In this episode, Sarah tackles a common challenge: maintaining and boosting leadership confidence amidst high expectations, decision-making pressures, and self-doubt. Tune in for actionable strategies, real-life examples, and tips to help you build a strong inner foundation for sustainable confidence and success.
[00:00:00] Introduction
[00:01:00] Why Leadership Confidence Wobbles
[00:04:00] Common Challenges for Female Leaders
[00:05:30] The Foundation of Leadership Confidence
[00:07:00] Working on Beliefs and Narratives
[00:11:30] The Role of Triggers and Stories
[00:13:00] Amplifying Your Leadership Brand
[00:15:00] Key Takeaways
[00:16:30] Invitation for Support
[00:17:00] Closing Remarks
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Remember, you are unstoppable!
Welcome to Unstuck and Unstoppable,
the podcast for ambitious female
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:leaders who want to create more impact,
income, and influence in their careers.
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:feel connected to their passion
and purpose, but without
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:selling out or burning out.
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:I'm Sarah Archer, a leadership coach
and career strategist, helping women
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:like you thrive in leadership roles
while staying true to your values.
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:I'm the founder of CareerTree
Coaching and have over 15 years of
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:coaching experience and significant HR
leadership experience to share with you.
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:I know as a female leader it can
be hard to find time to focus
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:on your career aspirations.
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:The day job can be all consuming.
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:Plus, no matter how senior you are,
there are always going to be times
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:when you feel stuck, when you have
self doubt, or feel like an imposter.
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:And that's where unstuck
and unstoppable comes in.
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:Each week I'll be sharing practical
strategies, insightful interviews and
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:inspiring stories to help you boost
your confidence, lead with purpose
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:and achieve sustainable success.
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:If you're ready to stop playing
small and unlock the incredible
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:potential you have within you and feel
unstoppable, you're in the right place.
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:Let's get started.
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:Hello.
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:And welcome to episode
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:six, how to boost your
leadership confidence.
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:I wanted to talk about this because,
when you are a leader, there are huge
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:expectations on you all of the time.
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:There's expectations from your
team, from your boss, from the
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:senior leadership team, the board,
to, , have impact, to, make decisions,
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:to move things forward, to deliver.
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:And,, that can create a
huge amount of pressure.
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:Plus, the types of decisions you might
be making as a leader have a huge impact,
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:, have impact on people, they have impact
on the business, they have impact on
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:your team, and that can weigh heavily
and play on your confidence as well.
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:Plus, as a leader, you often have
to deal with lots of different
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:situations and scenarios, which you
may never have dealt with before.
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:So you're, constantly having to take
on things and take them on without
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:maybe saying, I need help with this.
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:I need support with this.
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:I haven't done this before.
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:I'm not sure about, the
direction I need to take.
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:Your frame of reference can be role
models of previous leaders you might
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:have worked with, some of which
who may have been great, may have
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:been really inspirational, and some
which may have not been so great.
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:So that will play into your leadership
confidence as well in terms of who you may
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:have worked alongside or for in the past.
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:And all of this together can make
you question who you are as a
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:leader, what your leadership style
is, how effective that style is.
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:And it might make you think about how am
I going to get the results I need to get?
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:How do I motivate my team
to be high performing?
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:And this all together can make
your leadership confidence
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:feel a bit wobbly at times.
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:And that's the key.
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:completely understandable wobbliness.
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:, because, you are having to step out
of your comfort zone, , on a regular
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:basis, to take on all these things
that you may not have done before.
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:, you might be finding that you are
second guessing your decisions.
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:Maybe you're thinking, is this
the right thing that I'm doing?
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:Am I leading in the right way?
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:It might make you feel doubt
about the direction that you're
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:embarking on with your team.
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:It might, , if you have people
pleasing tendencies, it might push
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:those to the fore because it might
feel like you're trying to please
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:your team, please your boss, please
your clients, please the board.
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:And again, that can play into
feeling a bit wobbly in terms
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:of your leadership confidence.
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:It might trigger imposter feelings.
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:Who am I to be this leader?
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:What do I know about this?
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:How can I be the one who, makes
the decisions or takes that stance?
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:And if you're surrounded by peers who seem
to be on the exterior, very confident,
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:then obviously that can exacerbate
your confidence wobbles as well.
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:The first thing to notice that it's okay.
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:We all experienced these wobbles and
even those very confident colleagues
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:who may look super confident, maybe
having those inner confidence wobbles.
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:, they , might look at you and
think you look super confident
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:and that you don't have those
wobbles, but, we all have them.
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:I work with lots and lots of female
leaders and, , all of them will
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:have some sort of wobble going on.
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:Now, what you don't want is for that
wobbliness, that confidence, self
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:doubt, shakiness to be an ongoing thing
because that can really take its toll.
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:So if you're noticing your confidence is
wobbling, It's important to think about
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:the action you need to take to support
yourself and to boost your confidence.
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:What I tend to notice with my clients
is that it's the inner work that we need
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:to do that will give you the foundation
for ongoing leadership confidence.
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:, if you do the inner work, then you're
going to have this inner core of
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:self confidence, which will help you
navigate all of those decisions, the
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:direction you're taking, the boundaries
you have to set, the saying no around
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:the kind of people pleasing, that
inner self confidence will support
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:that because leadership confidence,
like any kind of confidence, it's a
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:muscle, you have to keep working it.
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:It's not something that is just.
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:fixed, you have to keep giving yourself
that boost, which is a bit like that
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:physical confidence, , if you work out
at the gym, , working on your inner
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:core supports all the other exercises,
all the other activities that you're
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:going to undertake by having that
strong inner core, it's the foundation.
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:And it's the same with
your leadership confidence.
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:And Doing that inner work, means
that it will increase, because you'll
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:have that inner self confidence,
it will increase the trust people
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:have in you, people around you, your
team, the board, the management team.
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:client, it will then give them that
confidence in you because they can see
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:that inner core, even when you're making
tough decisions that they don't like.
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:So the question I'm sure is,
well, what does that actually
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:mean in terms of inner work?
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:And it starts essentially with our
beliefs that we hold about ourselves
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:and the story that we tell ourselves
about who we are as a leader.
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:And if we don't work on this, then
it's harder for us to be authentic.
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:And that impacts the trust that
people have in us and around us.
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:For example, I was working with a
head of HR recently, and when we
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:started to unpack some of her beliefs
that she held around herself, What
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:emerged was that she felt she had to
be super professional all the time,
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:and that to reveal anything about her
personal life was a vulnerability and
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:a weakness, and therefore she really
didn't bring any of her personal
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:self, her self outside work, into work.
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:What this meant is that she wasn't
bringing her whole self to work,
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:and therefore people around her
found it hard to engage with
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:her, hard to connect with her.
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:It impacted her relationships, the
strength of her relationships, and it
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:meant that for her team, for her boss,
for the stakeholders that she was working
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:with, were able to their level of trust
in her professionally was, was good,
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:but as a person, they couldn't find that
connection with her and therefore it made,
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:hard for them to feel she was someone
that they could really work alongside.
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:And she could see that, see that it was
becoming very limiting for her and so
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:what we did was we had to work on the
narrative that she was telling herself
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:about bringing her whole self to work and
then once we'd worked on that narrative
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:and that belief she was then able to start
to experiment with bringing more of her
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:personal life into work and the impact
was huge when she started to do that.
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:And that then reinforced the belief work
that we did and the ultimate confidence
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:. Now, the reason obviously people find
the inner work more challenging is
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:because,, it is , hard to do because
a lot of the beliefs we hold about
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:ourselves are unconscious beliefs.
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:A lot of them were formed in childhood
or our early life or our early career.
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:And what tends to happen with beliefs
is that there can be a result, maybe
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:even of a throwaway comment or a bit
of feedback that we've got and we
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:then believe that to be true about us.
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:And what we do is we look for
evidence that supports that belief
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:that we have about ourself and
therefore we discount the evidence
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:that would disprove that belief.
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:And so we just build up all
this information, evidence about
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:ourselves that becomes ingrained
and therefore it becomes more work
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:to unpack and change that belief.
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:But the good news is you can change
those beliefs, you can reframe them,
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:and you can start to embed a new
belief about yourself as a leader.
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:You definitely can work on that.
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:And then once you do it
can be transformative.
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:But because they're unconscious,
they're a little bit hard to notice.
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:And one way of noticing it is, Noticing
what you're triggered by, noticing that
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:certain things are triggering you, and
you're having quite a, , impactful or
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:overwhelming reaction to something, that
can then,, give you information about,
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:okay, why is that so important to me?
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:Why is that triggering me?
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:And underneath it, you
can begin to spot beliefs.
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:So again, I had another, , client,
the book is, A Guide to the Truth,
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:and, He was a head of marketing
and what she noticed was that, , she
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:was being challenged by a very
confident peer in the management team.
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:who was not only confident,
she was very direct this peer.
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:She was a very fast decision maker
and, my client had a huge reaction
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:when she was being put on the spot by
this person around a particular decision
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:or a direction that they were taking.
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:And it triggered a belief for her
when we unpacked it that she wasn't
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:good enough, she wasn't sharp enough,
she wasn't able to think on her feet.
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:And in a way it was helpful that
that colleague had enabled my client
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:to work out something was going on
because she had such an overwhelming
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:reaction to being challenged.
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:It made her want to think about
what was happening for her.
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:And then what she could start to do
was unpack that belief and start to do
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:the work around changing that belief.
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:So you could think about, am I being
triggered by something or some things
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:at the moment, and just get curious
about what they may be, because
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:they will be contributing to your
confidence, maybe taking a bit of a dip.
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:, and then what you can start to do
as well alongside that, because
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:they are interlinked, is to notice
the story that you might be telling
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:yourself about what is happening.
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:Because you can change the narrative
and we have narratives that are
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:positive about what we do and narratives
that are negative about what we do.
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:. when something's gone really well,
we might notice that narrative we
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:tell ourselves about a leader is
really, , positive and up there.
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:And,, we're really great at what we do.
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:And then when something doesn't
go well, or we're, having to deal
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:with a lot of challenging things.
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:Our narrative might change.
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:It might be around, , how we're not
good enough, or we're not dealing
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:with things really well, or we don't
know enough, or whatever it might be.
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:So again, it's just giving yourself
the space to notice what stories
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:am I playing out to myself?
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:A lot of this is unconscious, but it's
bringing it into our consciousness
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:around, this is not a helpful
narrative that I'm playing out here.
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:And I certainly experienced
all of this as well.
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:But I've done a lot of inner work, , when
I worked as an HR director, having to do
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:a lot of things around, restructuring,
redundancies, things I hadn't necessarily
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:done before or led before, I definitely
experienced a lot of the self doubt
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:and the, beliefs about myself and the
narrative I would tell myself about
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:what was working, what wasn't working.
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:But I did the inner work.
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:I did the inner core work because
I knew I needed to in order to be
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:resilient to the leader and inspire
confidence in the people around me.
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:, and you can do that work as well.
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:, And one of the things that I've
noticed recently is I've been
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:working with quite a few of my
clients in my Ambition Plan program.
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:And in that we do some work around
leadership brand, noticing what our
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:current leadership brand might be.
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:What are the maybe 10 things
we're known for at the moment?
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:With one of my clients, this exercise
was transformative for her because what
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:she started to notice is actually the
things about her leadership brand that
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:made her different to her peers and were
real strengths in the business that she
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:hadn't been valuing and that she'd been
telling herself a story about because
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:it was different to her peers and because
it meant that she had to challenge them
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:on certain things because that was her
strength and it linked her specialism
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:and she started to see by us shaping
her leadership brand how important it
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:was to the business and how actually it
was enabling her peers in the management
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:team to be better at what they did
because she brought this strength.
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:So it was a light bulb
moment for her around.
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:what was actually unique to her and
a strength to her and how she could
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:change her narrative to actually support
this being something really valuable
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:rather than seeing it as a negative
because her peers found it challenging.
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:Doing that little bit of reflective
work can be really helpful at helping
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:you understand Actually, I might be
finding this difficult, but I'm finding
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:it difficult because it's the strength
that I'm bringing and it's really
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:useful to the team and to business.
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:Our goal is for us to be authentic and
to recognize and amplify our strengths
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:as a leader and get comfortable
with our vulnerabilities, but be
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:able to recognize, and own and
reinforce our own leadership identity.
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:, because what you bring will be unique and
it will be added value to what your peers
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:in the leadership team might bring or your
team that you are actually working with.
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:So the takeaway I'm going to suggest
to you today are a couple of takeaways.
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:One is to recognize what's going on.
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:Is your confidence wobbly at the moment
because you're having to step out of
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:your leadership zone a lot because
you're having to take on lots of new
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:things that you haven't maybe done
before and therefore thinking about
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:what support you need to help you
navigate those comfort zones because
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:you can ask for support as a leader.
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:The second thing would be to think
about, what might be triggering you,
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:if you are being triggered, and what
that might be, giving you in terms of
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:information about some of your beliefs,
and whether you want to start doing
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:some belief work, to, change some of
the unhelpful beliefs that you might
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:be holding about yourself as a leader.
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:Similarly, thinking about what's
my awareness around my narrative?
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:What do I tell myself that's
positive about myself as a leader?
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:What do I tell myself that's
negative about myself as a leader?
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:And thinking about the leadership
brand exercise that could then reinforce
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:the positive so you could amplify that
leadership narrative that is about what
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:you bring that is unique and different.
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:And just to get curious about what's
going on around your leadership identity,
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:because we always want to be growing as
leaders, it's never going to be static.
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:And so if you're having a confidence
wobble, it might be that you've
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:gone through a growth phase
in your leadership identity as
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:well, and being more confident.
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:Okay with that and not, not beating
yourself up if you're feeling a
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:little bit low in confidence at the
moment because that's not helpful.
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:confidence, work can be challenging.
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:So if you felt that you wanted
some support around any of the
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:areas I've mentioned today,,
then please do get in touch.
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:I love doing confidence work.
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:It's one of my specialisms, particularly
with female leaders, helping you.
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:Amplify your impact and, really
own your unique leadership identity.
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:You can also watch this
episode as it is available as a
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:recording from my LinkedIn live.
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:And I'll put a link in
the show notes for you.
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:And if you're over on LinkedIn,
then please do connect with me.
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:If we're not already connected.
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:Thank you so much for listening
to this episode of the Unstuck
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:and Unstoppable podcast.
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:I have lots of free resources you
can access on my website, ww.career
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:tree coaching.co uk, and I'll
also put links in the show notes.
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:If you found this episode
helpful, then please subscribe
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:so you don't miss the next one.
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:And please do share it with a
friend and leave me a review
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:and I will personally thank you.
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:Remember, you're capable of more
than you know, shine brightly.
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:Lead boldly and unlock the
extraordinary potential within you.
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:Be unstoppable.