Beyond Humility: Redefining Success and Confidence for Female Leaders

Many of us have a desire to pursue exciting new careers, to launch our own businesses, to meet new people, and to close the chapter on activities and relationships that no longer support us.? Yet, so often, we don’t.

Often, what holds us back is not a lack of skill, ability or experience, but a lack of confidence. It gives us the perfect reason to not try new things, to turn down projects, to avoid forging new relationships, and to stay firmly within our comfort zones.

This can spell bad news for those of us with so much more to offer.? The good news is that confidence is not a fixed trait.

Selling Ourselves Short?

I have talked and worked with a lot of women who struggled to articulate what they were brilliant at.? They possessed great strengths, skills and experience, but underestimated their importance, focusing instead on weaknesses and shortcomings.? Some admitted to playing down their skills or achievements to accommodate the feelings or positions of others.? Many of them were, and are, dimming their own light.

Their own actions prevented them from seeing their true potential.? This is why working on self-concept is so important.? As women, we need to see and realise our brilliance, to be able to articulate it fully, and to do work that helps us improve even further, especially if it is critical to reaching our goals.

Male Hubris, Female Humility

I want to talk about gender disparity for a moment.? Let me introduce you to the ‘Male Hubris, Female Humility’ concept.? This concept came from a study of gender differences in self-estimated intelligence, conducted by David Reilly, David L. Neumann and Glenda Andrews.? It found that, despite evidence from cognitive psychology that proves that men and women are equal in measured intelligence, men systematically self-estimated their intelligence to be higher than it was, significantly more than women did.? In essence, men tend to overestimate themselves, while women underestimate themselves.

In a perfect world, we would just get men to be a bit more realistic!? In the absence of that opportunity, though, it is high time we get better at recognising, articulating and taking action as the intelligent and capable women we are.? The foundation of this is confidence.?

What Women Bring To The Table

Confidence is something that we can build, through our successes as well as our failures.? As such, there is no such thing as a ‘confident person’, or a ‘not very confident person’.?

One reason why confidence is such an important factor for women (and a huge driver behind the work I do) is that there has never been more demand for women in senior positions than there is today.? The world needs more women in positions of power, and not purely for achieving gender parity.? With innate?? qualities like empathy, emotional intelligence, adaptability, and great communication and relationship skills, multiple studies show that businesses perform better with women in senior positions.

As women, we need to be confident in putting ourselves forward, pursuing every opportunity to perform to the levels of excellence we know we are capable of.

Building Confidence From Setbacks

An element critical to our confidence, is our relationship with our setbacks and failures.? It is easy to build confidence from our successes.? It’s more of a challenge to build confidence off the back of our failures.? This requires us to change our relationship with ourselves.? When our efforts fall short of the mark, instead of beating ourselves up, we need to give ourselves compassion and empathy, cheering ourselves on and encouraging ourselves to keep trying, just as we would our best friend.

We then need to start looking at and reframing those setbacks and failures as stepping stones, growth moments and learning experiences.? If we don’t, we risk missing out on countless opportunities.

When interviewed, Sara Blakely, the founder of Spanx, talked about her positive relationship with her setbacks, inspired by her father who would ask her to share what she failed at each day.? This created a belief system for Sara - she felt that if had not failed at something that day, she must not have tried hard enough, or learned anything.? This belief inspired her not to give up or to run from her failures, but to see them as part of the journey, helping her to build the successful business we know today.

A Difficult Dynamic - The Double Bind

Just an aside… Thanks to a few outdated stereotypes, a confident and competent woman is considered less likeable than a confident and competent man.? Women are expected to be confident AND likeable.

This means we must navigate the difficult balance of confidence and warmth.? If we are too warm and nurturing, we are seen as not credible.? Yet, if we do not temper our confidence and competence with some degree of warmth, we are disliked.

We often hear of successful women being described as ‘bossy’, ‘aggressive’, ‘scary’, ‘cold’, and ‘standoffish’.? Descriptions like these are rarely, if ever used to describe confident and competent men, exposing the reality that when it comes to men in such positions, the ‘likeability’ factor is often deemed unnecessary.

Frustrating but true!

We should not go so far as to diminish or compromise ourselves, but it is an unfortunate dynamic that we must consider when we are in job interviews, negotiations and leadership positions.?

A Holistic Approach

My SPIRIT framework, which forms an integral part of my Unshakeable Confidence system, takes a holistic approach in supporting your self development.? You strengthen your self-concept, prioritise what is most important to you, learn to balance your hard work with self-care and relaxation, release limiting beliefs while reinforcing empowering ones, identify and break through internal barriers, and align your goals with your mindset, beliefs and behaviours, allowing you to thrive in any business arena you choose to enter.

Summing It All Up

Remember, confidence is not a fixed trait.? The notion of a ‘Confident Person’ is a myth.? No one is born confident - confidence can be developed or diminished by a variety of factors.? Ultimately though, our levels of confidence often stem from our relationships with ourselves, and how we look at and work with our experiences.

My Unshakeable Confidence System shows you how to develop and grow your confidence.? I have used this system with many, many clients to achieve the success they have desired.? It is all about building a trusting and empowered relationship with ourselves, and knowing that we have what it takes to bring our intentions into reality.

What To Do Next

If you’d like to work on your own confidence, I’d love it if you’d take my Unshakeable Confidence quiz, where you can identify areas for self development, and learn tips on how to go about it.