Here is an excerpt from an article written by Dharmesh Shah and featured by LinkedIn. He is co-founder and CTO of HubSpot. HubSpot provides inbound marketing software that helps businesses attract, convert and engage customers on the web. The company, based in Cambridge, Massachusetts, has over 8,000 customers and is a two-time member of the Inc. 500. HubSpot has raised over $65 million in venture capital.

Dharmesh is the co-author of Inbound Marketing: Get Found Using Google, Social Media and Blogs, published by John Wiley & Sons. The book was a runaway hit and has been translated to 8 languages. He also authors OnStartups.com, a popular startup blog with over 290,000 members in its online community. He is an active member of the Boston area entrepreneurial community, an angel investor in over 30 startups, and a frequent speaker on the topic of startups and inbound marketing.

Dharmesh holds a BS in Computer Science from UAB and an MS in the Management of Technology from MIT.

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First things first: Confidence is not bravado, or swagger, or an overt pretense of bravery. Confidence is not some bold or brash air of self-belief directed at others.

Confidence is quiet: It’s a natural expression of ability, expertise, and self-regard.

I’m fortunate to know a number of truly confident people. Many work with me at HubSpot, others are fellow founders of their own startups some of whom I’ve met through my angel investment activity. But the majority are people I’ve met through my career and who work in a variety of industries and professions.

It comes as no surprise they all share a number of qualities.

[Here are the first three of nine.]

1. They take a stand not because they think they are always right… but because they are not afraid to be wrong.

Cocky and conceited people tend to take a position and then proclaim, bluster, and totally disregard differing opinions or points of view. They know they’re right – and they want (actually they need) you to know it too.

Their behavior isn’t a sign of confidence, though; it’s the hallmark of an intellectual bully.

Truly confident people don’t mind being proven wrong. They feel finding out what is right is a lot more important than being right. And when they’re wrong, they’re secure enough to back down graciously.

Truly confident people often admit they’re wrong or don’t have all the answers; intellectual bullies never do.

2. They listen ten times more than they speak.

Bragging is a mask for insecurity. Truly confident people are quiet and unassuming. They already know what they think; they want to know what you think.

So they ask open-ended questions that give other people the freedom to be thoughtful and introspective: They ask what you do, how you do it, what you like about it, what you learned from it… and what they should do if they find themselves in a similar situation.

Truly confident people realize they know a lot, but they wish they knew more… and they know the only way to learn more is to listen more.

3. They duck the spotlight so it shines on others.

Perhaps it’s true they did the bulk of the work. Perhaps they really did overcome the major obstacles. Perhaps it’s true they turned a collection of disparate individuals into an incredibly high performance team.

Truly confident people don’t care – at least they don’t show it. (Inside they’re proud, as well they should be.) Truly confident people don’t need the glory; they know what they’ve achieved.

They don’t need the validation of others, because true validation comes from within.

So they stand back and celebrate their accomplishments through others. They stand back and let others shine – a confidence boost that helps those people become truly confident, too.

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To read the complete article, please click here.

Dharmesh Shah is founder and CTO of @HubSpot and blogger at OnStartups.com. To read all of Dharmesh’s articles, please click here.