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Career satisfaction, Communication, Emotional Intelligence, EQ, Executive Presence, Leadership, Self-leadership, Success Strategy
Confidence Is Not the Absence of Doubt
Carol, a senior leader in healthcare, recently transitioned from HR to strategy. She felt out of her depth. In leadership meetings, she hesitated to share her opinions, lacking the confidence she once had after 30 years in HR. Similarly, Steve, a veteran financial executive, had just stepped into a new role. Playing it safe, he stayed agreeable and held back. But over time, his frustration grew as he struggled to gain support for his initiatives. It’s true that decades of experience can bolster confidence, but we don’t always have the luxury of time. The good news? Confidence isn’t solely built on tenure. It’s about finding the conviction to move forward…
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Beyond “Fake it Till You Make it”: A More Authentic Approach To Building Confidence
During the early days of my coaching career, when I said, “I am a coach,” my facial expression didn’t match it. The truth was, I didn’t feel confident about my new identity. Internally, I still saw myself as a software professional who was transitioning into coaching. And, as you can probably guess, the advice I received at the time was to “just believe it.” However, after 13 years, I’m here to tell you that I recommend a different approach. Recently, I had the pleasure of working with a woman in her mid-30s, a software development manager at a startup. Let’s call her Jessica. She struggled to talk about her strengths…
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Working on Your Confidence? Watch Out Your Go-to Words and Root Cause
Confidence is a common topic my clients bring to coaching. Anyone working on it knows that confidence is not a simple binary thing. It shows up as a part of a complex set of behavior that stems from inside more than outside. Our word choices often can hinder how confident we appear. “Think” is one such word that got my attention lately. The ability to think – about complex problems, gives us an edge as knowledge workers. Ironically overuse of the word may not serve as much. This tendency is common among women and people who are more analytical. One of my clients, let’s call her Tatyana, is working on…
