How would you help an executive build confidence when taking on a higher leadership role?

The way I see it, there are two types of confidence. 1) Task confidence is knowing how to do something well. 2) Trait confidence is knowing you have the curiosity, conscientiousness, or resilience to figure it out. Task confidence naturally waxes as you develop skills, and wanes as you try new things. The trick is to spot when your Task confidence is waning and bolster it by basking in your past recognitions, calling a supportive friend, or achieving something simple to prove to yourself that you've still got it. Trait confidence helps sustain us when our Task confidence wanes. Believing in your own integrity, good intentions, and ability to solve challenging problems can help you handle the discomfort when your Task confidence is low.

?? Unearth the Gems Dig Deep: Start by uncovering their core strengths, just like mining for precious gems hidden beneath the surface. Polish the Gems: Refine these strengths through practice and feedback to make them shine even brighter. Craft the Crown: Highlight how these unique strengths fit perfectly into their new leadership role, like setting gems in a crown. Showcase the Sparkle: Encourage them to confidently display their abilities, letting their strengths lead the way. Celebrate the Treasure: Recognize and celebrate each success, reinforcing their confidence as they step into their new role. By assessing and polishing strengths, you can help an executive sparkle in any leadership challenge!

To help a leader build trust in a leadership role, emphasise the importance of congruence - the alignment of values, beliefs and actions. Congruence in leadership: When your actions reflect your core values, you create authenticity that resonates with you and your team. Acting in accordance with your true principles projects confidence and integrity, enhancing your leadership presence. Encourage leaders to reflect on their values and align their decisions and behaviours with these principles. This not only builds self-confidence, but also fosters trust and respect from others, further strengthening their leadership.

Start by helping the executive identify and assess their core strengths. Understanding what they already excel at can boost their confidence and provide a solid foundation to build upon. Encourage them to reflect on past successes and how those skills can be applied to their new role.

To help an executive build confidence when taking on a higher leadership role, start by emphasizing their achievements and strengths that earned them the position. Encourage them to seek mentorship or coaching to navigate the new responsibilities and provide a sounding board for challenges. Help them set clear, achievable goals to build momentum and reinforce their capability. Foster self-reflection and encourage them to trust their judgment, reminding them that growth often involves stepping out of their comfort zone. This approach helps them develop the self-assurance needed to excel in their new role.

Confidence often comes from having a clear roadmap. Setting specific, realistic goals tailored to the new role helps the executive feel more in control and focused, reducing the uncertainty that often accompanies a step up in leadership. Example: In the transition to a C-suite role, the executive might need to enhance their strategic vision or develop stronger relationships with the board of directors. We would work together to set goals like “develop a strategic plan for the next fiscal year” or “schedule regular one-on-one meetings with each board member.” These goals should be challenging but achievable, providing the executive with clear milestones to track their progress.

Developing a 30-60-90 plan, even if it's relatively loose is something that will increase confidence for both yourself and your team. Setting goals is something you of course will have to do, but be thoughtful about it. You want to have enough of a knowledge base to understand the implications of whatever goals you will be setting if you are new-in-role. In the first 30 days, doing listening tours, connecting with people and understanding the "way things are" are great ways to spend your time. Learn the names, roles and titles of everyone in your department and who to go to for what. In case your onboarding doesn't include goals to achieve, create them with your leader for 60-90 and beyond and set up regular times to discuss progress.

Along with setting goals, it's important to have a mentor when you are stepping into a role with considerably more responsibility. The best mentors are experienced in the industry but not in the direct reporting chain of the executive. This allows for more honest conversation. Having regular meetings with the mentor also will help the executive be accountable for his/her own growth. This is something that becomes increasingly more challenging to do as you rise in rank.

Desde mi punto de vista, solo falta agregar que también se debe implementar un sistema para el cumplimiento de las metas. Pues un sistema o un modelo ayudará a reducir tiempos y esfuerzo al momento de cumplir las metas.

To effectively obtain the new knowledge needed for your new role and fully embrace the experience of learning, start by identifying the key areas where you need to grow. Break down your learning into manageable segments and set clear, achievable goals for each. Engage in active learning by applying new concepts immediately to your work, which reinforces understanding. Additionally, cultivate a mindset of curiosity—approach each learning opportunity as a chance to enhance your leadership. By staying open and enthusiastic, you turn the learning process into a fulfilling journey that equips you to excel in your new responsibilities.

Example: If the executive is now responsible for a broader scope of operations, there may be areas where they lack experience, such as global market dynamics or advanced financial management. Rather than viewing these gaps as weaknesses, I would encourage the executive to see them as opportunities for growth. We might set up a learning plan that includes executive education courses, mentorship from seasoned leaders, or engaging in relevant industry forums. Encourage a growth mindset by framing new challenges as opportunities to learn and improve. Support the executive in seeking out new knowledge, skills, and experiences that will enhance their leadership capabilities. Reinforce that continuous learning is a hallmark of successful leaders/

Most leaders think they need to know everything to lead. This simply isn't the case. The most effective leaders I've worked with are constantly navigating the unknown. They've developed a healthy relationship with not knowing things. There is no shame in: -admitting you don't know something...yet -asking for help when you need it -saying you don't have experience in that but are excited to learn more -pick someone's brain who has done the job previously -request/seek outside perspectives or coaching Remember, you weren't hired to know everything. You were hired to get the job done. Be resourceful and judicial with your time and energy.

TBH I have seen most clients stopping themselves from taking a higher role precisely because they feel they lack knowledge or experience. Many already have the knowledge & skills. Some ideas: 1. Ask them to create a 3-day challenge with topics they would be mentoring others on in their new role. The simultaneous challenge is for them to spot what they need to learn more about so they can mentor others. 2. Find 6 Ted talks related to their new role and ask them to extract new knowledge they can apply. 3. I co-design a quiz with them writing out four areas of expertise a leader needs to be equipped with in this new role. During the co-design plenty emerges for coaching to take place on confidence levels. Experience in quiz design is needed.

Nunca se deja de aprender y un método valioso para cualquier director es la mentoria. Los grandes líderes se rodean de expertos en áreas específicas que le ayudan a mejorar y a reducir los tiempos de la curva de aprendizaje.

Relationships are the number one reason for retention and for turnover. Poor relationships will ruin your work environment. Conversely, incredible relationships will make things fun, dynamic, exciting and rewarding. Think about two emails coming into your inbox at the same time. Email 1 is from a peer who you've spoken to a few times. You knew a few facts about them, but mostly you leave them alone. Email 2 is from a team-member who you have mentored regularly for 18 months. They have taken your wisdom and gotten promoted, consistently crediting you with their development. Who are you going to respond to quicker? That's all relationship.

To help an executive build confidence in a higher leadership role, I focus on fostering relationships. We start by identifying key stakeholders and understanding their perspectives, then work on enhancing communication skills to ensure clarity and authenticity. I partner the executive in developing a relationship-building strategy, which includes regular, meaningful interactions. By creating a network of trusted allies, the executive gains a sense of support and belonging, which naturally boosts confidence.

Stakeholder mapping can be a powerful way to help you prioritise which relationships to focus on and how to tackle each one. I have asked clients in a similar position to chart their stakeholders based on who they wanted to monitor, manage closely, keep informed and keep satisfied. This enabled them to come up with a clear communication and contact strategy for all their stakeholders which could be tackled in a more time-efficient way than if they'd taken a less strategic approach.

To build confidence in a higher leadership role, help the executive enhance their decision-making skills. Start with small, low-risk decisions to build trust in their judgment. Reflect on past successes and encourage thoughtful risk-taking, emphasizing that each decision offers valuable learning. Introduce decision-making frameworks to provide clarity, and use role-playing to prepare for real scenarios. Encourage seeking feedback and continuous reflection on outcomes. Celebrate successful decisions to reinforce their capability, boosting confidence in their leadership abilities.

To help an executive build confidence when taking on a bigger role, I would suggest the following: 1. Embrace Ambiguity: Encourage the executive to accept ambiguity in decision-making. They should gather a reasonable amount of data, involve people in the process, and then trust their instincts to make the best possible decision. 2. Commit to Decisions: Once a decision is made, the executive should commit to it and move forward. If a course correction is needed later, that's acceptable, but indecision can undermine confidence. 3. Encourage Big Thinking: Motivate the executive to have their own vision and support them in thinking big. This will not only boost their confidence but also inspire their team to aim for greater achievements.

Decision-making is a critical aspect of leadership. Confidence in making decisions comes from practice and experience. Encourage the executive to take on decision-making responsibilities gradually, starting with lower-risk decisions and building up to more significant ones.

All change leads to stress. I will help them handle that with this 3 step process: 1) Write down their past achievements in leadership to help them draw confidence from that 2) Think about the worst leadership situation they have been in and how they turned it around 3 Help them balance their body and energy by a proper routine and balance their chakras through anulom vilom pranayama(breath exercise) and my root chakra guided meditations to help them feel stable and grounded.

At senior leadership levels, the ability and experience playing field is largerly even. It is most cases about the executive's ability to cope, manage the enormity of the responsibility and that's no mean feat. It's also a pyramid structure and therefore gets lonely. It is said "heavy is the head that wears the crown" and therein lies the stressor. There is no playbook, with each individual, each team, each organisation being so different. A competent worker may be a good leader but may not be a great top boss. What happens then? The Coach happens to help identify unique strengths and maximise the same effectively to use as powerful tools by the leader to successfully lead with confidence and grace.

1. Strengths Assessment: Highlight and reinforce their core strengths, aligning them with new responsibilities. 2. Mentorship Connection: Facilitate mentorship with seasoned leaders for guidance and perspective. 3. Scenario Planning: Practice real-life leadership scenarios to build decision-making confidence. 4. Mindset Shift: Encourage a growth mindset, embracing challenges as opportunities for growth. 5. Incremental Wins: Set small, achievable goals to build momentum and reinforce self-assurance.

One technique I have used is to ask executives to imagine they have a personal board of directors, people they can turn to for help in different situations. Sometimes, just increasing their awareness of the support network that is already available to them can help reduce stress levels as they start to realise they are not alone and don't have to shoulder the full responsibility for everything themselves.

For elite performers (in most domains requiring specific skills/expertise), the number one differentiator (research based) in terms of performance impact is ABILITY TO MANAGE STRESS. This fundamentally comes down to doing 3 things well: 1) Sleep enough - This improves response time, perceptual clarity, and cognitive processing speed; 2) Nurturing a small group of individuals who sustain you emotionally - To be clear, this is NOT the same as only listening to "YES" people. Instead, these are people who can extend empathy, care, and generosity to you when the going gets tough; and 3) Conflict management (not resolution) - Includes learning how to have difficult conversations, and proactively map & manage expanded stakeholder network.