“Being confident means being a leader without being bossy.”
– Fourth Grade Student
CONFIDENT
“Being confident means believing in yourself and sharing your ideas.”
– Sixth Grade Student
“[Confidence] means that someone works well with others, and gives their input, and they respect the people around them.”
– 11th Grade Student
Use the information in this section to help you introduce the “confident” attribute to students. You can use the question stem “How does this attribute make you a better leader?” to start a discussion with your students and to check for comprehension (see Additional Resources for more information to further your personal understanding).
Explaining “Confident” to Students
You don’t need a title in order to be a leader, but you do need confidence—the belief that you have the ability to influence outcomes. How often have you been in a situation where there was a need for somebody to lead? How often do you voluntarily take on that leadership role? Confident means stepping up and taking charge when it is needed. This does not mean that you are the person who is always telling others what to do. Confident leaders listen to others and speak up as appropriate to help with direction, alignment, or commitment (DAC) (see Chapter 5: Collaborative for more about DAC). Confident leaders are self-assured and set a personal example of integrity, courage, and initiative. They act in a way that is consistent with their values, they are not afraid to stand up for what they believe, and they are able to lead action without hesitation when necessary. Your confidence is reflected through the way you carry yourself, the image you project, and your daily actions. If you are confident, then you are aware of how you can impact a situation, and you take the necessary steps to have positive impact. Confident leaders inspire commitment and a belief that things can get done. When confident leaders speak, people listen. When confident leaders act, people join in. Confident leaders are self-assured and not threatened by others, which allows them to listen to diverse opinions and thoughts.
What “Confident” Looks Like
Confident leaders:
• project self-assurance and poise
• command attention and respect
• are optimistic and take the attitude that most problems can be solved
• set a positive personal example
• accept setbacks with grace
• tolerate stressful situations and do not overreact
• communicate credibility
• avoid alienating people or damaging relationships
• rarely criticize other people
• are not easily rattled, distracted, or intimidated
• act with integrity
• share their thoughts and opinions
• listen to others’ thoughts and opinions
• build trust with others
• are decisive when necessary
• contribute to the outcomes of direction, alignment, and commitment
What Gets in the Way?
If you are not confident, then you may have the tendency either to try to control others or to let others always take control. Read the following list and note the items that might be keeping you from being a confident leader due to a desire to control others.
• You tell people what to do without doing it yourself.
• You do not listen to others.
• You dominate conversations.
• You are overconfident.
• You do not act in accordance with your core values or beliefs.
• You think your ideas are better or more important than anyone else’s.
• You take control of a situation even if someone else is better suited to lead.
Read the following list and note the items that might be keeping you from being a confident leader due to a desire to let others take control.
• You lack self-assurance.
• You are afraid to speak up.
• You are worried you will be teased or judged about your ideas.
• You have difficulties dealing with stressful situations.
• You do not recognize when leadership is needed.
• You are afraid to take risks.
• You do not step up, even when you know there is a need for action.
Having the ability to step up and take charge when necessary, without trying to control every situation, will help you be a more effective social-emotional leader.
Suggestions for Improving “Confident”
Work with your students to discuss and establish some ways to build competency in this attribute. Below is a list to help support this exercise. Feel free to develop your own strategies or modify these suggestions.
You may also consider doing an activity with your students (see Activity Center for suggestions) or asking them to write about the attribute (see Journal Prompts for suggestions) to help build student understanding.
In conjunction with your students, figure out how you are going to support each other as a group or class to build competency in this leadership attribute.
• Be clear. Know what you want to communicate, and communicate it clearly. Vague, contradictory, or disjointed messages will likely leave others bored, confused, and feeling negative about your leadership. Conversely, a clear message enhances your ability to make a difference and inspire others.
• Monitor your voice. If what you’re saying is valuable, how you say it is just as important. A leader with a flat or monotone vocal style, inappropriate volume, or poor diction will fail to inspire others.
• Think “we.” By simply exchanging the words “I,” “me,” and “my” with more inclusive terms, you can foster a sense of community and gain trust. This will also help others recognize your collaborative spirit.
• Lighten up. Leaders don’t need to be overly serious for others to take them seriously. An upbeat attitude and a kind word can lift the mood of those around you.
• Exude energy. Passion is contagious, and an energetic leader can motivate others to be their best.
• Focus on managing stressful situations. Responding poorly in times of stress or conflict will make others see you as a less confident leader.
• Look in the mirror. How might your body language display confidence? Be aware of how you sit and stand (your posture) when you are talking to others.
• Seek a mentor. Look for someone who can give you feedback and ideas about how you can be more confident. Build a partnership with this person—what can you teach them in exchange?
• Show humility. There is strength in vulnerability. Admitting that you make mistakes and taking accountability for them in a genuine way, with grace and a sincere commitment to improve, can boost others’ perceptions of your leadership.
Here are some suggestions for activities that may be modified to fit your context and the students with whom you are working.
• Book introduction. Find a book to read with students that has a character who demonstrates the attribute “confident” or who would have benefitted from being more confident, and have students discuss or journal about the character’s behavior (see the Suggested Books section of this chapter for books that could be used for this activity).
• The Center of the Circle. Have students stand in a circle, and have one student start in the middle of the circle. This person is the leader. The person in the center does a movement (such as waving their hands in the air) that everyone else replicates. Once the student in the center is sure that everyone is doing the same movement, they switch places with someone on the outside of the circle. Everyone continues to do that movement until the new leader gets into the middle of the circle and begins a new movement (such as snapping their fingers), then everyone follows this movement. This process continues until everyone has had a turn in the center of the circle. Nobody can go twice. Debrief with the following questions: How did it feel to be in the leadership role? How did you feel when you knew you were about to go into the center of the circle? How did it feel to give up your leadership role? What did you learn about yourself from this activity?
• Birthdate. Have students get into groups of 10 to 12. The task is for students to arrange themselves in order by birth date from youngest to oldest (paying attention to day, month, and year) within each of these groups. Debrief with the following questions: Who took charge during this activity in each group? How did they take charge? Why were they able to take charge? How did students lead with confidence?
• Ted Talks. Show the Ted Talk “What adults can learn from kids” by Adora Svitak (https://www.ted.com/talks/adora_svitak?language=en). Sample questions for discussion: How does Adora display confidence (both with words and body language)? How can you inspire confidence in others?
• Over and under-confident leadership. There is a fine line between taking too much control and too little control. Have students work in small groups to create scenes that show the impact of a student who takes too much control or too little control. Debrief these scenes with conversations about how confident leadership could have changed the outcome. Then reenact the scene with a confident leader who makes a positive impact.
• Confident leaders. Have students find examples of confident leaders, past or present, and explain why this individual is a confident leader (example: Rosa Parks). Make sure students discuss how this individual shows self-assurance, integrity, courage, and initiative.
• Rotating leadership. Make sure that at some point during the year every student has the opportunity to take a leadership role in the classroom.
Journal Prompts
Choose one or more of the journal prompts appropriate for the age level you work with. Feel free to modify or extend the prompt. Give students time to reflect on the questions in a personal journal. To extend the exercise, ask students to share their reflections with a peer or small group.
• What are some ways that you can work on becoming more confident?
• Describe a moment in which you displayed confident leadership. What did you do and how did others respond?
• When others reflect on this school year, how do you want others to describe you? What legacy do you want to leave behind?
• What are the three most visible actions you have taken in the last month? What might people conclude about you based on their observations of those actions?
• Think of someone who you believe is a confident leader. What does that person do to stand apart from others? How does this person’s body language display confidence? How might you emulate their behavior in an authentic way?
• How did you handle the last stressful situation you found yourself in? How would you like to cope with stress? What could you do differently? How does stress affect your confidence?
Integrating the Attribute into Your Curriculum
Choose an activity from your planning guide or syllabus. After your students complete the activity, relate the activity back to the “confident” attribute with a debriefing conversation. Below are suggested questions. Choose or modify questions based on your students’ developmental level, your activity, and your context.
This debrief can take the form of a full-group discussion. You might consider giving students time to reflect on their answers with partners or in small groups before asking them to share responses with the larger group. Alternatively, you may decide to ask students to work in small groups to share their responses on flip charts, and then have a gallery walk where students walk around the room and read what other students have written, potentially adding their own comments or thoughts.
• How did the activity that we did help you understand the attribute “confident”?
• How did you work on being confident during this activity?
• How did other students demonstrate being confident during the activity?
• What does it mean to be confident?
• Why is it important to be confident?
• How can being confident make you a better leader?
• How can a lack of being confident impact leadership?
• How can you work on becoming more confident?
• What are some ways you could practice being confident moving forward?
• How will you demonstrate being confident in your interactions with others?
• What impact can increasing your ability to be confident have on you?
• Identify a person, past or present, who demonstrates being confident. What specific actions demonstrate this person being confident?
• Identify a book character who demonstrates being confident. What specific actions does this character do that demonstrate being confident?
Questions to Assess Understanding
Consider giving the following questions to students to determine if you need to spend more time explaining this attribute.
• What does it mean to be a confident leader? Give an example of someone you know who is a confident leader. How does this person demonstrate being a confident leader?
• What are three things you are going to work on in order to become a more confident leader?
Suggested Books to Introduce “Confident”
The books listed below can be used to deepen younger students’ understanding of the “confident” attribute.
• Chrysanthemum by K. Henkes
• The Hero in Me by S. Fitzsimonds & J. Covieo
• I Am So Brave! by S. Krensky
• I Like Myself! by K. Beaumont & D. Catrow
• Leo’s Gift by S. Blackaby, J.T. Cicciarelli, & C. Schuler
• The One, the Only Magnificent Me! by D. Haseltine
• Only One You by L. Kranz
• Purplicious by E. Kann
• The Story of Ferdinand by M. Leaf
• What Can a Citizen Do? by D. Eggers & S. Harris
Additional Resources
This section provides additional places to look for help and advice to develop your personal knowledge, as an adult, about this attribute.
Booher, D. D. (1994). Communicate with confidence! How to say it right the first time and every time. New York, NY: McGraw-Hill.
Booher, D. D. (2011). Creating personal presence: Look, talk, think, and act like a leader. San Francisco, CA: Berrett-Koehler Publishers.
Criswell, C., & Campbell, D. (2008). Building an authentic leadership image. Greensboro, NC: Center for Creative Leadership.
Cuddy, A. J. C. (2015). Presence: Bringing your boldest self to your biggest challenges. New York, NY: Little, Brown and Company.
Kennedy-Moore, E. (2019). Kid confidence: Help your child make friends, build resilience, and develop real self-esteem. Oakland, CA: New Harbinger Publications.
Horth, D. M., Miller, L., & Mount, P. (2016). Leadership brand: Deliver on your promise. Greensboro, NC: Center for Creative Leadership.
McGonigal, K. (2012). The willpower instinct: How self-control works, why it matters, and what you can do to get more of it. New York, NY: Avery.
Siegel, D. J., & Bryson, T. P. (2018). The yes brain: How to cultivate courage, curiosity, and resilience in your child. New York, NY: Bantam.