What Leadership Confidence Looks Like & My 5 Tips to Increase it, Quickly

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CONFIDENCE – ESSENTIAL, OR UNFASHIONABLE?

There's a lot to be said for having confidence. It's an essential ingredient for any leader who aspires to lift their people to greater heights. 

Without confidence, it's difficult to effectively execute on even the most fundamental tasks that competent leadership requires, like: 

• Challenging the status quo;
• Making solid, timely decisions
• Holding your ground in conflict situations without getting personal, or letting your emotions boil over; 
• Backing your people and getting out of their way so they can do the jobs they're paid to do without interference; 
• Remaining calm in a crisis or an emergency situation; or
• Being comfortable to lean into both your strengths and your weaknesses.

Confidence is incredibly valuable… and you can't fake it! 

But I feel as though confidence has been getting a bad rap lately. It comes with many negative connotations, and less confident people often mistake it for insincerity, bluster, or even an inappropriate use of power dynamics. 

My observation, made over many years operating at the highest levels, is that confidence is an essential ingredient of high performance leadership. This is why it's so important to focus on your own level of confidence, to understand what you need to do to increase it, and to know how to keep the dark side of confidence at bay. 

I begin this newsletter by asking the question, “Why does confidence get such a bad rap?” Then, I take a look at the characteristics of real confidence – that genuine, calm confidence that comes from within – and I finish with my hot 5 tips for building confidence quickly – for both you and your team.

THE GOLDILOCKS EFFECT

I recorded a podcast episode a couple of years ago to deal with the relationship between some of the more interesting personal drivers: Ep.229: Confidence, Arrogance and Self-Doubt. 

Confidence in leadership often gets a bad rap, so I want to separate fact from fiction and cut through some of the noise. Why is there so much negativity around confidence? 

Well, confidence is an interesting thing. Like anything else, it would be facile to view it in isolation. We're told, for example, that leaders should be humble – but that's only part of the story:

• If you are humble and you’re decisive, well, that can be incredibly powerful; however
• If you are humble and you’re indecisive, that's disastrous – no one's going to follow you!

When it comes to confidence, like any personal trait or behavior, it totally depends on what else you've got going on. 

Just think about your previous bosses. What have you liked about them? What have you found annoying or even destructive? 

Picture for a moment  the best and the worst boss you ever worked for. It's likely that the best boss had a good measure of confidence – not arrogance, not overconfidence – but a quiet confidence, not just in her own abilities but also in yours. 

Now, think about your worst boss. How did you perceive his level of confidence? I would almost guarantee that you could put your worst boss into one of two camps:

1. The first camp is the leader who completely lacks confidence. He freezes when a critical decision is required. He micromanages you because he's worried that you can't do your job properly. He lacks the confidence to push back on his boss and he crumbles in the face of a crisis. Basically, someone like this is going to freeze at the times when decisive action is most needed.
2. The second camp is the insecure leader who overcompensates with bravado, trying to muster a fake level of confidence. These leaders can be even worse. He probably doesn't listen for fear of being seen to be wrong. He may use intimidation, and the power of his position to try to keep you in line because, after all, that's his only tool. He may even be a kiss up / kick down boss. In other words, he isn't confident enough to push back on his boss, but he takes it out on his team, ruling it with an iron fist.

As you can see, there’s some real ‘Goldilocks’ stuff going on here:

• You don't want to be Papa Bear, using strength and intimidation to try to compensate for your insecurity and lack of confidence. 
• Equally, you don't want to be Mama Bear, who's too fearful and uncertain to make a move on anything. 
• You want to be Baby Bear – just right. (We’ll cover what “just right” looks like in a moment).

When you think about it, it's no wonder that confidence has become associated with a bunch of dark side leadership characteristics, like a lack of substance.

I absolutely hate the whole “fake it until you make it” thing, right!? This is the worst leadership advice ever, and often, the pundits who give that advice will tell you in their next breath that you should “be authentic”. Go figure!? 

Then there's the association with certain personality types. It's a pretty easy cop out and say that confidence is reserved for those who are Type A personalities or extroverts, which is not at all true. 

Quite often, confidence is conflated with negative behavioral traits like not listening to others or lacking a basic level of self-awareness, or even being less open to feedback. But these problems don't arise as a result of confidence. They are the dark side that comes with overconfidence and arrogance.

WHAT REAL CONFIDENCE LOOKS LIKE…

Until I started to script this episode, I hadn't thought about this guy for probably 40 years, but he popped into my head immediately when I was trying to come up with the example that would best illustrate confidence. 

John Roussis was my first karate instructor. He's a Grand Master, and founded the style of Kempo Kai (which you can think of like advanced street fighting). 

In the dojo, John was an absolute beast. He was powerful, lightning fast, and violent – but he was also incredibly calm, controlled, and highly respectful. This was a real paradox. 

John wasn't tall. He had a solid build with jet-black hair and a classic 1980s Magnum P.I mustache, and when he went out for a drink on a Friday night, he looked like any other 30-something Australian of European descent.

He had a quiet nature and a warm smile…

No one could've imagined in their wildest dreams that he had won a bunch of full contact karate championships in Japan. No one would have suspected that he was, by far, the most lethal weapon in the room.

And John would never have done anything to give the impression that he was. Why? Because John Roussis had genuine confidence. He didn't need to act tough or to posture up. He'd smile and walk away from trouble sooner than he would engage in it. He had complete control of his emotions, which were wrapped up in his kind and friendly demeanor. 

John didn't need to be – or do – anything different, because he knew deep down that he had the ability to deal with absolutely anything that came his way. And I must say for myself, I felt much more confident just knowing that John was drinking at the same table as me.

WHAT DOES LEADERSHIP CONFIDENCE LOOK LIKE?

How do we translate this type of confidence into leadership confidence? The most important principle is that confidence comes from within. 

You can try to put on a confident front, but that's not the same thing. That's just bravado, which is effectively just masking your insecurity. This is very different to having the quiet confidence of a John Roussis. Bravado feels different and the people around you will be able to sense that difference as well.

For confidence to come from within, you need to harbor a deep belief in your ability to handle whatever comes your way. This doesn't mean you need to know everything. Quite the opposite. It requires a decent measure of self-awareness, knowing where you are strong and where you are weak, and knowing that you can handle any situation and that you'll be okay.

This requires a level of mastery that virtually anyone can acquire, if they put their mind to it. There are two really important points that I want to make about the process of mastery: 

1. Mastery comes from repetition, because with repetition, you can actually experience yourself getting better. You feel the improvement. As you get better, the skill and capability you build give you confidence. Your self-esteem and your belief grow in line with your capability, and this accelerates you through the journey from unconscious incompetence, all the way to unconscious competence.
2. Your journey to mastery gives you all the evidence you need. Along the way to mastery, you'll make mistakes – that's inevitable. You'll find yourself forced to endure pressure in all sorts of ways. You'll feel the despair of failure. You'll feel the frustration that comes with lack of progress, and you'll compare yourself to the people around you and feel as though somehow they are better than you or more skilled or more advanced, or that their path is easier than yours. The sum total of all this adversity is that you end up with a deep sense of certainty that whatever comes your way, it's going to be okay. You'll deal with it, just like you've done 1,000 times before.

Once you acquire deep confidence in your leadership capability, it manifests in some incredibly positive ways for you and for the people around you. Overconfidence and arrogance are unlikely to ever become a problem for you because you will have already pushed past the point where they're either necessary, or useful. 

THE BENEFITS OF GENUINE CONFIDENCE

I just want to mention five benefits of confidence that create immeasurable value:

1. You no longer feel the need to be right. Once you have genuine confidence in your own abilities, there's really nothing more for you to prove, so you welcome smarter options, more innovative solutions, and better decisions. 
2. You leave space for other people to give their ideas, because you don't feel the need to be right. Your focus shifts to others. You become way more interested in them and their contribution, because you're not threatened by it.
3. You rely much less on the use of expert power. You don't have to be the smartest person in the room. You know where you're strong and you play to your strengths. But you also know where you are weak and you look for others who are strong in that area to give you the balance you need (if you want more information on leadership power dynamics, have a listen to Ep.5: Using Power Wisely). 
4. You don't shy away from difficult things. You have a strong belief that you can handle anything no matter how difficult, and you relish the challenge that difficult things present, more than you fear any potential consequences that might come from it. 
5. You're more resilient, plain and simple. Your pulse rate rarely gets above 55. Your confidence translates into calmness in the face of even extreme pressure. Your people feel it and you have a team that's more able to cope with the inevitable obstacles, setbacks and disappointments that they'll face. 

Confidence, when it comes from the right place, is some incredibly powerful sh!t. 

5 TIPS TO INCREASE YOUR CONFIDENCE, QUICKLY!

Of course, I always like to finish a newsletter with some practical tips that you can implement immediately to turn the tide (or, to stop the hemorrhaging, depending on your current situation). To help you even more, I've created a PDF resource for this, which you can download at your leisure.

As always, the five steps I'm giving you here are not a silver bullet. They're an essential guide to focus you on the right things so that you get maximum traction for the effort you invest. This leadership stuff's never easy. Right?!

1. Forget about everyone else. 

As Teddy Roosevelt said, "Comparison is the thief of joy." 

Don't fall into this trap. It's one of the worst things you can do. We tend to compare our reality (with everything we know about our own weaknesses and failings) with other people's fantasy (the absolute best impression that they can put out into the world).

Just think about this in the context of social media. Your friends aren't posting things like: 

• "I had a standup row with my husband this morning," or, 
• "Caught my teenage son dealing oxy from his bedroom," or, 
• "Really struggling to pay the mortgage now that interest rates are on the rise again." 

They don't post that. It's more likely that they're posting things that say: 

• "Here's me having afternoon cosmos on the beach," or, 
• "Just popped over to Vanuatu for a romantic weekend getaway," or, 
• "Just got a new French bulldog, #furryfamily." 

It's exactly the same with leadership. Judging yourself on the basis of other people's outward impression isn't a realistic comparison. The only comparison you should be interested in is comparing the person you are today with the person you were yesterday. 

That's the type of comparison that's going to give you confidence.

2. Manage the stretch. 

Of course, it's critical that you learn to stretch yourself, to get out of comfort mode and to deliberately put yourself into uncharted territory – but you have to manage this stretch. 

A goal that is unrealistically high is going to leave you feeling deflated, and it'll have the opposite effect – it will actually sap your confidence. 

A goal that's too low won't have the desired confidence-inducing effect either. So make sure the stretch you set yourself is challenging, but realistic. Push yourself far enough that you need to bend, but not break.

3. Do the reps. 

Repetition gives you familiarity. It's the essential path to mastery. 

If you keep doing the things you know you need to do, they will give you confidence – and this is the confidence that's born from seeing 1,000 variants of the same problem… from having dozens of opportunities to adapt and apply your knowledge and expertise to any given situation. 

There's simply no substitute for this, and if you do your reps diligently, with a high level of commitment and quality, each rep becomes more valuable.

Pick what this is for you. For example, your reps might be, “Increasing my expertise in one-on-one conversations”. So here's my advice: go out and have a sh!t-ton of them! Be prepared to be bad at first, and the more conversations you have, in the shortest time period possible, the faster you are going to get better.

This is a massive confidence builder.

4. Recognize the improvements. 

Find some way to record your progress. I like to make sure that if something is measurable, I keep track of my personal improvement so that I can see where I've come from. 

When I gave up smoking all the way back in 1992, I remember that I struggled to run a single mile without breaking down with shortness of breath and fits of coughing. Five years later, I was running 80-100 kilometers a week, and targeting a three-hour marathon. 

I documented every step I took on that journey and it gave me the confidence to try anything.

5. Use your support systems.

… but at the same time, preserve your autonomy. 

In the case of your own confidence, it's important to know where to go for support. Everything is easier when you've got someone to tap into who's already walked that path. So, work out who can add value to your journey and don't be afraid to lean on them for some support – their reinforcement and encouragement is going to help you more than you could possibly imagine.

But don't ever think you can rely on them to do it for you. Only you can do the work and get the result. Having someone to support you is just going to speed the process up a bit and give you some certainty that you are on the right track.

I'd encourage you to take two passes of these points, which is why the PDF will be useful. 

• On the first pass, think about it in your own context. How do you use it to build your own confidence as a leader? 
• On the second pass, think about how you might use this in your team interactions to build their confidence. 

CONFIDENCE FUELS PERFORMANCE

Bringing all of this together, confidence isn't a bad thing. It's actually an essential ingredient of strong leadership. You shouldn't feel bashful or ashamed about being a confident leader. 

Recognize the power of the deep, calm confidence that comes from knowing exactly who you are, and knowing that you can handle any situation you find yourself in, no matter how tough. 

It's only when confidence is superficial, when it's unregulated, or when it's combined with ego and hubris that it becomes a problem. So I’d urge you to be confident, grow your confidence, and give your people the gift of confidence. 

Until you do that, there's always going to be a ceiling on what you can achieve.

The above article is from Episode 307 of the No Bullsh!t Leadership podcast. Each week, I share the secrets of high performance leadership; the career accelerators that you can’t learn in business school, and your boss is unlikely to share with you. Listen now on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or on your favorite podcast player.