Chapter 8

Build your confidence

Be kind to yourself and smile

There will be moments when things get tough, when your knees are knocking and your throat constricts. At points like these don’t be tough on yourself, be kind to yourself. Ahead of big events, rather than agonising over speaking notes, I (Sarah) find it more helpful to talk to myself in the mirror and say out loud to my reflection the words my mum would say if she were in the room with me: ‘You’re going to be just fine. You’ll do your best and that’s all that matters.’ Boy, is my mum wise! Honestly, management MBAs are overrated when you have the wisdom and experience of people around you to help you on your way. (And a tip to everyone who’s caught up in their own career progression – make the time to call your mum or other family and friends who supported you through those formative childhood years; they are part of the reason you are where you are today and they will appreciate a heartfelt THANK YOU when they’re least expecting it!).

In fact, I rarely walk away from any mirror without smiling at myself (or chuckling at my funny ways!). Whether I’m washing my hands, walking on the treadmill, or opening up my wardrobe in the morning, I make a point of this ritual because smiling releases serotonin, which slows heart rate, reduces blood pressure and just makes me feel … happier about myself, kinder to myself.

I’ve heard my seven-year-old daughter, Sunday, when she’s about to try something new and scary, say to herself in a fierce little voice, ‘You’ve got this, Sunday’ and I’ve started doing the same thing. It’s simple, you can start today, and when repeated frequently it helps to build long-term confidence and resilience. If you’re serious about stepping up, you’re going to face lots of challenges, so it’s good to be kind to yourself, and develop inner voices that support and reinforce you rather than voices that criticise and complain.

Learn from mistakes and move on

What to do when you’ve had a go at something, it’s not gone to plan and your confidence takes a knock? Remember the words of James Joyce: ‘Mistakes are the portals of discovery’. You might not get the outcome you want every time, but it’s when things go wrong that you have the most to learn. Your worst day at work is actually providing you with your best opportunity to learn. The war wounds you pick up on the journey all help to make you a successful leader and equip you to do things differently and better the next time.

This is what we mean when we talk about resilience. It’s about learning to take the knocks in your stride and using those knocks to your advantage. A big mountain takes a few goes to climb, and it’s what you learn on early attempts that allow you to conquer it eventually. Whatever you do, don’t stew over your mistakes – beating yourself up about a poor presentation or botched project launch will not help you up your game. It’s a waste of energy because the past is out of your control so focus on the future instead – on what you can change so you will feel more satisfied with your output next time round. Accept when you’ve got something wrong, identify the learnings and move on.

Self-monitor and seek consistency

As a leader, you need to be constantly observing and monitoring yourself, your behaviour and decisions. In what kinds of situations do you display great talent? In what kinds of situations do you perform suboptimally? Watch what you do when you’re under pressure. Observe how others react to you day to day; do you notice when someone is trying just to please you rather than give you bad news? Do you know how to be humble and accept the very worst of yourself whilst striving to do better next time? The more emotionally intelligent you are, the more you are able to regulate your own impulses and emotions and behave with consistency. It is described in Buddhist circles as the ability to tame your monkey mind, i.e. rather than being at the mercy of your mind chatter and mood swings, you can grow the capacity to choose how you respond emotionally to events and how you regulate your own emotions in a productive manner. Some people meditate or use mindfulness techniques to help them to improve how they manage their own emotions.

Monitoring and mastering your emotions is key to leadership progression because nobody wants to work with an emotionally volatile colleague or work for an unpredictable boss, who’s scowling one moment and high fiving the next. That’s confusing, unsettling and very unlikely to bring out the best in your team if they don’t know where they stand with you or what to expect from you one day to the next. It’s not just how you talk to people in person that matters, it’s how you talk on email too – a notoriously difficult medium to master! It’s easy to be misunderstood on email and to unintentionally come across as curt, dismissive or rude, so be mindful of your email tone, keep it positive and if in doubt, skip the email altogether and suggest you talk to each other in person.

Seek regular feedback and say thank you

At the same time, you can’t be the only one who is monitoring your performance. Relying solely on your own instincts to self-assess is the equivalent of taking your temperature with a thermometer that’s been run under a hot tap. You need an accurate measure, and one of the best ways to build confidence is to regularly seek feedback from those you work with. Your own individual perspective on your work and impact is by its very nature subjective, narrow and partial. You might be worrying too much about something that isn’t even perceived by others as a problem, or you may be unaware of a blind spot in the way you work.

Either way, there are lots of real-time opportunities for you to seek feedback from peers and managers. Do simple things like asking colleagues how they thought a client meeting went, and if there’s anything you could have improved upon so you know to include it next time. More formally, you could ask your HR team to run a 360-degree feedback exercise on you that allows all levels of your team to give feedback, up, down and across the business. Whatever you’re most comfortable with and however you choose to gather feedback, make sure that you’re proactively seeking it out and cross-checking your own instincts against what others are seeing and saying. When you receive negative feedback, whether or not you agree, be sure to listen attentively and openly, say ‘thank you’ and mean it! Feedback is a precious gift on your stepping-up journey, a power-up every bit as valuable as the golden mushrooms that give you a speed boost as you race around the track in Mario Kart.

Keep practising!

You don’t need to be perfect to be an awesome leader, but you do need to keep practising what you do and remain self-aware about your blind spots and the ways you can improve. Back in the 1960s it famously took four Liverpool lads 10,000 hours of band practice to become The Beatles and your commitment to self-improvement is critical if you’re going to truly fulfil your leadership potential. Practising what you do is a proven way to improve self-confidence, especially at key milestone moments when you have that big interview or client presentation that you really want to nail. Put in the time to prepare; that way you’ll feel more in control and know that you’ve put in the effort and done your best regardless of the outcome.

Appreciate your achievements

For over-achievers, it can be difficult to take the time to reflect on what has already been achieved. We urge you to take a moment at the end of every day to consider and recognise what you have achieved in your life, and in your day. With this longer perspective, you may notice that you’re the only one from your university class who has set up their own business, or properly appreciate that you financed your move to a new city without any help from your parents, or so on. There will be accomplishments that are unique to you and your situation. Appreciate them. Be mindful of the good stuff in your life, and how you got it. To achieve a deep-seated core confidence, you will need to appreciate yourself and what you have overcome to be in the position you are in today. Confidence is not all about tomorrow and what can be achieved in the future, it is also about the past and what has made you the person you are today. Give yourself credit for how far you’ve already come.

Be grateful

People who approach life with a sense of gratitude appreciate the chances they have been given, and are more open to future opportunities. When things don’t go as planned, people who have learned gratitude are more resilient and faster to bounce back because they can put setbacks in perspective. When opportunities come their way, they feel luckier about having the chance to do more, to achieve more – and this kind of openness leads to a positive spiral of success and confidence. Customers reciprocate loyalty when they feel that you truly appreciate their business. Employees and team members reciprocate support and hard work when they feel that you truly appreciate their hard work and efforts. Think about small ways to show your gratitude to the people that matter to you: whether it’s a simple email or thank-you card, or a personal gift.

Be generous

A confident leader is a generous leader. Rather than thinking of leadership as a zero-sum game (‘You win, I lose’), the confident leader will play a non-zero-sum game (‘We can all win. Just because you win doesn’t mean that I lose’). Confidence implies that there is room for everyone, that we are all in this together and that there are plenty of gains for everyone! A confident leader is happy to collaborate with peers, seek out mutual wins, and pay it forward, supporting and cheerleading the next generation of leaders. What does generosity look like in practice for a leader? It is about giving credit and recognition, giving great assignments and opportunities to your people, giving your time, sharing contacts, giving your support, and anticipating how to help others.

Go from to-do to ta-dah!

Rather than a constant focus on what’s next on the to-do list, how about making a list of what you have done – ‘ta-dah!’ This can be an inventory of achieved tasks that remind you about how productive you were today, this week or since you got the job. Delivered my project on time – ta-dah! Spoke up about my concerns at the meeting – ta-dah! Helped the finance team to solve their sales force queries – ta-dah! Try it, and see how many items you can put on your ta-dah list. It’s fun, not least because you probably haven’t used the word ta-dah since you were a kid doing forward rolls and trying to stand on your head – good metaphors for business today! If there are not enough ticks on your ta-dah list, then all the more reason to try harder the next day.

After a while, you train yourself to focus on outcomes not actions, and on increasing your sense of satisfaction at jobs well done. A focus on what you have achieved will make you realise that you are making a difference and will help to build your confidence. Turn negative thoughts into positive ones to reduce anxiety and increase your own belief in what might be possible. For example, instead of thinking ‘maybe it won’t happen’, say to yourself ‘it might happen’. These subtle shifts in attitude and thought pattern create more optimistic and buoyant energy which may impact a more positive outcome. Focus on your achievements as well as objectives yet to be realised.

Remember the journey is the reward

When you achieve a significant goal, you won’t be the same person you were when you set out on the journey. The process of achieving your goal and the experience you gain along the way will have changed you. This is why the journey is the reward. The discipline of working hard to achieve your goals will have given you strengths, skills and experience that equip you to do more and go further. You may have learned resilience, patience, courage. You go to a higher level of experience, which means that what was challenging before is now seen in a different light – placed in a better perspective, no longer as daunting as it once seemed. After all, you did it once, and you can do it again. You can rise to the next challenge. And so it goes on: confidence builds confidence. One success leads to another because underpinning each success is a story and a journey that strengthens you. At any one time we are in the middle of a longer journey; take comfort from this and realise that arriving at your destination is not the only marker of success. It’s what you are doing now, along the way, that builds you into a leader. So don’t just focus on the end goal: appreciate the skills and experience you are building now and every day.