This is the fifth in my series to help you to be in the best position for pursuing your next leadership promotion. The previous four articles in the series can be found at:
- If You Want that Promotion, Be Intentional
- If You Want that Promotion, Mindset Matters
- If You Want that Promotion, Exude Presence
- If You Want that Promotion, Align Yourself
“Courage is resistance to fear, mastery of fear, and not the absence of fear.” - Mark Twain
Courage sits amongst the top virtues a leader needs to have. According to Aristotle, it is the first virtue humans need to possess because it makes all the other virtues possible. As you step into your executive role, you will continuously be confronted with situations in which you will feel fearful. But you will need to find a way to navigate and gain mastery of those feelings in order to deal with what lies ahead of you.
The further you step outside of your comfort zone, the more fearful it will feel. But the good thing is, you CAN master this. You can develop the courage to take on what lies ahead of you. Displaying courage will instil confidence in you as a leader to other people. Here are some things that you can do to develop courage and display it.
Confidence
To me confidence is being comfortable with who I am and having the courage to do all that I want and need to do. We often hear the statement that we must ‘Feel the fear and do it anyway’ in respect of overcoming our fears and being courageous. A term that stems from the book Feel The Fear And Do It Anyway: How to Turn Your Fear and Indecision into Confidence and Action by Susan Jeffers. Whilst it is helpful to some, when used on its own, I don’t think the statement ‘feel the fear and do it anyway’ is helpful for many people, as it can often be taken out of context to what the book is about.
Feeling the fear and doing it anyway on its own, can be debilitating to some people if they have an inherent belief that fuels their fear. In fact, it can make some people feel worse. If this is you, manage those beliefs that make you fearful and negatively affect your self-confidence.
If you lack confidence, pinpoint exactly what it is that you lack confidence in and work on addressing that, rather than making a blanket statement that you are not confident. A blanket ‘I’m not confident’ statement is a self-fulfilling prophesy.
Pinpoint what it is that you lack confidence in and address that. If you have the skills and ability to do the role, is it the lack of experience that makes you not feel confident? If so, what can you do gain more experience?
If it is that you doubt yourself, experience imposter syndrome or some other self-limiting belief, challenge the beliefs you have about yourself. Rationalise them, put things into perspective, and change them to something more helpful.
Learn how to project and portray yourself (this includes body language and appearance). Develop a growth mindset and continuously learn and develop yourself. Step outside of your comfort zone to deal with diverse or difficult situations and people, communicating effectively and clearly.
Challenge
Challenge yourself and when appropriate, don’t be afraid to challenge others. Don’t limit yourself and your thinking. Develop an awareness of your own personal biases that may hinder yourself and others, and challenge them.
Your technical competency may have got you where you are, but as a leader you need to be continuously stretching yourself to learn new skills, keep up to date with the latest developments in your field, stepping outside of your comfort zone to manage or influence difficult people or situations, or to bring in new clients and business.
If you know something is not right, don’t be afraid to speak up about it. Articulately express your views and opinions (making sure you have all the facts first).
Leadership effectiveness
Your effectiveness as a leader goes hand in hand with your confidence, and ability to influence others, to enable the achievement of organisation objectives. Develop your leadership effectiveness and demonstrate this to others.
Observe great executive leaders who you admire. What is it about them that makes them great at what they do? Don’t try to copy them, rather, learn what you can from them. Identify your leadership style and be confident about it. However, at the same time, recognise that you will need to adapt your style and modify your behaviour in certain situations in order to get the best outcome. Developing your self-awareness will help with this.
Start thinking bigger picture and develop your strategic thinking and visionary skills. If you need to, get a coach to help you with your leadership development.
Decisiveness
Indecisiveness in a leader does not instil confidence in others. Whilst making on the spot decisions can be challenging for some introverted leaders (because they need time to process the information and their thoughts about it), there will be times when you need to make an on the spot decision.
If you are feeling anxious about making an on the spot decision, you may think irrationally which can affect the quality of the decision you make. Learning how to manage your emotions will prevent this feeling of anxiety. It will enable you to think more rationally and clearly, helping you to feel more confident at making decisions.
When we make decisions, we do so based on a combination of previous experience, knowledge, fact gathering and evidence, data, gut instinct, weighing up the pros and cons, and possible other factors. The more experience and knowledge we have, the more confident we are making decisions. What can you do to develop your decision making?
Think of courage like a muscle, if you don’t develop it and exercise it, atrophy can set in. So, what will you do to develop and build your courage muscle?
First published on LinkedIn.
If you are an introverted woman and a senior leader and want to increase your confidence, influence and impact, take my free assessment and get a report identifying areas to develop. You can take the assessment here.