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Can You Lead Confidently When You Don’t Know It All?

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“When do you feel confident as a leader?” This is a question I often ask my female coaching clients, because so many of them struggle with self-confidence. Almost without exception, their reply is, “I feel confident when I ‘know my stuff’ inside and out.” Knowledge is a definite inner authority-booster. But when it’s your primary source of trust in your leadership abilities, you’re in a precarious position, because it means that you’re only self-assured when a) all things are knowable and b) you have the time and ability to know them all.

Good luck with that.

What happens when you’re facing things you’ve never faced before, like a natural disaster or 9/11? Or when the market crashes and you have to get twice as much work out of half as many people? Or when a technological breakthrough in your industry renders your core product obsolete overnight? Do your people then have to wait for you to get up to speed again before they have the benefit of a confident leader?

In the face of unprecedented and unknowable challenges, a leader needs to ground her own authority in more than just knowledge. Here are three other places to look:

1. Principle
One place to find your leadership footing when the path is uncertain is in principles and values. You may not know exactly how to proceed, but you can probably identify what matters. There’s power, clarity and confidence in that. Here’s an example. During the 2013 shut-down of the US Federal Government, many companies that consult to the government were forced to lay off workers for days or even weeks. But the leaders of one consulting firm were uncomfortable making their employees bear the financial penalty for Congress’ failures. So they asked themselves this question: “What values do we want to guide our response to this situation?” Their answer: people are more important than profits. Having articulated that principle, the way became clear: they forewent their own bonuses and asked all employees to take a specific day as vacation, so that the company could shut down its facilities and save a day’s worth of energy costs. Not one employee lost even a day’s pay. Connecting to what mattered most allowed this company’s leaders to stand confidently for a position that was costly to them personally and controversial among their external stakeholders.

2. Presence
A client of mine (we’ll call her Deb) was recently leading a team that was on the brink of a disastrous work deliverable. Despite the team’s best efforts, they approached their deadline woefully unprepared, plagued by in-fighting, and scared to death of tanking an important presentation. Deb had to decide whether to back out of the presentation or go forward. Both options presented significant risk. So when she decided to go forward, she realized that she had to do it with full conviction. First, she gathered her own energy into a clear and focused commitment. Then, standing in her own resolve, she pulled the team together to acknowledge their hard work, assess both the failure and success scenarios, and reassure the team that she would have their backs, regardless of the outcome. The solid certainty of her own presence created a psychological sea-change in the group. Feeling their leader so strongly at their back emboldened them in the presentation. They aced it. And Deb learned an important lesson: that presence itself could have a huge impact on the performance of her team.

3. Personhood
When you’re out of your depth, it’s easy to imagine that somewhere out there, there’s some mythical “perfect” leader for this situation… and it isn’t you. But here’s the thing. The perfect leader isn’t here; you are. So show up. Lead with what you’ve got, whether that’s the ability to lend perspective, to keep calm, to energize, to empathize, to engender trust, to problem-solve, to facilitate, to leverage the right people, to protect and advocate. When you’re out of your knowledge depth, bring everything else you’ve got – because your folks need a leader and you’re the one who’s here. And you, in all your imperfection, may turn out to be exactly what the situation called for after all.

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Knowing your stuff is a great thing, and it certainly contributes to your credibility as a leader. But when you rest your confidence solely on what you know, then it’s contingent on conditions and you’re missing out on many other sources of authority and impact.

What about you?

  1. On what internal standards or criteria do you base your own confidence as a leader?
  2. What happens to your confidence as a leader when you can’t meet those standards?
  3. What price do you pay for that loss of confidence? What’s the cost to your team and your organization?
  4. How might you leverage principle, presence or personhood in a fuller way to support your confidence as a leader?
  5. What specific steps might you take to do that?

Can simple math improve your confidence?

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Here’s a great HBR article on women and confidence.  Who knew that ’rounding up’ holds a key?   http://blogs.hbr.org/glickman/2012/01/confidence-is-a-numbers-game.html

Do you ‘claim your space’ as a leader?

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Here’s a test.  Recall the last time you were in a crowded elevator, plane, bus or sidewalk. When other people pushed up against you, how did you respond physically? Did you crunch yourself up to make room for others, or did you stand your ground and cause others to adjust to you? The body is not just a metaphor here – it is one mirror of how adaptable or assertive you are to others. This quick reflection may give you some important insight into how you lead.

A core function of leadership is to shape the environment – to affect the activities, priorities, and energies of those around you.   This requires you to “claim your space:” to exert a strong enough presence to cause a shift in others.  But before you can do that externally, you must do it within.

Recently, a leader was lamenting to me that her assistant was not performing up to standard. The assistant was often absent on questionable bouts of sick leave and refused to take training because she ‘really wasn’t interested’ in learning about spreadsheets.   As a result, the assistant created tremendous inefficiencies and extra work for everyone around her.  The leader’s response?  “I feel bad for my assistant because she’s the underdog (because she’s at a lower grade level).”  My response to this leader?  “Actually, it sounds like you’re the underdog in this relationship.  Your assistant appears to be the one in charge.”

This is a well-intentioned, caring leader who has not been claiming her space.   She is, at some level, apologetic about her power.  She demonstrates what can happen when a leader overuses kindness and adaptability.   She has become largely impotent – to the detriment of herself, her team and bottom-line results.

Practices for claiming your space

Claiming your space is a ‘learnable’ skill.  Here are a few exercises that can get you started.

“Filling your skin.”  Three times a day, stop what you’re doing and breathe into every inch of your physical body.  Imagine infusing every cell, muscle, bone, organ and tissue with ‘yourself.’  Imagine your aspirations, values and commitments filling every inch of yourself, like water in a balloon.  Take note of how that affects your mood, confidence and sense of strength.

Interacting while ‘full.’  Do the ‘fill your skin’ practice just before you go into an important meeting or conversation.  Without trying to change your behavior, just see what happens in the interaction when you’re more fully inhabiting yourself.

Filling the space outside your skin.  This is great to try in meetings or in public places. ‘Fill your skin’ first, and then imagine radiating that power out into the space around your body.  Again – no need to try to ‘act’ bigger or change your behavior in any way. Just watch what happens when you simply allow your own fullness to move into the invisible field around you.  See if you can get people to physically adjust to you, such as on the bus or in the street.  You might be amazed at the external impact that this simple internal shift can make.

Experiment with these practices and let us know what you discover!