Can One Gain Enough Confidence To Be A Good Leader?
Posted by Mitch Mitchell on Sep 30, 2012
Back in June I wrote a post here titled 10 Leadership Tips In 2 Minutes. Recently someone wrote a comment on that post saying that she believed a person needed to have enough confidence to be able to do most of the tips and wondered what they'd do if they didn't have that kind of confidence.
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I tend to believe that the reason people lack confidence comes down to 2 things. One, they've been beaten up emotionally over the course of their lifetime and thus don't know how to find confidence on their own. Two, their lack of confidence stems from the unknown.
In a strange way, those tips and most of the other posts I write on this blog are geared towards education of what good leadership principles are and how they can be used. I also hope I talk enough about the types of outcomes one can expect if they put some of these principles into action.
Sometimes it's not enough to tell someone what to do. For instance, if I tell you how to pick up a box of groceries that's pretty straight forward and you'll obviously know why you're doing it and what the expected outcome is going to be. You probably don't even need me telling you how to do that.
But if I'm trying to give you a leadership tip like how to bring team members together when they all act more like individuals, I can't just throw something out there and expect anyone to follow it without knowing why I'm saying it and how it should manifest itself once it's implemented.
If I tell you that you need to learn delegation, figuring that if you don't understand why you need to do it means you're either a micro manager or are afraid of what people might think of you if you do it, I then know I need to explain the benefits of delegation, while at the same time telling you not to give all your work away because, well, you need to still do something, and some things will take you much longer to teach than to just do yourself at some levels.
When people know the outcomes of things by explanation they gain confidence that the action will work, and then they gain confidence to do those things. That works across the board, whether it's with leadership or not. It might take time and practice, but if shown that something will work, people are usually confident that they can do it as well.
Thus, I've answered the question asked; yes, people can gain the confidence to be good leaders. They just need to want to do it; that's a tale for another time.
Haha, when I saw the title of this post before clicking on it I thought what a coincidence that Mitch wrote about something we’d been discussing on another post. Now I’ve seen the date and read it I’m honoured that it stirred up the writer in you. 🙂
I just replied to your last comment on the original post and I can now see how confidence can be gained but still maintain how natural self confidence is a tremendous asset.
In mulling over your points I thought about how young lads join the army, maybe a bit wimpy, maybe rough around the edges and via being pushed by their sergeants, trying and eventually succeeding at difficult tasks, eventually the failures give way to triumphs which in turn give them a strong sense of pride and yes, self confidence. Interesting discussion.
Thanks for the comment and the inspiration Roz. 😉 True, natural self confidence is a great asset, but confidence can be learned, as you showed with your example. The unknown is scary; once you know more about it, not so scary right?
You’re welcome Mitch, and yes, I came round to your way of thinking. 😉
I believe that I’ve mentioned this previously, when I was younger, I thought that people have to be born leaders, after that I completely changed my mind. Leaders can be created and confidence is one of the necessities. As we discussed similar topic before and come to agreement, it is not possible to know everything and quite often appointing a good manager can be a good shortcut.
Exactly Carl. And when you do that, people think you’re a great leader for knowing to appoint someone with those skills.
Many leaders are afraid of doing this step, but true leader will appoint good manager without thinking twice and concentrate on other tasks. This is another form of confidence.
I have found that born leaders struggle in large organization. Normally the ones that survive learn how to successfully navigate the ethos, pathos and politics of an organization. Many organizations confuse power and leadership. A manager exerts power while a leader leads by influence. In other words don’t disregard your true status even if you don’t yield power, if you influence the thoughts and actions of others for good or bad you are a leader.
That’s an interesting thought David; I’m not sure I agree. To me, natural leaders (I like that wording better) are adaptable enough to figure out what to do in any type of organization, as long as they know the subject. Actually, I’ve found some that knew nothing about the product or services a company did, but they understood people well enough to motivate them to great things. That one doesn’t happen all that often but it can. Your last line is also interesting because one would hope that true leaders always have the best intention for those they lead in mind. I see what you’re saying, using “good” in a different way than I might want to use it; let’s say “effective” instead, which I think gets your point across better as it’s less confusing. You’re correct, but as I said, I’d hope against that, though history certainly shows us how true it can be.
Great Reply Mitch
I will concede to your wording recommendations. Heck if I knew you were going to read post so thoughtfully I would of tried to be more nuanced in my approach.
Let me propose a hypothetical wager.
Two kids just graduate college. One is natural leader the other is the CEO’s frat brothers child. Who would you bet on progressing faster through a fortune 500 company if hired same day at same level?
They both should have confidence but from totally different value wells.
Great Blog!
Truthfully David, that would depend on the savvy and evaluation skills of the CEO. One of the myths of big business is that a succession plan will naturally go to the family member. If it’s a family owned business that makes sense, but if the CEO is just the holder of a fancy title that, once that person’s gone there are no literal transitions for family or friends, then the CEO isn’t going to risk the position for nepotism, or in this case friendship. Both might get jobs, for different reasons, but both will have to earn it on their own.
I’m betting you weren’t expecting that response. lol
Confidence comes from within. “Telling” usually never accomplishes anything. I heard about a study that for every 100 pieces of good advice someone receives, they’ll only implement 8% or so.
In coaching leaders, I get them to see the forest for the trees by inquiry and self reflection. I rarely advise.
As a consultant, I advise often, but I also ask a lot of questions to get people to think about things in other ways.
There’s an interesting discussion going on here, so I’ll add my two cents. 🙂
I think leadership, like any other skill, can be learned. In fact, I believe most top-quality leaders have learned their way there versus being born with a special gift. By all means, being born with that gift helps, but there’s a lot that still needs to be learned.
As for the example that was used about the person who’s really talented versus the one who was born with the CEO father, the nepotism angle takes an awful lot away from the one with the CEO father. Sure, there are some real slackers who totally ride the coattails of their parents, but I there are a lot of situations where the CEO’s son has a huge advantage because of what he’s able to learn from his father. It’s an insider’s knowledge that is invaluable and allows him or her to learn from real life situations. I just don’t like writing somebody off as being “lucky” because of their lineage because it often discounts the amount of work that person has put in to be successful.
That’s just my humble 2 pence.
~Barry
Thanks for jumping in Barry and I understand how you see it as writing off someone as being lucky. Sometimes you have to call it like it is though and one couldn’t be given a better chance in life than coming into the business where one’s parent is the CEO of a family owned company. Insider knowledge is a good thing indeed but that doesn’t make them a good leader; trust me, I dealt with this very situation when I was first in the business world. lol
And when all is said and done, there might be a major difference in confidence, at least initially, between someone given leadership as opposed to someone who has to try to earn their way there. Once in the position both would have the same types of things to deal with, and I’m of the mind that the one who came in “luckily”, my word, would have bigger problems with confidence unless they learned well from their parent. You and I both know that leadership can’t just walk in doing everything that was done in the past, which means that person might find that following “tried and true” suddenly doesn’t work, and they may not feel they have the skills for change. That would be an interesting proposition now wouldn’t it?