How to be a confident leader? It’s simple. Build your confidence.
Of course, that’s probably too simplistic and vague, so that’s exactly why you need to learn more about it. To become a great leader, you must become a great person first.
Confidence in leadership is one of the most important qualities you should aim for, especially if you’re just starting out. In today’s post, I’m going to share 10 insightful ways to develop leadership confidence. Pen, paper, your undivided attention – let’s go!
- Educate Yourself Constantly
Confidence in leaders is not born but made. Confidence is a trait that can be practiced consciously. However, the best way to become truly confident as a leader is to acknowledge that you’re capable of many great things because you’re knowledgeable and skilled.
If you’re not, I’m highly suggesting you to consistently educate yourself. Build skills and acquire knowledge!
- Find Your True Motivations
Let me ask you something… Why do you want to lead? Why be the first to take responsibility for other people? Why, why, why?
If you clearly understand the motive behind your actions, you’ll make confident decisions whenever you have to. If you stay connected to your higher purpose (contribution, true passion, happiness), nothing’s going to break your confidence.
- Improve Your Self-Awareness
Self-awareness is a rare leadership trait that you should always grow. To be self-aware means to understand your strengths and weaknesses, to understand your pains and desires, and to know what you want from yourself and from your members.
It is the quality of differentiating right from wrong, and the quality will show your employees that you know what you are doing. You can become more self-aware by practicing introspection and meditation on a daily basis.
- Think Long Term
To succeed in leadership, you need to put the short-term gains aside and focus on your organization’s long-term growth. I’d highly suggest you plan your long-term goals first and then create sub-goals for each.
- Practice the Art of Delegation
You should always improve the way you delegate. For example, as a leader of an HR company, you can always delegate time-consuming tasks to your employees or even to freelancers. The people you engage can help with various responsibilities that you’re not really good at. For example, if you’re not a good writer, a professional who works in a dissertation help service can write dissertations, essays, or other types of writing-related tasks.
- Value Your People
You can inspire confidence and professionalism by simply caring about your employees. When you value their knowledge, skills, and experience and let them know that you do, everyone’s going to support you whenever needed.
Try to discover the unique traits of your members while encouraging them to keep looking for it on their own. Let people know that you value them and they’ll give you all the confidence you need!
- Let Your Expectations Be Known
To develop more confidence in your leadership journey, you should let everyone know what you expect from them and see how they react. The moment you see that people have agreed with your ideology and objectives; you can be certain that nobody’s going to cause any problems.
If you don’t communicate what you want and expect, your confidence will be slowly damaged by disorganization, disappointments, and uncertainty.
- Be Understanding but also Strict
A confident leader becomes more confident as he fixes the conflicts and problems of his team without negatively influencing the rest of the team. If an employee has bad behavior, you should understand that he might have a bad day. However, if that same behavior happens again after he has been warned, you should be strict and fire him immediately.
- Leverage Your Intuition as Much as You Use your Intellect
Don’t be a leader that uses only his logical mind when making important decisions. The intellect is not the only effective tool. Your intuition is often a way better whisperer and counselor, so you should try to use both all the time.
- Learn by Reflecting on Your Mistakes
You do not learn by making mistakes. You learn by reflecting on the past experience and by analyzing what could have been done better. If you simply fail and don’t introspect, you will fail again and again. When that happens, your confidence will immediately decrease. Keep it high by giving yourself some moments each day to reflect on your actions and decisions.
Conclusion
Leadership is not for everybody, and it shouldn’t even be. Every leader understands that he cannot think only for himself and that his main personal resources (time, attention, and energy) must be shared with the rest.
Confidence and leadership traits go hand in hand. If one is absent, the other becomes vulnerable. Responsibilities and problems will always be present. The sooner you adapt to the process of constantly fixing them the faster you’ll improve your confidence and results!
BIO:
Elizabeth Skinner is a recent psychology graduate that enjoys studying, analyzing, and writing about leadership topics. She’s currently a junior intern at a respectable UK consulting company, doing her best to improve her psychology knowledge and skills and climb up the company’s ladder.
