Note: This blog is an excerpt from my new book, Leadership Gems, and the women's version, Leadership Gems for Women.
Confidence is the foundation on which very successful leaders build their influence. If the foundation is weak, the structure will collapse under stress. Confidence is crucial to success in life and leadership because confidence builds trust.
Confidence sends an unspoken message of experience, strength, certainty, and success. We want to follow leaders who demonstrate confidence. Oscar de la Renta stated, “The qualities I most admire…are confidence and kindness.”
Leaders without confidence have weak followers. After all, if you don’t trust yourself, why would anyone else? As Vince Lombardi said, “Confidence is contagious. So is lack of confidence.”
There are two basic kinds of confidence: self-confidence and situational-confidence.
Self-confidence is conviction of your values and core beliefs enhanced by experience and lessons learned from both successes and failures. In other words, self-confidence is static. The factors that make you uniquely you create your self-confidence. Self-confidence is developed over time. While other people can support you, self-confidence will only be realized by growing and developing your own character.
Situational-confidence is certainty in the outcome of a situation which is enhanced by your knowledge, skills, and abilities. In other words, situational-confidence is dynamic and is affected by factors outside of your control. Situational-confidence can be increased by developing your competency. You won’t always have situational-confidence. There will be times when you try something new, take on a new job, or first become a manager, and lack experience or technical knowledge. There will be times when you have a new relationship with a team member and lack confidence in their ability to get the job done.
You may have self-confidence because it’s based on your character which remains the same in every situation but lack situational-confidence. For example, you may lack situational-confidence, perhaps in a new job, and still have plenty of self-confidence in your ability to learn. That shows strength of character because it takes self-confidence to develop situational-confidence. The more self-confidence you have (without arrogance), the greater success and influence you will have as a leader.
“Believe in yourself! Have faith in your abilities! Without a humble but reasonable confidence in your own powers you cannot be successful or happy.” Norman Vincent Peale
It’s important to note confidence must be balanced with humility to avoid arrogance. Confident leaders inspire trust. Arrogant leaders destroy it. To develop more situational-confidence, focus on developing your knowledge, skills, talents, and abilities. Situational-confidence may also increase with time and experience.
To develop more self-confidence, work on identifying and improving your character weaknesses. As Nicole Scherzinger noted, “Confidence comes with maturity, being more accepting of yourself.” Find a mentor to hold you accountable. Ask a trusted friend to help you identify character issues: lack of integrity, not making or keeping commitments, lack of humility, not taking ownership of mistakes, making too much of your mistakes, etc. Develop a personal growth plan to keep you on track.
Confident people become confident leaders. Make it a point to identify areas where you lack self-confidence. Then, determine what you need to work on internally. Who you are on the inside is what determines your results on the outside.
CHARACTERISTICS OF CONFIDENCE
Confident Leaders:
Aren’t afraid to take risks
Aren’t afraid of making mistakes
Aren’t afraid of leading others
Aren’t afraid of trusting instincts
Aren’t afraid of being persistent
Aren’t afraid of being passionate
Aren’t afraid of learning something new
Aren’t afraid of empowering others
Aren’t afraid of taking a stand
Aren’t afraid of following someone else
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Like many, Ria faced adversity in life. Raised on an isolated farm in Alabama, she was sexually abused by her father from age 12 – 19. Desperate to escape, she left home at 19 without a job, a car, or even a high school diploma. Ria learned to be resilient, and not just survive, but thrive.
She worked her way through school, an MBA, and eventually resigned from her career in the corporate world to pursue a passion for helping others achieve success. Ria’s background includes more than ten years in administrative healthcare, including several years in management and later, Director of Compliance and Regulatory Affairs for a large healthcare organization.
Now a motivational speaker, coach, and author of 9 books, she co-founded Top Story Leadership, which offers leadership development, speaking, training, coaching, and consulting.