Have you ever told anyone that they should “have more confidence”? If so, I’m sure you meant well. But what did you actually want that person to do differently? What effect did you want your words to have on them?
Fabulous Mountain Guide, Tamsin Gay, giving me courage on the Aiguille D’Entrèves
Photo credit www.stuartmacdonald.org
It’s something I have been told at various points in my career, but that always left me feeling a bit despondent. It’s not that I didn’t understand what the intention was. I knew it was designed to be encouraging. I just didn’t know how to show that I was confident, whilst also knowing how important humility was to me.
These two do not really sit well together. Of course they are on a continuum, with maybe arrogance at one end, and debilitating self-doubt at the other. And we all have different views of where confidence surges into arrogance, or where humility evaporates into self-doubt. But it should still be possible to progress in a career without having to convince people that you are confident every step of the way.
For me, confidence is like one of those Magic Eye prints (briefly popular in the nineties):
You spend ages looking for something that you don’t believe is there, and when it finally materialises, it disappears again before you even blink.
It is an intangible, shape-shifting, slippery little number, and in my case, I have pretty much no hope of summoning it at will.
If you’re some who always feels confident, excellent. If, from the comfort of your desk, you want to practise empathy for those who might not be as self-assured, have a go at finding the hidden 3D image in the 2D photo below. And then tell me it’s not elusive, tantalising, and a tiny bit frustrating.
What do you see? (Hint: the suspense is unbearable.)
The thing is, you don’t necessarily need “confidence” to get stuff done. When I’m doing something well out of my comfort zone, like clambering up a peak where every fibre of my body is screaming “why, why whyyyyyyyyy?!”, the last thing on my mind is confidence. Instead I am drawing on accountability, FOMO, fitness, peer pressure, stubbornness and somewhere in among all of that, courage.
And when courage wavers, which is often, I consider what particular brand of fear might be getting in my way. Is it something difficult? Awkward? Dangerous? Uncomfortable? Probably at least one of those depending on whether it is a professional activity or a sporting endeavour. And then I can start to work on unseating each of those fears, to take a step towards action. Or I can just ask Tamsin to hold me tighter on the rope for a bit.
Maybe you’re thinking this is just semantics. But if you have ever told someone to be more confident, can you recall whether it worked? Did someone’s behaviour change? Did they have a clue what they were supposed to do next? Probably not.
What can we try instead?
There are a few things leaders can do when tempted to tell someone to be more confident:
1. Don’t diagnose - help someone work out what they need themself
Instead of “have more confidence”, think of the specific example you have in mind and ask:
What stopped you from doing/saying….?
What would need to change for you to be able to do/say X the next time you’re in that situation?
What would have happened if you had done/said X in that situation?
2. Openly value humility
You cannot show humility without also being vulnerable. And showing vulnerability as a leader demonstrates elements of self-awareness, self-management, social awareness, and social skill. These four satisfyingly sibilant strengths are what emotional intelligence expert, Daniel Goleman, describes as the four pillars of emotional intelligence. And let’s be honest, most of us could do with a bit more of that.
3. talk about courage rather than confidence
Most people are clear on what constitutes courage. If we shift the narrative from “confidence” to “courage”, more risk (of the healthy kind) will be taken, more innovation will happen, and more people will better understand what they need to do to keep learning and progressing.
As with so many things, different approaches suit different people. But if your usual approach is to encourage some to “have more confidence”, why not try something new?
And please share how you get on because it may help others to try something different too.
