How do I stop doubting myself at work?
3 steps to build lasting leadership confidence
Key takeaway: Confidence in leadership comes from leading authentically, not chasing perfection.
I specialise in working with ambitious women in the government sector to understand their unique skill set, build confidence and lead authentically. After 15 years working for the federal government, I have had my fair share of imposter syndrome, unrealistic deadlines, and “stretch opportunities”. I learnt that it’s not about ticking boxes on the latest leadership to-do list, instead we all need to carve out our own style that resonates with our teams, provides space for the imperfect and still achieves results for the government of the day.
From Imposter Syndrome to Authentic Leadership
The public sector is not one that supports failure, with election outcomes, senior promotions and the pub test all reacting to the work you do, it can be easy to get caught up in perfectionism and over-delivery.
Despite all this, I pride myself on being an imperfect leader, recovering perfectionist and embracer of failure. I encourage my team to learn from failure, manage up and set their own deadlines. Does it always go right?, no; but was it going to be perfect?, never. So why micromanage every detail? Why re-write ever brief that comes across my desk? Why spend all of my time trying to perfect the unperfectable?
The results….:
“I have never seen someone deliver in the way that you do.” From a 2 Star Admiral.
“I have never experienced this type of leadership.” From an Assistant Director on the verge of retirement with a 20 year career in my organisation.
“You are a superstar. We have never been supported so much from your team.” From a senior executive 1 month into a new role.
How that works in the Public Sector
So what did I do differently? I stopped worrying about how everyone else thought I should do my job and instead did what would make me feel I had done a good job. I became confident in myself. I used the skills I already had and referred to others where needed. I knew I didn’t have all of the answers so collaborated with those that had the experience or knowledge I lacked. I knew I wouldn’t get it perfect so asked others for input to guide outcomes. We can get so caught up in the churn of the next government announcement, higher duties and deliverables that we don’t take a second to understand how to work in a way that is authentically us.
Stop saying “I’m not ready”, “I couldn’t do that job”, or “I need more confidence” and instead say “what’s the worst that could happen”. Unless it’s the next robodebt catastrophe, chances are the worst case scenario is not career ending.
(Side note: I attended a fearless advice presentation by the the Assistant Director that was involved in Robodebt and it wasn’t career ending for them either.)
The Leadership Confidence Framework
I have identified the 3 steps to build leadership lasting leadership confidence and none of them include learning how to do a walk and talk.
Breaking barriers
Understand the blocks that are holding you back, redefine confidence and understand the pros of imposter syndrome.
Identify Confidence Blocks
Often how we feel about ourselves has been instilled from an early age. There is often some deep mindset shifts that need to occur for most women here.
Cultivate Resilience
Confidence is a muscle, it needs regular exercise and will be stronger on some days compared to others. To continue to build confidence you need to encourage failure, navigate mistakes and embrace feedback good or bad. These are your opportunities to grow.
Bringing value
By defining your unique value you will understand how your leadership can be an asset to any team. You will now longer stress about speaking up in the wrong meetings, not having all of the answers and having staff outshine you.
Build Confidence
Learn how to practice science-backed techniques, including growth mindset exercises and enclothed cognition. Curate your leadership wardrobe, practice gratitude or draft your leadership mantra. Find the powerful mindset tools that unlock your confidence regardless of the situation.
Discover your unique value
Analyse your core skillset and find your specific contribution to any scenario. There are many tools online you can use to identify your top skills whether it be a Myers Briggs personality type, DiSC profile or Gallup strengths finder. Whichever one you use, make sure you look at both your strengths and weaknesses but instead reframe them as contribute or question. Contribute when you know you have the skills and ask questions (without shame) where you don’t know as much. We can’t all know everything so if you ask with confidence no one will take notice of what you don’t know.
Being seen
Build presence and authority as a leader not just a subject mater expert. You need to show you can lead subject matter experts regardless of how well you know the subject. Steps 1 and 2 will have laid the ground work so that you have the confidence to be seen for who you are.
Strengthen Your Presence
Develop communication, leadership presence, and assertiveness skills. Remove the passive voice from your communication style, dress in powerful clothing and share your ideas fearlessly. Speaking up isn’t about knowing exactly what to say, it’s about being part of the conversation.Expand Your Influence
Lean in to networking, mentorship, and team-building to broaden your influence and strengthen your reputation. Influence is a key skill to make the most of any circumstance. Even in government with it’s merit based processes, it is often still who you know not what you know. If an opportunity comes up for higher duties, international travel or representing at a high level forum, you want your name to be top of mind.It is also important to note that you will often not even realise the influence you have on others. I realised much later that most of the Directors, I was influenced by in my early career, don’t remember having the conversation with me that set me on my current path. Influence is a powerful tool.
Be yourself
Confidence is defined as trusting your own ability. At the end of the day your confidence is about how you feel about you. This is something you have more than influence over. It doesn’t have anything to do with anyone else so stop waiting for someone else to give it to you. Instead start practicing.
How you ask… by showing up anyway. Take the chance, risk the failure and embrace the imperfection. Perfect is better than not done; but done is better than perfect.
Next Step
If you want some 1:1 support there are three ways you can book with me.
Hourly sessions
Book whenever you need a quick pick me up or if you only need sporadic pep talks like before an interview, planning a difficult conversation or after some disappointing feed back
Leadership intensive
3 sessions focused on a particular area of development. This could be to work through a communication issue with your boss, managing a change in your team or performance management or a staff member.
Leadership transformation
At least 10 sessions where we work through the 3 steps to build lasting leadership confidence. It starts with a 90 minute deep dive into your experience, concerns and leadership goals. We then work through the 3 steps in the Confident Leadership Framework. This generally allows for 3 hours on each step but is completely flexible if you want to focus more on any particular step.
Want to know more about how we could work together? Book a free 20 minute introductory session to find out more.
Book and get a free copy of my ebook: Silence your self doubt. A practical guide to start leading with confidence where you can find out more about the 3 steps in my confident leadership framework.
