Mastering Confidence

Here are my 10 Key Strategies on how to Master Confidence - it’s the one proven game-changer for your success as a senior leader because it underpins everything else you will do.

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Strategy 1

Understand What Confidence Is

Ask 20 leaders if confidence is important: They’ll all say: ‘"YES!"
Ask 20 leaders to define confidence, and they’ll give you a different, probably vague, answer.
Confidence is an over-used but rarely understood concept. Because of this, leaders don’t recognise how often lack of confidence is holding them back, distorting their behaviours and undermining results.

Strategy 2

Recognise How Much Confidence Permeates Every Aspect Of Your Leadership Success

Confidence in yourself, in your team, in your organisations’ systems and processes, in your boss or your Board.
Your customers’ confidence in your organisation.
Your team’s confidence in you, your boss’s confidence in you.
If any one of these are undermined, the results you achieve are undermined too.

Strategy 3

Challenge Unhelpful Beliefs

Every leader I have worked with has been held back by unhelpful beliefs.
Because their beliefs are intrinsic to how they see the world they aren’t even aware of their damaging impact. From leaders whose careers stalled because they were too aggressive or too passive, to leaders who were micro-managing their teams, to those who were setting out to achieve big new goals and weren’t completely sure how.
This was the first thing they needed to work on.

Strategy 4

Differentiate between self-esteem

and self-confidence

These two concepts are used interchangeably but they’re quite different:
Self-esteem is the fundamental belief that you are a worthwhile human being who deserves your place on this planet.
Self-confidence is situation specific and fluctuates from day-to-day.
Misunderstanding this difference leaves leaders blind to the times when their confidence is low, and therefore to the impact that this is having on their performance, and the performance of everyone they impact.

Strategy 5

Understand and value the two pillars of self-confidence:

control and power

When we have control and power in any situation, our confidence is solid. However, when we lose control or feel powerless, our confidence plummets.
Understanding the control and power you have will ensure you use them judiciously and competently to build your confidence, and the confidence of others around you.

Strategy 6

Recognise that the opposite of confidence is fear

People tend to think that the opposite of confidence is a lack of confidence. It isn’t! You see, a lack of confidence is ‘nothing’ and nature abhors a vacuum.
No, the opposite of confidence is fear – or a derivative of it, such as worry, anxiety, uncertainty…..When any one of these starts to gnaw at us, it erodes our confidence.
For this reason, to build confidence, you need to first understand and manage your fears.

Strategy 7

Set clear boundaries.....

And stick to them

Leaders operate in busy, complex worlds – too many demands on you and your team, and too few resources to deliver!
It’s easy to feel overwhelmed and find that your confidence disappears.
Confident leaders avoid this because they set and maintain clear boundaries, and ensure others do the same.
Unclear boundaries or ever-changing boundaries will damage your confidence.

Strategy 8

Manage People Who Undermine You

You can accept that not everyone is going to be your biggest fan, but people can undermine you in a myriad of ways. Whether that’s a boss who’s happy to criticise but seldom rewards, an unforgiving market and competitors who seem to always be a few steps ahead, or peers who should support but like to point out flaws, there are plenty of people who will undermine your confidence.
And oh, if only you could simply avoid them. Sadly, you can’t.
So, to protect your confidence, you must manage them with skill and dexterity.

Strategy 9

Understand & Manage Your Emotions

You may well have worked on your EQ for years, perhaps you’ve undertaken every leadership
psychometric ever invented to build your self-awareness, but, if you’re like most leaders, this won’t really have helped you understand and manage your emotions when it matters. You see, it’s hard to turn theory into practice and all the self-awareness in the world won’t help if you can’t manage your reactions in the moment.
Leaders who can are far more confident about handling any situation well.
This is good for them personally, and builds confidence for others. But, if you find yourself having to say you’re sorry more often than you’d like, it’s a sign that your confidence isn’t as solid as it needs to be.

Strategy 10

Work on your resilience to build your confidence – and vice versa

Never mind the chicken and the egg, which came first, resilience or confidence?
Resilience and confidence are so intertwined that it’s difficult to tell them apart. The great news is that the same good habits, constructive mindset and skills practice will strengthen both your resilience and your confidence – so you multiply the benefits many times over.
On the other hand, when your resilience crumbles, your confidence weakens too. The most effective leaders recognise this and work on their confidence and their resilience, together, as one holistic package.

Master Your Confidence

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Why Work With Me

As Your Confidence Coach?

After 25 years of working with leaders across energy, engineering, construction and manufacturing industries, I understand the unique obstacles technical leaders face.

My frameworks guarantee no fluff and are designed to deliver quick results and sustained outcomes in complex, demanding environments.

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