Anyone can lose confidence it seems. And in the case of work, it can affect not only that person but those they work with. And it can affect the company overall.
As a leader, how can you help to boost the confidence of someone you work with? Perhaps an employee? It can be frustrating because you probably see the person as very capable of doing their job. But for whatever reason they are struggling with it right now.
Here are a few things that might help.
1. Encourage Risk Taking
Confidence encourages risk taking. Or maybe it’s the other way around. Trying new things and taking a few little risks and seeing that life goes on no matter what can lead to new confidence. It can also lead to discovery of new talents. This also builds confidence or rebuilds it.
Depending on the employee, see if you can identify an appropriate risk for them. See if you can push them just a little bit to try something new so they can realize their potential.
2. Set Realistic Goals
As a leader it can be at least partially your job to set goals for your employees. Check to see what goals you’ve been setting for the employee that is struggling. See if you can adjust the goal so it’s both challenging and realistic. Talk to the person to see what they’ve been struggling with. Maybe they have a real weakness (we all do) that is holding them back from accomplishing something you want them to do.
3. Give Specific Positive Feedback
Start focusing on what the person is doing well. Give them specific thoughts on what they’re doing well. Try to encourage more of what they’re doing. Add in little challenges so they keep pushing themselves in the areas where they seem to be doing well.
Maybe they did well as part of a team on a project. For the next project that is similar, ask if they would be willing to take on a larger role.
4. Partner Them With Another Employee On A Project
Do you have a person on the team that is really good with others? Someone that is very encouraging and positive? See if you can partner this person with someone that is maybe struggling with confidence. Sometimes we need an outside perspective to help us see that we can be great at what we do. That we can have confidence.
Sometimes we just get in our own heads when it comes to ourselves and we lose track of reality. And that can lead to a loss in confidence.
5. Encourage Them To Make Decisions
Decision making seems to lead to confidence. Sometimes when we lose confidence it can be because a decision didn’t work out the way we wanted. So we think that we are going to keep making bad decisions. Or we fear that decision making itself is bad and we try to stay where we are comfortable.
If you have someone that is struggling, see if you can get them to make more decisions. If it doesn’t work out, encourage them to keep making decisions. Show them that we all make decisions that don’t work out. But that with each decision, good or bad, we learn and build our experience.
Conclusion
Leaders can help their employees in a lot of ways. They can lead by example. They can set specific expectations. They can be great communicators. And they can build confidence. There are probably many ways you can do this if you have an employee struggling with it. Hopefully these few tidbits can help.