Perhaps You Are More Capable Than You Think
Confidence isn't about always being right. It is about trusting yourself enough to speak, decide and sometimes get it wrong.
I sometimes think that a surprisingly large number of people lack self-confidence.
I know I did when I was growing up.
I was never one of the bigger or stronger boys. I was particularly good at English and public speaking, but I never saw myself as someone who really excelled. I wasn't a top sportsman, and I wasn't at the top of the class academically either. In many ways, I was just an ordinary boy.
We weren't rich by any means, and I was being brought up by a single parent. I wasn't particularly ambitious and, for quite a long time, I had no real idea what I wanted to do with my life.
Looking back, I can see how those things affected the way I saw myself. None of them, individually, was particularly important, but taken together, they made me question myself.
Perhaps that is how a lack of confidence develops. Not necessarily because someone tells you that you aren't good enough, but because you gradually start believing it yourself.
You would think that as we get older, those feelings would disappear, but they don't always. They simply become less obvious.
But I think it is important to say what self-confidence isn't. It isn't ego or arrogance, and it certainly isn't the need to prove that you are better than everyone else. In fact, genuine self-confidence is almost the opposite. It is being comfortable enough with yourself that you don't constantly need the approval of others.
Now, as a leader, I can often spot a lack of confidence quite quickly in others.
You meet someone who is clearly intelligent. They know their subject, they have good judgement and they may even be better at something than many of the people around them. And yet they don't seem to believe it themselves.
They hesitate, second-guess themselves and hold back when they should be putting themselves forward. Sometimes it is simply a fear of making a mistake.
I have come across people who would rather delay a decision than risk making the wrong one. They look for more information, more reassurance or someone else to make the call.
Of course, there is nothing wrong with wanting to get things right. But when the fear of being wrong becomes greater than the confidence to make a judgement, it can hold us back.
I have probably noticed this most at work.
How many times have we sat in a meeting and watched someone remain silent even though they probably had the solution? They may have the best idea in the room, or even know that the discussion is heading in the wrong direction, but they don't say anything because they don't want to go against the majority.
There is actually a phrase for this — the spiral of silence.
You know what you think. You may even believe you are right. But you assume that everyone else thinks differently, and the fear of being the person who stands apart is enough to keep you quiet.
We see it in classrooms, staffrooms, meetings, boardrooms and leadership teams. Sometimes the person with the best idea in the room isn't the person who speaks, while the person who speaks with the greatest confidence isn't necessarily the person who knows the most.
Confidence and competence don't always arrive together.
That matters enormously in leadership.
A leader who lacks confidence may hesitate when a decision needs to be made. They may look for reassurance, avoid difficult conversations or be too easily influenced by the strongest voice in the room.
Leadership becomes decisive when a leader has confidence in their own judgement. That doesn't mean always getting it right. It means being prepared to make the best decision you can with the information you have, knowing that sometimes you will get it wrong.
And that is where I think self-assurance comes in.
Self-assurance isn't arrogance, and it isn't believing that you are always right or that you know more than everyone else. It is being comfortable enough with yourself and your judgement to say, “I don't know,” or “I may be wrong,” or “That's a good point. I hadn't thought of it that way.”
Confidence also grows with experience. You make a decision and learn to live with the outcome, make a mistake and discover that life goes on, or take on something you weren't sure you could do and find that you managed it. Slowly, you begin to trust yourself.
But sometimes we need someone else to help us get there: a teacher who believes in a child, a parent who encourages them, a colleague who says, “I think you should say something,” or a leader who gives someone an opportunity before they are convinced they are ready.
I wonder how many people have had the ability, the ideas and the potential to do something really well, but never quite found the confidence to show it.
And perhaps this is one of the less obvious responsibilities of leadership. It isn't simply about making decisions, setting direction and holding people accountable. It is also about creating an environment where people feel comfortable enough to question, challenge and disagree.
A good leader shouldn't just have confidence.
They should give confidence to others.
Because somewhere in the room there may be someone who has the answer, someone who sees something the rest of us have missed, or someone with an idea that could make a real difference. If they don't have the confidence to say it, we may never know.
How often have you held yourself back, not because you weren't capable, but because you weren't quite confident enough to believe you were?
Perhaps, looking back, I understand something about that boy I once was that I didn't understand then.
Confidence isn't about thinking you are better than everyone else. It is simply about not assuming that everyone else is better than you.
And perhaps self-assurance comes from learning that you don't have to get everything right to trust your own judgement.
Sometimes you have to make the call.
And then have the confidence to live with it.
