Six Ways to Make the People You Lead be Confident.

Though doubt may be involved in an endeavor, confidence promotes achievement. The people you lead must be confident in themselves and their abilities to do the things that make the achievement happen.

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But how do you consistently arouse confidence and enthusiasm in them?

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My work over the decades with executives has enabled me to see first-hand what such confidence can do.?

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The best of these leaders had a way of leading average people into believing they could be great and so they did great things.

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Of course, as leaders we are not Jack Welch’s.?How do we ourselves go about boosting people’s confidence so they can do extraordinary achievements consistently??

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Here are 6 ways. ?

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1. Right Expectations.?

To get great results as a leader, you must cultivate the art of right expectations. If you set expectations impossibly high, you risk dispiriting people. If you set expectations too low, you risk their becoming complacent.

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Here’s a secret few leaders know: The key to getting expectations right is found in the realm of needs, not your needs but their needs.

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When you have them solving the problems of their needs while at the same time they are getting results you need, you have what I call the Critical Confluence. And the Critical Confluence leads directly to confidence.

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2. Right Support.

Support promotes the people’s confidence. Conventional wisdom has it that support comes in these forms: time, training, money.

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Clearly, providing support in those areas is important.?But most companies miss the point when it comes to support.?They provide time, training, and money for the wrong reasons.??

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What should really be supported?

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There is a decisive difference between people doing a task and people taking leadership of that same task.?When one is a leader as opposed to a “do-er”, one applies an extra commitment in time, attention, initiative, and inventiveness to the accomplishment of that task.

Taking leadership of a task changes the expectations of the task. It even changes the task itself.?

When you expect them to take leadership in achieving results then support the leadership actions they take, you are helping them gain confidence they may not otherwise acquire.?

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3. Right Listening.

The difference between leaders is ears.?If you raise the urgency to obtain higher expectations, yet you don’t communicate to instill confidence in them, you only raise the anxiety level while lowering the performance that gets great results.

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The key to raising expectations and confidence is often to listen to the people.?I teach the Leadership Talk to consistently achieve exceptional results.?But sometimes the best Leadership Talks are “listening Leadership Talks.”?

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4. Right Speaking.

People who are compelled by their leaders to act are less confidence than people who can freely choose such action. Don’t order them to do tasks but speak so they choose to be the ardent cause leaders of doing those tasks. Develop the art of the question mark.?(See my 10.16.2022 article.) ?

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5. Right Relationship.?Instilling confidence is not a point but a process, a relationship process.?It is through your relationship with them that your best support is manifest.?There’s only one relationship that can further your leadership.?That’s a relationship based on your being actively involved in helping them succeed.?

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This relationship is exemplified by the Washington D.C. plane crash in 1982 when a plane hit a Potomac River bridge during a snowstorm, and a federal employee on his way home from work, jumped in the freezing waters and swam out to rescue a drowning victim, a complete stranger.?

Of course, we are not given every day the opportunity to be a hero, but the principle holds.?When you are available to help your people without thought of your well-being, then you are establishing a relationship that helps foster their confidence.?

A woman told me of a boss who changed her life by speaking only four sentences.?He said, “Sure, we’re really challenged in this project.?But I believe you can do it.?And I will be there to help you do it.?We won’t fail because were together.”?

Is confidence made me confident,” she said.?“I’ll always be grateful to him. By the way, we did succeed and in an important way I had not thought possible.”

6. Right Peer Pressure.?Your supportive relationship with the people must also find its corollary in the people’s relationship with each other.?Just as you support them in the ways I described, so you should insist they support each other in the same way.?

* Identify precise expectations required to develop and sustain confidence-building relationships.?

* Develop expectations processes.

* Monitor and evaluate those processes on a consistent basis.

* Encourage peer groups to be respectful and appreciative of each other, especially when they are taking risks by trying new things.?

Apply these six ways and you’ll find that confidence grows naturally and continually out of the people.?

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Copyright ? The Filson Leadership Group, Inc.

Brent Filson is the founder of The Filson Leadership Group, Inc., which for 37-years has helped thousands of leaders of all ranks and functions in top companies worldwide achieve sustained increases in hard, measured results. He has published 23 books and many scores of articles on leadership. His mission is to have leaders replace their traditional presentations with his specially developed, motivating process call the Leadership Talk. www.brentfilson.com and theleadershiptalk.com.?

Besides having lectured about the Leadership Talk at MIT Sloan School of Management, Columbia University, Wake Forest, Villanova, Williams, Middlebury, I also brought the Leadership Talk to leaders in these organizations: Abbott, Ameritech, Anheuser-Busch, Armstrong World Industries, AT&T, BancOne, BASF, Bell Atlantic, BellSouth, Betz Laboratories, Bose, Bristol-Meyers Squibb, Campbell Sales, Canadian Government, CNA, DuPont, Eaton Corporation, Exelon, First Energy, Ford, General Electric, General Motors, GTE, Hershey Foods, Houghton Mifflin, IBM, Meals-on-Wheels, Merck, Miller Brewing Company, NASA, PaineWebber, Polaroid, Price Waterhouse, Roadway Express, Sears Roebuck, Spalding International, Southern Company, The United Nations, Unilever, UPS, Union Carbide, United Dominion Industries, U.S. Steel, Vermont State Police, Warner Lambert — and more