Confident Enough
Given that my speciality is working with mid-level leaders in big organisations, many people assume that I work with people in their 30s-40s.
I often do, but I also work with people in their 50s and 60s who feel like they “should” have this confidence thing sorted out by now!
The truth is that Confidence isn’t a fixed thing. We don’t suddenly become confident and then full stop, that’s the end, I’m confident forever. If we are continuously growing as professionals, if we want to learn and we care about the work that we are doing, then we will keep pushing ourselves in to situations that are new or challenging. And we might not know if we’re any good at them if we don’t receive any feedback, so we might experience a drop in confidence again. For some of us, if we have never stopped to really learn about ourselves, been encouraged by a strong effective leader above us, or had opportunities to develop trust in our own potential, we can reach later stages in our career, and very much want to contribute more than we currently are, but feel like we haven’t got the confidence to do that.
Confidence comes from doing the very things that feel uncomfortable. Until we get the hang of it. And only then do we feel confident doing it.
As leaders, helping everyone we work with to be constantly growing, stretching and challenging themselves to learn something different, we also need to give consistent growth feedback to support our teams, peers and even our leaders above us, to continuously build their confidence over time. This often means stepping into conversations we are uncomfortable in, building the skills to give great feedback and giving ourselves space for reflecting on our growth so that we build our confidence every time we step in anyway, despite the nerves and discomfort. The hard conversations of leadership rarely get easy, wherever we’re up to in our career! And we can start where we are and build our skills, so we can practise and through this practise build our confidence.
What I see consistently is that, whatever age a client I work with is, when they stop and look at what they really want to achieve, develop their awareness of their own behaviours and their potential to make different choices, when they bring some control and autonomy to their situation, they will, with encouragement and ongoing reflection, improve their confidence. They start having a more positive and effective impact on their workplace. And it feels great!
One of my clients a few years back was in her 70s, and after working through a process of understanding and learning these things with me, she said to me at the end of the programme – “this is the first time in my life that I have felt confident”. She understood what she needed to do to develop that and took responsibility herself for taking the action required, with some explicitly articulated belief in her potential from those around her.
I share this to encourage you, whether you are 20 or 70, next time you hear yourself visiting the story in your head of “I should have this sorted by now”, remember, confidence comes by hearing that story, feeling that discomfort and stepping in anyway. The “should” doesn’t help us, the Action in the moment does.
(edited: originally published with the title ‘When it comes to Confidence there’s no such thing as Should’ in 2019)
If you’d like more help or information on these or other Leadership and Confidence topics, please connect with Amy and the Nurturing Confidence team on whichever socials you use, via Linktree. Or you can view our Leadership Toolkit, where we have created online courses you can work through in your own time, to grow your confidence and leadership skills.
(Amy Jackson, B.Psych (Hons I), PCC, is a Leadership Coach, specialising in working with mid-level leaders in complex organisations. Her focus is on supporting leaders to step up to the difficult conversations and actions needed to achieve real improvement and transformation in messy workplaces.)
