Leadership - Confidence
Confidence
Efficiency sapping
It is all very well knowing what you need to do as a leader but if you lack confidence, for whatever reason, it may be hard to deliver.
This can be a vicious spiral.
Poor confidence may inhibit good techniques which in turn produce poor performance and a subsequent lack of confidence in your leadership.
You get less confident and become self conscious and the problem gets worse.
Outward characteristics like the way you stand, your voice tone and strength are picked up by others.
You can end up by putting a lot of effort into managing the negative effects of low confidence instead of into the matter in hand.
Typical examples might be.
- A fear of feeling foolish in a situation.
- Formal presentations often produce anxiety.
- Fear of the unknown, for example, a reluctance to change jobs and accept unknown pressures.
To counter this people often produce an outward veneer of confidence to tackle the ‘problem’ in hand.
This requires a lot of emotional energy and is very hard to sustain.
The aim is to try to challenge the underlying reasons for these fears and solve the lack of confidence at a more fundamental level.
These, often unfounded fears, are commonly hidden as the individual can not come to terms with their existence.
A lack of confidence is not a respecter of age or gender.
These issues don’t just confine themselves to a particular task.
A lack of confidence in one area can spread to other areas like a disease.
Most people will lack confidence when approaching a new activity or working with or meeting a new person.
It is very common for people to lack confidence with their boss.
Most individuals don’t want to fail and may believe they have poor talents when presented with a new situation.
Remember, that as well as trying to improve your own confidence your leadership position will require you to instil confidence in others.
Confidence and self esteem.
Do not confuse confidence with self esteem. The latter relates to how you see yourself fundamentally and how you value yourself.
Self esteem is more about how you want others to react to you to raise your self worth – you want people to like you.
The problem arises when low confidence results in poor performance. If others take a dislike to the performance and blame you directly this attitude may well dent your self esteem. This may in turn have a negative affect on your confidence.