More Impact, More Easily

2System two: Confidence

Confidence can be volatile and unreliable, and both having too much and too little confidence can create dangers. The sweet spot for confidence is the right balance of self‐worth and capability — and it's this sweet spot I explore in this chapter.

All leaders experience a crisis of confidence, negative self‐talk or imposter syndrome from time to time. Even C‐suite leaders suffer from confidence issues, but B‐Suite Leaders have it worse. When you were a subject‐matter expert, everything felt clear and certain. Now you're a leader, nothing feels certain. You are in the grey zone of corporate structure: neither worker nor executive. At your level, the stakes are higher and more is at risk. Yet, your reputation depends on other people. All of this can make you doubt yourself, second‐guess your decisions and play small.

This kind of uncertainty kills confidence — but the good news is confidence is contagious. The more you get confident, the more confidence you get.

Here's the thing when it comes to confidence: ‘fake it till you make it’ is pretty poor, and pretty shallow, advice. The truth is if you don't value yourself, no‐one will. So, the work in this system is deep stuff. I'm not offering a quick fix, but the work is worth it.

This system is crucial for you if you:

• lead with ‘sorry’ or ‘just’
• crumble in front of executives
• don't think your opinion is worth raising
• lose sleep over a work conflict
• freak out before an interview.

Confidence underpins everything ...