5
The Courage to Be Confident
Imagine if birds only sang when heard. If musicians only played when approved of. If poets only spoke when understood.1
—Mark Nepo, The Book of Awakening
Kellie was a first-time manager who, like many, was just trying to figure it all out. She loved her company, her team, and most of all, the work she did. Kellie was known by others for her contagious combination of positivity and a willingness to collaborate. When I first started working with Kellie, she was in the beginning stages of creating boundaries with others and learning to delegate. Because she was so willing to help others, at times she would struggle with saying yes, when in reality she wasn’t prepared to take on the additional work and even when she really wanted to say no. To make matters worse, she had a very challenging employee who was making her rethink her decision to become a leader.
During a conversation in which Kellie was sharing some of her frustrations with the challenging employee, I said to her, “Kellie, leading people is hard. We all feel this way at times. It’s not just you.” Her eyes watered up and, on the verge of tears rolling down her face, she brushed them away and exhaled relief. Kellie needed validation that what she was experiencing didn’t mean that she was incompetent or incapable, even though she may have been feeling that way.
Fast-forward a few years later, Kellie and I met to catch up on her development goals. This time, though, our conversation was dramatically different from the one that had ended close to tears. Kellie was comfortable, relaxed, and above all else, confident.
As we discussed some of those early conversations, and in particular, her challenging employee, we shared a lighthearted laugh. She said, “You know, as difficult as that was, it was a great learning experience. I remember not being sure if I wanted to lead or confident that I could, and now I can’t imagine it any other way.”
In a few short years, Kellie has gone from struggling as a new manager to truly standing out as a senior leader in her organization. She leads a strong, healthy team, and is currently working alongside her new CEO as a thought leader and partner for a major organizational change project. What a difference the courage to be confident and a little time can make.
Those People Complex
Countless leaders I’ve come in contact with over the years have struggled with the courage to be confident. And just like Kellie, when they struggle they wonder if maybe they are not up for the challenge of leadership. The truth is, maybe they’re not. Not all people are willing to give leadership what it takes. It’s a powerful role with a formidable list of responsibilities, including being able to stay strong and confident in the face of pushback. In leadership, you have to believe in yourself even when others don’t. For some leaders, believing in others seems to be much easier than believing in themselves. When things go south, as they invariably do, they blame themselves rather than assessing the full picture. Unlike those who struggle to be humble, those who struggle to be confident make themselves wrong and others right. They see all the reasons why others are better and more capable and why success and happiness belong only to them. In this way, they swing too far on the pendulum past humility to a lack of ability to see and value their own strengths and contributions.
Those who lack the courage to be confident suffer from what I call Those People Complex. Those People Complex is when you see something in others that you are unwilling or unable to see in yourself. As a result, you limit your own potential. Those people—those who have what you want—they are somehow different, special, unique, or gifted in a way you are not, which therefore explains away your inability to accomplish what you want. But here is the myth buster for the Those People Complex: Every one of us has the ability to have the life we want. There is no limit to our possibilities if we choose to see ourselves as capable and worthy. I will admit, some of us want to be things that for reasons out of our control we cannot become. Maybe you wanted to join the Navy SEALs but couldn’t because you are color-blind; maybe you wanted to be a baseball star but only made it to the minors due to a bad arm. Heck, I wanted to be a teenage actress and marry Kirk Cameron, but my parents were completely unwilling to take me to LA to start an acting career at age 13. For shame. But in most cases, concerning what we are here to give to the world, the real talents we have to offer, we are the only ones who limit our potential.
Growing up in a lower-middle-class family with a B-minus average and no real athletic abilities to speak of, I found myself suffering from Those People Complex. There was nothing really special about me that seemed to surface during my first 18 years on Earth. I wasn’t funny, I wasn’t overly smart, and I didn’t have a clue how to fit in. It was hard to believe there was something exceptional about me that was yet to be revealed. It seemed there were people everywhere who had more of something I wanted, yet I was limited to what was easily accessible to me. My dad, from whom I took most of my direction, didn’t always help with my lack of self-confidence. The talents I did have did not match what he valued. He was a technician and engineer. I was a sensitive and expressive kid. He was stable and reliable. I was a risk taker and challenging. When it came time to go to college, he filled out my college application papers and said, “Sign your name, you’re going to college.” The paperwork required a chosen degree so he selected it for me—early childhood education. At the time, I wanted to be a preacher, an actress, or a business owner—possibly all three. But my dad had a different idea. He said there would always be work for an elementary school teacher. I know my dad meant well, and in retrospect I can see that what he wanted for me was stability and security, which mirrored his core values. However, the message I heard was “You’re not one of those people; you’re not talented enough to do something more.”
For the record, I believe being an elementary school teacher is an exceptionally difficult job—one that doesn’t pay nearly enough and provides too little recognition for an amazing responsibility. I look at my kids’ teachers all the time and I’m in awe. I am so grateful for their patience and dedication. The vocation is not the point; determining our own potential is the point. Anytime someone else selects something for us because he or she believes it’s what we should do, and it isn’t what we want for ourselves, it requires a great deal of courage to say “No thank you” and go down another path.
For me, it was only two months into my first semester that I figured out I wasn’t meant to be an elementary school teacher. During a field trip to a local school, five-year-olds covered in Elmer’s Glue and glitter made macaroni necklaces for the visiting college students and sang us songs. Although the necklace was heartwarming, the visit did not have the desired impact my dad would have liked. Back on campus, I walked straight back into the registrar’s office and changed my major to communications without a single clue what I would do with the degree when I earned it. I won’t mention in print what my dad had to say about that.
Confidence Comes from Self-Trust
Stacy and I first met when I began working with her team. After working with Stacy and observing the dynamic between her and her boss, I suggested I facilitate a conversation between the two of them. She was struggling with being able to share her concerns with him without feeling dismissed. She shared that often she would feel something was going wrong, or she would disagree with her boss, usually resulting in her losing her voice and acquiescing. For example, he had provided feedback that he valued her ability to bring out the best in her peers when they were disagreeing, and he wanted to see her step up more and help solve their problems. Instantly, she knew this was not a role she wanted to play on the team. Rather than say it, she sat quietly and let him continue talking. After the discussion, she felt sick to her stomach and wanted to find the quickest way out of the building. She wanted to tell her boss what she was feeling, but she lacked the courage.
I asked Stacy to share with me other ways she struggled with courage. She told me that her team members often commented they liked working for her because it was more like working for a peer than a manager. Secretly, she knew this wasn’t really a compliment. What they were really saying is that she was not able to articulate a direction and hold them accountable to their performance. Instead, her role was more of a coach who provided feedback, offered suggestions, and was available for them to bounce around ideas. Although that was constructive, she recognized she wasn’t very good at making requests of them and securing their commitments. Even when she was able to get a commitment, Stacy was very uncomfortable following up and holding them accountable.
When I asked Stacy what prevented her from saying what she wants to say and holding others accountable, surprisingly, she didn’t tell me that she didn’t know how to do it; rather, she expressed that she didn’t feel qualified. Who was she to provide direction? Who was she to tell someone to do something different or provide a different perspective? The words would dance in her head but get caught in her throat before she could give power to them. Stacy struggled with what so many leaders struggle with—the ability to trust themselves, their opinions, and their beliefs. They don’t trust that their voices are significant and worthy enough to be heard.
What you don’t know about Stacy is that she started out as a data analyst with no experience in her field. She was a self-taught technical expert. When her department grew and needed to create a level of middle leadership, its employees recognized Stacy as someone who was not only competent but also influential and strategic. She was selected to lead her team over several other internal candidates, as well as a number of external contenders. When I met her, she had been leading her team for over seven years, hardly a new manager. During those years, she had decreased inefficiencies and cost and had increased her department’s visibility as a resource to the organization. Although Stacy did not feel proficient or qualified, the data reflected otherwise.
Stacy’s story is not uncommon. Raul is a software implementation team leader who is largely known for his approachability, integrity, and ability to problem solve. His team members look to him to share his insights and provide direction, but he struggles with being able to meet this need for them. One of Raul’s team members described that, in the absence of his direction, the team suffers from a void of information and has difficulty making decisions. But because they respect Raul so much, they would never go around him or find another way to a solution. So they wait for direction that does not come. A deadline gets missed, a ball gets dropped, and a client is disappointed. In the midst of this, Raul knows he could have prevented it. As Raul’s team struggles, it only reinforces his perception of himself as a poor leader (see Figure 5.1).
Figure 5.1 Raul’s Team Struggle
Raul’s team results are not the only circumstances affected by his unwillingness to provide insight and direction. It also affects his overall credibility and image as a leader. When he finds himself in these situations, his most resourceful answer to this quandary is to go to his boss. Because his boss is a command-and-control-style leader, when faced with a problem to solve, she responds quickly and definitively with an answer. Others see this as well, and as a result, instead of seeing Raul as a leader who provides insight and direction, he is seen as overly dependent on his boss and unable to stand on his own. As Raul’s credibility weakens with others, it only further reinforces his perception of himself as not able to make good decisions and provide direction (see Figure 5.2).
Figure 5.2 Raul’s Boss Steps In
Over time, you can see that a leader’s struggle with confidence becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy. These leaders take less and less risk and rely more and more on others, rather than learning to trust themselves. “I am not capable, and therefore I don’t”; “I don’t because I am not capable”; and so on. Breaking out of this cycle requires the courage to be confident. It’s a choice to do something different in the face of failure. It’s also a choice to believe in yourself no matter what the outcome.
Your Vote Counts, and You Get to Vote for You!
In leadership, we talk a lot about earning the trust of others. At Personify Leadership, we have developed an entire module dedicated to “The Heart of a Leader,” with the intent of teaching leaders how to build trust with the people they lead. There are whole bodies of work centered solely on building other people’s trust. One of my favorites is Stephen M. R. Covey’s work about the Speed of Trust.2 And yet, in leadership, we rarely dedicate resources to assist leaders in learning to trust themselves. Ironically, without self-trust and our own vote of confidence, we are likely to lose others’ trust, as we saw with Stacy and Raul. These two leaders were at a place where they were unable to see themselves as worthy of their own trust. They didn’t see themselves as worthy of their own vote of confidence.
Each spring, our neighborhood gets together for a chili cook-off. There are numerous entries, and all of them are good. Our family had submitted chili entries in the past, acknowledging that our entry was just for fun. We knew we were not worthy opponents. However, one year, that all changed. My husband decided to add a special ingredient, one that could transform any ordinary dish to an exceptional one. Bacon. The whole family agreed, our chili was simply amazing, and we thought for sure we had a chance to win.
When we arrived at the neighborhood park, my husband headed off to socialize, my son went to play ball, and my daughter grabbed my hand to start testing chili. We were given three plastic chips and told that we were allowed to vote for three of our favorite chilies—or put all three chips in one if we so desired. I went directly to our chili (Entry #12) and started to put my chips in the container. My daughter stopped me and said, “Mom, we can’t vote for our own chili, that wouldn’t be right.”
I stopped for a second and considered her point. I asked her, “Cate, why do you think it’s not okay to vote for your own chili?”
She responded, “Because we made it, only other people can vote for us.” I told her that, in fact, was not true, and she could vote for own chili if she wanted to. She was still a little tentative, and then she said, “Okay, how about this, Mom? We are going to taste all the chilies and if we still think ours is the best, then we’ll vote for our own.” I thought that sounded more than reasonable, so I agreed and off we went testing over 20 chilies. When we were done we met back up at the end of the cook-off table, and she said, “Well, Mom, I hate to say it, but our chili isn’t the best. I have to give my chips to #10 and #4.” I smiled and agreed. I had given mine to #10 and #7.
Now, had our chili actually been the best, it would have been a shame to give up our collective six chips to a competitor we did not genuinely believe had better chili. What kind of sense does that make? No one likes a sympathy trophy, and no one should have to lose when he or she has met the winning criteria. Do you think the presidential candidates go to the ballot box and check the name of the other nominee? No way. Not only does our vote count, but we also get to vote for ourselves. If you’ve evaluated fairly and you still think you’re the best candidate, then go ahead; do it. Vote for yourself! If you don’t vote for yourself, how can you expect others to give you their vote of confidence?
Confidence in the Workplace
Lucas found himself in a relatively common situation. He had multiple underperformers who were affecting the overall morale and results of the team and organization. A couple in particular were very popular with the other team members and customers, not because of their performance but because of their friendly and collaborative personalities. They were so likable that it was difficult for Lucas to address performance issues directly with them out of fear of making them feel bad or of being seen as the bad guy with others.
Lucas’s boss expected him to handle the team’s performance. He agreed not to interfere with Lucas’s decisions. Whatever he felt was necessary to improve the team’s performance was up to him. In some ways, although Lucas’s boss trusted him to make the right decisions for the team, Lucas wished his boss would tell him what to do, and then he would be the bad guy. Ultimately though, Lucas knew this was an opportunity to trust himself and do what was best for the team and the organization. He addressed the performance issues with his team members. Over time when improvements did not come, he made the decision to let two of the team members go, including one of the very likeable employees.
When Lucas and I talked about his choice to move forward with the team changes, he shared with me some of what he was thinking at the time. Right before communicating his decision, he almost changed his mind. He thought about all the good things the two employees had done over the years and questioned his rationale for letting them go. He then stopped and reminded himself of the reasons he had made his decision in the first place. He said he knew he had to trust he had made the right decision and move forward rather than question himself.
Not long after the underperforming employees were let go, Lucas received feedback from the remaining team about how much they respected him for making a tough decision that was in the best interests of the team. Lucas described this as a very validating experience.
Unfortunately, trusting yourself and your own judgment do not always end with a validating experience. Take Alan, for example, who was known as the golden boy of his division, a growing new revenue stream for an oil and gas company. Alan had already mastered the paradoxical combination of humility and confidence. When his peers sought his guidance, he would confidently share his winning insights but would in return ask for their guidance as well. When his senior leaders praised him for excellent work, he accepted their praise but also cautioned them the business was cyclical and things would change in time.
Sure enough, after a couple of years, the market demands did change, and his division was no longer bringing in large revenue numbers. It wasn’t long before Alan’s days of unbridled respect and admiration ended. After a period of intermittent communication, I e-mailed Alan to check in, and this is what he shared with me.
I’m no longer the Golden Boy around here. I’ve fallen from my pedestal. I knew that things would eventually change. I know this business and I knew there would be a time when the pendulum would swing the other direction. But no one listened to me. I just have to have confidence in myself right now and know I’ve done the right things.
A few months after receiving this message, I found out from a mutual friend that Alan was no longer with his company.
The unfortunate thing about leadership is there are going to be times when you don’t get it right or when others expected more from you, even when you attempted to appropriately modify their expectations. These are the times when you need the courage to be confident—the courage to believe in yourself and your decisions even when others don’t. This doesn’t mean you don’t have a responsibility to reflect and learn from the situation, but there is no need to wallow in self-pity or beat yourself up. This is the time to ask yourself, “How can I learn from this situation?” and move on.
If we go back and look at the situation with Marcus in “The Business Case for Courage,” we see that Marcus was confident enough to address his boss’s fraudulent behaviors, he did the right thing, and he was rewarded. However, had Marcus been disciplined or let go from the organization, his decision would still have been the right thing to do. A change in outcome would not make him wrong. Courageous leaders are willing to accept that being courageous does not always produce desired outcomes.
Strategies and Tools for Building Confidence
You can lead others only if you know the way or have the confidence in yourself to find the way. Unfortunately, the path to success is usually a bit unclear, therefore requiring the latter. That makes developing the courage to be confident a survival skill in leadership. Here are some strategies for building self-confidence:
Do What You Fear the Most
One surefire way to build confidence is to do the thing you fear the most. If you survive it, and you will, assuming it’s not a life-threatening act (and no, giving a presentation in front of your peers is not life-threatening), you will survive it and grow confidence from doing it. When my son was barely three years old, we had a swim instructor come to our house to teach him how to swim. The first day he was excited, but that lasted only about 2 minutes until the instructor dumped him in the water and he came up crying. He screamed for 30 minutes, the entire time of the lesson. Day two was even more painful. When the swim instructor arrived, my son saw her and ran crying into the other room. I chased him down and carried him kicking and screaming into the pool. Day three and four were pretty much the same.
But on day five something in him changed. He had resigned himself to the pain of swimming. He picked up his towel and headed to the pool when he saw the instructor coming toward the house. He headed outside without a word.
The instructor began as she normally did with small drills, and then she said, “Okay, Will, today you’re going to do it. You’re going to swim across the pool by yourself.” I could see fear in his face, but this time he didn’t fight the instructor; he just took off. He splashed his away across the pool, and I went to the other side to meet him. I picked him up out of the water and gave him a big hug.
I said, “William, that was wonderful! You swam all the way across the pool by yourself. What was that like?”
He looked up at me with a big smile, and he said, “Scary…but amazing!” Most amazing things start out scary. What do you fear the most that you wish you had the courage to do?
Appreciate Yourself More
Maleka was the vice president of marketing for a healthcare organization. She was struggling with leading her team of marketing directors at the various facilities. I had the opportunity to participate in one of her team’s conference calls. When Maleka dialed in, she was not the first on the call; several of the other team members were already on the call and deep into the agenda—even though Maleka had joined several minutes before the call began. When she announced her presence, the team did not adequately acknowledge her. After a few minutes Maleka tried to engage in the conversation, but the others dominated the discussion. Toward the end, Maleka began to take the lead just as a few team members announced they had to drop off early.
This call told me a lot about Maleka and her relationship with her team. They did not appreciate her to the extent they should. Maleka was more than suited for her role. With confidence, Maleka could lead this team more effectively, leveraging their strengths and exposing some of hers. But that wouldn’t happen as long as Maleka wasn’t able to appreciate herself and expect others to appreciate her as well. I asked Maleka to write a letter to herself, expressing all the things she really appreciated—from her personality to her accomplishments to her life choices, and so on. My instruction was to write the letter first and then read it to at least one person she felt she could trust to be open with her, and then plan to read it to me in our next call.
This was an exercise Maleka dug into with vigor. Within a week she had called me back to read her letter to me. In it, she described a loving parent and wife, an individual with strong character and integrity, and a lifetime career in health care with a series of accomplishments and accolades. After she read the letter to me, I asked her to describe how writing this letter helped change her self-perception. She said it gave her a deeper appreciation for her strengths and contributions and made her feel more confident about authentically being who she was and not changing to fit someone else’s criteria for success.
Visualize Success
When I was in high school, I was a cheerleader; however, I struggled with being able to stick a liberty—a fundamental skill for flyers. For those of you who don’t know what a liberty or a flyer is, let me start by describing the basics of stunts in cheerleading. The base is the person who holds another in the air or throws and catches the person in the air. The flyer is the person whom the base holds or throws and catches. I was a flyer.
One year, our team qualified for the state championships and traveled to Orlando, Florida, for the competition. This was a huge accomplishment for a group of Midwestern kids. The only problem was that being able to stick my liberty was essential. This meant that the base would have to throw me in the air above his head, and I would have to land in his cupped hands with one foot and stay there without swaying from side to side or falling. The laws of inertia alone make this a challenging feat, and I was struggling.
The school had hired a coach to assist us with our routine, giving us the best chance to make our school proud at our first ever cheerleading competition. The coach noticed I was struggling and, after multiple failed attempts, encouraged me to consider visualizing myself hitting the stunt and sticking it over and over. She sent me home with the assignment to find a quiet corner and do nothing but visualize 15 minutes before every practice. I followed her instructions, and believe it or not, it worked. And it worked very quickly. My ability to see myself doing something with success significantly and quickly changed my ability to actually do what I was unable to do previously.
According to brain imagery research, visualization works because the neurons in our brain responsible for relaying messages to the nervous system to the body interpret mental imagery as real-life action.3 It makes sense, then, that our ability to visualize something in our minds is an active part of being able to create a physical end result.
Act as If
Now that you’ve visualized what you want to do, act as if it is so without any further effort or request. For example, you may want to be the vice president (VP) of your division. Great! How would a VP in this organization act? How would the VP speak? How would the VP dress? How would the VP think? How would the VP address problems? How would the VP lead? Get clear about this visual and see yourself as this VP moving from one part of your day to another. Now, act as if you are the VP. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not suggesting you jump protocol and act out of rank; just begin practicing the behaviors associated with being the person you want to be. What we learned in geometry holds true here—the shortest distance between two points is a straight line. Cut out the zigzagging path in between by acting in direct alignment with your end goal.
Establish Boundaries
Xian is a leader at a well-known small-town employer. During an off-site strategy-planning meeting, she, her boss, and her peers outlined a detailed plan for accomplishing multiple goals for that year. Xian and her peers agreed the next step would be to meet again to finalize the work they had done during this meeting. To coordinate this, her boss asked them all to book an upcoming date in their calendars. When Xian looked at her calendar, she realized this was a vacation day she had scheduled to take her son to visit colleges. She told her boss this in the hope she would understand. Unfortunately, her boss responded with “If this is important to you, then you’ll change your plans.”
The room got quiet and everyone waited to see how Xian would respond. She politely said, “This is very important to me, but so is the commitment I’ve made to my son. Can we first see if there are other dates that we can all meet before I cancel on my son?”
Xian’s peers jumped at the chance to change the time, offering multiple additional dates they were available in support of Xian. They were able to agree to a new time and continue their work, and Xian was able to keep her plans in place.
If Xian had agreed to her boss’s request without asking for another date option, she would have been sending the message that she is okay allowing her boss to set her set priorities for her. But because Xian was courageous enough to say something about her wishes, she established a boundary with her boss about work–life balance. It doesn’t mean Xian will never have to make personal sacrifices for work, but it does mean she has established she is willing to vocalize her needs and establish boundaries when she feels they are important.
Stop Asking for Permission
Recently, a client shared a story with me about a situation with a peer. The peer was unclear on whether to move forward on a decision because she had not involved their boss, while my client was comfortable that they could move forward without him. He told her, “Let’s not delay this process. We know enough about our boss to know he’d support this decision. At least, he’s never given us a reason to think this is something he needs to approve.” The peer was so resistant that my client agreed, but he was not at all surprised when the boss responded, “Why are you asking me?”
It’s not always easy to know your boundaries, but often those who struggle with confidence will not empower themselves when they have the opportunity. If you tend to ask for permission rather than taking an educated and empowered stand, this could be a great place to start. Everyday opportunities will present themselves to do something different. You may be surprised at how infrequently you’ll actually have to say “I’m sorry” for overstepping your boundaries and how often people will view you as having exercised good judgment and timely decision-making.
Be Altruistic Without Self-Sabotage
There is an increasing awareness that altruism is a necessary skill for success in the workplace. In his book Give and Take: A Revolutionary Approach to Success, Professor Adam Grant from The Wharton School of business gives us some helpful language to understand how altruism (and the opposite of altruism) shows up in behaviors. He describes Givers as those who give the most to others, Takers as people who take the most from others, and Matchers as individuals who try to match their contributions to others’ contributions.4 Like most people, I’d much prefer an altruistic environment with more Givers and Matchers than Takers. When all of us give more, we create a culture that promotes a bigger-purpose seeker culture. When we all seek to win on behalf of the organization, there is little room for undermining success. Having said that, it’s also important not to overdo altruism to the point it becomes self-sabotaging, in other words, helping others to the point of hurting ourselves. Self-sabotage occurs when we consistently make other people’s needs more important than our own. In the workplace, we witness this when leaders accept consequences for their teams without asking team members to bear collective responsibility equally. Likewise, it can emerge when we consistently give others credit for our work rather than acknowledging our own contributions. Self-sabotage also occurs when we fail to ask for what we need, and instead, use our political capital to meet the needs of others. All of these are examples of thoughtful and considerate acts that are noteworthy and valuable. However, when we choose these behaviors consistently at the cost of meeting our own needs, altruism becomes a problem.
For example, take Joel, who is the support and backbone for his team. He reports directly to the senior vice president, Tamara, and advises her on all kinds of matters. He is resourceful, quick to find solutions, and capable of leveraging a diverse skill set to accomplish whatever challenge comes up for this team. Joel has his sights set on a leadership role outside of the team. He has applied many times for promotions, but has been turned down on each occasion. He receives little feedback but what he does get suggest that he needs more experience. The truth is that Joel is very experienced and qualified for most of the openings, but his title in his current role and his level in the organization do not reflect this. Joel is one of those rare team members who will do whatever is required and more, always taking on new responsibilities bigger than his job description. As a result, his position doesn’t necessarily reflect his qualifications. It doesn’t help matters much that his boss will give the team credit for Joel’s work without specifically giving Joel praise. Joel gives to the team and Tamara without hesitation, but he doesn’t claim his own contributions and grow in his career. The solution isn’t to minimize giving to others but to give to yourself as well. Your needs are just as important as those of others on the team and in the organization. An appropriate level of self-promotion is a form of self-care and is essential to developing and maintaining confidence.
Developing the courage to be confident isn’t something that happens overnight, but over time. A transition occurs as leaders choose to dissolve Those-People-Complex thinking and transition to self-trust and confidence. This transition requires focus and effort like any work in progress.
For me, Those People Complex has never really gone away but rather has diminished gradually over time. There are still people and situations that intimidate me, but what I choose to do in these times has changed. Instead of assuming fabricated limitations and letting opportunities pass me by, these are the times when I push myself the hardest to move to action. And trust me: it can be terribly painful. As I was first developing my confidence for these intimidating situations, I would put on a suit of armor, inhale confidence and exhale fears, lower my helmet, and raise my sword, preparing for what felt like battle. I’ve learned to trust myself more by doing the tough stuff and seeing that it hasn’t killed me. In some cases, I’ve even surprised myself with the outcome. For the most part now, staying focused and continuing to be courageous, I’ve got the hang of it. I leave the suit of armor at home and instead put on a nice dress and Calvin Klein heels. They’re way more comfortable.