Confidence and Leadership

Good leaders must be confident, or else those who should follow will lose their belief in the leader.  On the other hand, a good leader must be sure not to overstep into arrogance or rely too much on the power to mandate decisions.  When a leader does encounter significant opposition, it can be difficult to retain confidence, but that's often when you need it the most.

Amy Jen Su and Muriel Maignan Wilkins wrote, "To Strengthen Your Confidence, Look to Your Past," in the Harvard Business Review Blog.  Check out their article for some great ideas on retaining confidence in adversity.

Here are some tips that have worked for me.

• Beware of imposter syndrome.  This is the feeling that someone made a mistake in hiring you for the job you are in.  Think about the skills you bring to the job, and remind yourself what those people who hired you saw in you.  
• Think about a different path.  If you are getting considerable opposition to your plan or strategy, think of another way to describe it or a different way to get there. 
• Describe what or where but not how.  Tell your team what you want to accomplish or where you want to end up, but involve them in developing how to get there.  Have confidence in the end goal but give a little on the details.

Confidence is a critical skill for leaders to develop.  Like many skills, practice leads to improvement.  Practice being confident, even if you don't feel that way at the moment.  Over time, you'll feel that way more and more.