A promotion in the workplace can quickly push you outside your comfort zone and it is common that this means you spend more time in the boardroom with senior leaders and managers. For women in particular, confidence in the workplace and the boardroom can be severely lacking and this seriously inhibits them from reaching their true potential. By following the tips below you can begin to boost your confidence in the boardroom!
Why is confidence important?
Boosting your confidence is not just important for yourself and your own self-belief, but it helps to shape how others perceive you. If you can exude confidence, you are more likely to achieve your career ambitions at a faster pace as you will be instantly recognised as someone with a wide skill set. By acting with confidence, even if you do not feel as confident as you are presenting, others around you will feel more comfortable handing over larger projects and tasks because you show that you know what you are doing. The positive reaction of your colleagues when you meet these goals will then help to turn this into real self-confidence. Similarly, once you feel more confident you will be able to be more assertive, decisive and a more efficient leader who is confident in their convictions – confidence breeds confidence.
Positive self-talk
It is really important to also work on how you talk to yourself as negative self-talk can have a very detrimental impact upon your confidence levels. Even those with the highest skill levels are susceptible to crippling imposter syndrome. Sometimes our brains just do not let us celebrate and make the most of our successes, particularly accompanied by the common british trait of not wanting to seem boastful! However, practicing positive self-talk is so important to ensuring you demonstrate to others around you the extensive skills you possess. By talking kindly and believing in yourself and your abilities, you are much more likely to succeed. Even if something does not go to plan, consider this a learning experience and focus upon how you can move forward. Remember the hardwork and dedication you have put into getting where you are today, you deserve to be there too.
Boost your skills and knowledge
Another effective way to increase your confidence is to also increase your skills level and industry knowledge. If you are well-versed in your sector, you will then feel more comfortable working with senior industry leaders as you can contribute constructively to discussions. Take a moment to conduct a skills audit to see which areas in particular you could spend some time developing. You could connect with people you wish to learn from on LinkedIn, look out for mentoring programs or networking events or take online courses and webinars. If networking fills you with dread, initially try going to small local events and making meaningful connections with a couple of individuals rather than feeling pressured to speak to everyone all at once. You could then accompany these new connections to larger events as going with someone you already know can ease your nerves of meeting others and helps to kickstart conversations. There are so many ways to enhance your skills that can be done in and around you other responsibilities.
Confidence in meetings
To ensure you can really feel as confident as possible in meetings, ensure that you always enter the room prepared with some notes, ideas and the agenda to hand. This way you will not be caught off guard if someone asks for your opinion. If there are particular areas of the meetings you are not sure about, come prepared with some notes so that you are able to follow discussions and contribute as required. Similarly, if someone does ask you something you are not entirely sure about, take a deep breath and really think through before you panic and give an answer; it is here that a crib sheet can be helpful. Being honest about how you are unsure right now, but show how you will find an answer, is much more authentic than panicking and saying things you are unable to stick to.
By working on how you speak to yourself and boosting your skills and knowledge you can increase your confidence and show others how skilled you really are!