, this can quietly spread – draining productivity, increasing errors, and leaving capable colleagues to pick up the slack.

In this talk, Marie will introduce emerging research on False Performance, including early insights from developing the False Performance Questionnaire (FPQ). We’ll look at how some people can seem highly competent even when the underlying skill isn’t there, why certain workplace cultures make that easier, and what it costs the rest of the team. She will also invite the audience to bring their own examples and questions, so we can unpack why these “organisational charlatans” rise, why they’re hard to spot, and what individuals and organisations can do to reduce the impact.