Welcome to the APM podcast. APM is the chartered body for
the project profession. My name is Emma DaVita and I'm
the editor of Project APM's Quarterly journal and your host
today. In this podcast we're tackling
the perennial problem of self-confidence and why many of
us need an occasional and more general boost to our levels of
it. To find out exactly how you can
do this and also how to bounce back from a set back, I'm
speaking to Inga Beale, ex CEO of Lloyds of London and a woman
who has very much learnt how to get ahead in the male dominated
sector. I'm also getting the advice from
leadership coach Muriel Wilkins of Pravis Partners in the US,
who has a new book called Leadership Unblocked, just
published by Harvard Business Review Press.
She's also the host of Harvard Business Review's Coaching Real
Leaders podcast. I also speak to Anita Fagura,
who is highly experienced in the world of project management and
is now a leadership development and culture coach, particularly
around inclusion. So first, let's meet Muriel and
find out what she's learnt from her work coaching business
leaders and getting ahead in business herself.
Murals, so great to speak to you.
Thanks for joining us on the IBM Podcast today.
Absolutely. I'm delighted to be here.
You coach people in business to help them within their careers.
How much is a problem of self-confidence to them?
Is it common? What kinds of things have you
have they shared with you about their concerns around
confidence? Yeah.
I mean, certainly, I think the topic of confidence in
particular self-confidence is something that absolutely comes
up with individuals at different as different stages of their
career, whether it is when they're first starting and even
as they get more senior. I work with folks along the full
trajectory and specialise, particularly with those who are
senior. And even when you get to that
level, when you're entering a new situation, a new context, a
new function or role, it can lead you to questioning whether
you have the capability to to do that role.
So it can get in the way, particularly in terms of diving
into new opportunities with your full, with all the strengths
that you bring it. I can also see it sometimes be
at a cost where folks overcompensate for what they
feel they're lacking in and then it pushes too much so it it can
get in the way on both ends. Some treating and then some sort
of pushing over pushing in a way that that doesn't bear well for
them, particularly when it comes to relationships.
And thank you. Is there a particular group of
people? I recently went to a Women in
project Management conference and there was a lot of chatter
around lunch and in the breaks around self-confidence and the
lack of it, which surprised me because they're all very
successful people. But is do you feel as though
it's something that's particularly widespread among
amongst women in business, more so than men?
Look, I, I work with folks across gender lines and, and
while I see the issue of self-confidence come up across
both genders, I think that it is exacerbated a bit more with
women. And I think there's also the
reason like we have to sort of dig below the surface and
understand where the self, the lack of self-confidence might be
coming up. I think the reason it's
exacerbated with women are quite frankly, any underrepresented
groups. Is that part of what might give
you confidence, right? Is when you see yourself and
others, those folks mirror the, the, the, the belief that you
think you can also succeed in that particular situation.
So if you are from an underrepresented group, whether
it's a woman in a male dominated industry or other types of under
representation, it, it is easy to understand why the trigger or
the exacerbation of lack of self-confidence might come up
right, Because you don't see as many to mirror back, which I
think creates a really interesting issue here in terms
of, well, what is self-confidence and where do
where do you source it from? And, and when you think about
what self-confidence is, right, it's the confidence in yourself.
Well, what is confidence? Confidence is if you can break.
I'm very interested in what words mean.
And so when you break down the word confidence, you can go back
to the root of the Latin word confidelis.
What is fidelis? We know fidelis means faith.
So confidence literally means with faith and faith, you know,
and this is not from a religious standpoint, it's definition, you
know, faith is the belief in the unknown.
So when we break that down, what does that actually mean to have
self-confidence? It's to believe in yourself even
when you don't know what's going to happen.
That's what confidence is. It's the belief in yourself.
So what what, what is required to be able to do that sometimes
and why, you know, particularly women or again, underrepresented
groups might not have as much self-confidence as that.
They don't see proof of that in others, not because others don't
have it, but they don't see those others.
They don't see other women and in the same situation that
they're in able to have the positive outcomes that they
desire for themselves and therefore it is again triggers
or might exacerbate lack of self-confidence more so than
others who do see more representation where they are.
And does that apply to age as well?
Because you can get quite far, quite young as a project
professional. And then you might be in a
project team where you are working alongside people you
don't know who are experts in their fields.
That might be an architect, an engineer who might be male, who
might be considerably older than you, and who might not credit
you with the authority you deserve and it might make you
feel intimidated. We'll come on to general pieces
of advice you can give later around boosting self-confidence.
But in that particular scenario, what is useful to think about
before you go into that situation or you find yourself
working in a situation like this?
What can you tell yourself to help with you that
self-confidence? Yeah.
I mean, I think what you need to, to be able to recognise is
your role is not there to be, to be toe to toe with the person
who might be 30 years your senior, right.
I, I recall in my own career, you know, when I started off
many, many years ago, you know, not only was I typically the
youngest person in the room, but I also looked much younger than
what I was. So here I was dealing with, you
know, the the quintessential sort of grey haired male, you
know, and I would walk in this, you know, post college for sure,
but everybody thought that I was a high school student.
And so here's here's what I realised.
There's nothing I can do about that.
Like what, what am I going to do?
Go and grey my hair and try to make myself look older?
Well, that's not so the real what you do and what you tell
yourself is why am I in this room?
What is the value that I bring? The value that I bring is not to
be like that person. I have to define the value that
I bring. There's a reason I'm in this
role. There's a reason I'm in this
meeting. And let me be clear about what
that is and lean into that rather than waste my energy on
trying to be, you know, one of these other folks.
I mean that saying comparison is the thief of joy.
It is exactly a comparison is the thief of confidence, Let me
of self-confidence, let me tell you.
Because you're not looking at yourself at that point.
You're looking at everybody else and comparing yourself and using
that as your definition of success rather than the success
that you're already bringing in. That's a great piece of advice.
I I was was wondering how much of A blocker to your own career
success is a lack of self-confidence beyond making
you feel uncomfortable, but how how important is it for you to
have some a greater level of self-confidence for you to
progress in your career? I think it's, I think it is
critically important. I think it's critically
important not just for work, but in life, right?
And why, you know, because part of what you're doing when you're
dealing with work is you're dealing with uncertainty.
You're dealing with the uncertainty of how this project
is going to turn out, of being able to manage a team, of being
able to take that next role, of being able to do the job or, or,
or ace that presentation. You prepare.
But there's always a bit of uncertainty.
And So what gets you through that uncertainty, what gets you
through that uncertainty is the belief that no matter what
happens on the other side, you're going to be able to deal
with it. You know, the issue is people
tend to wait until they're ready to do something to feel
confident. That's not what confidence is.
Confidence is not about you knowing how to do the thing.
Confidence is about knowing that you can learn how to do the
thing. And it's also about knowing that
no matter what happens, you'll be able to deal with it.
It might not be comfortable, it might be challenging, it might
be a little painful, but you'll be able to get through it.
That that is the difference between having self-confidence
or not. So in reality, you know, we get
really caught up in this word self-confidence.
I actually think, and, and I didn't make this term up.
It comes from, I can't remember the author's name right now, but
it's really about self efficacy, right?
Will you have the resourcefulness to be able to
deal with whatever challenges in front of you?
That that's what self-confidence is rather than outsourcing it to
someone else. So it comes from a place of
resourcefulness and understanding that you have what
it takes mentally, emotionally, physically, skill wise
capabilities to be able to deal with not only learning the
thing, but figuring out how to deal with the thing whether it
turns out well or doesn't turn out well.
That is such a great way to think about it.
I've never taken that angle before.
So it's no, it's feeling a sense of resourcefulness that you can
rely on yourself to to solve this problem or get through it.
OK. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Because think about it, right? So when you talk about does it
get in the way of a career? Well, where it gets in the way
of the career is of your career potential or anything that you
might do is a lot of us, you know, do not take steps forward
because we're concerned about what might happen if we take
that step forward. But if you feel like, OK, I'm
not exactly sure how it's going to turn out.
I mean, who knows how anything's ever going to turn out, right?
Like we don't have that type of control, you know?
And if you do, let me know your secret.
But if we know, if we can trust ourselves that either I will
know how to deal with whatever happens or I will know how to
get the resources, you know, I will be resourceful enough to be
able to know who to ask or what to ask or to even ask for help,
then I know that I'll, again, I'll make it through.
I think we spent a lot of our times, and this is where, again,
it can get away in your career. We can, we, we spent an enormous
amount of energy and time trying to keep ourselves from being
uncomfortable, you know, And so that's where this, you know,
this again, it can really impact your own confidence in yourself
if you believe that you will not be able to deal with the
discomfort of what might happen. But I, I, when I work with
clients is getting them comfortable with the idea and
even the reality of being uncomfortable.
And once they realise they can, then it's like, OK, well, I've
been through that. You know, I can certainly go
through something else, even if I may not like it.
Excellent stuff there. Two things that I'm just
thinking about as you were talking a is confidence related
to optimism. So the more if, the more
optimistic you feel. Do you feel more confident?
And the second thing was around, does self-confidence improve
naturally over time because you generally experienced more new
situations and, and if and you've navigated, it's been a
successful failure, but you got through and you survived, you
know, through the other end. So do you think you're naturally
more self confident if you're an optimist?
Let me start with the optimism piece, right?
Is it, are, are people who are self confident naturally
optimist? I, I don't have the data behind
that. I mean, we would have to ask
some social scientists and some, some researchers to figure that
out. But anecdotally, what I would
say is that people who have self-confidence, I think are
realistic opt have realistic optimism.
You know, it's not, you know, I, I, I had somebody tell me once,
you know that there's a thin line between optimism and
optimism and denial, right? So it's not just optimism where
it's like, oh, you know, everything's fine, everything's
fine, I can do it. No, no, no.
I think folks who have self-confidence are also
grounded in reality. So they assess the situation for
what it is and then they decide, you know, am I going to look at
it? Glass half full?
Where's the opportunity? Do I have the growth mindset,
right? Which is I, I, I, I may not know
it yet, but I have the capacity to know it or learn it versus
the fixed mindset, which is, it is what it is.
There's nothing that can change, I cannot adapt, etcetera.
So yes, there's optimism, but it's an optimism that is
grounded in reality. And so it's the realistic
optimism, which is, let me assess and see the situation for
what it is. OK, so that's number one.
The second question is, can self-confidence, does
self-confidence naturally grow over time?
Maybe for some it does, right? Because they have a track record
and and then so therefore the track record sort of reinforces
the the confidence that they have.
I will say that what that does is support the confidence, but
I'm not convinced that it grows the self-confidence, OK, Because
to me there's a difference there.
I can be confident because all of the external data is telling
me to be confident. People are giving me awards, I'm
getting the A, I'm getting the promotion and therefore I am
confident. I believe in myself.
I believe I can do all things. But what happens when all those
things go away? That's where self-confidence
comes into the picture. When you have the dry season,
when you have the drought, when you get fired, when you get laid
off, when the project doesn't come through as planned, when
you don't get the promotion. And so self-confidence, to me,
the difference between confidence and self-confidence
is self-confidence is internally resourced.
You're not relying on any type of external validation to give
you that sense that you know, you know what, no matter what, I
know I can figure this out. I can, or I know where to go to
figure this out, or I know that I have it in me that no matter
what happens, I'll be able to deal with it does now.
So the question is, does that grow naturally?
I think that AI wouldn't take my chances on it growing naturally.
I think you really have to do some some work to cultivate
that. It doesn't just happen.
It's like a flower, you know, you've got to water the soil and
if you have a garden, you've got to water that garden to make
sure that that type of flower grows.
And I think if that's a type of attribute or behaviour or way of
being that you want, then you do have to cultivate it within
yourself. And it starts by providing
yourself with that internal validation, rather than solely
relying on external validation to validate your worth.
I love that analogy about plants.
My house plants are all dying here.
I forget to order that, although I've got that big one in the
background there. So that's looking pretty
healthy. But so I mean really to get to
the love of it is to ask you what work do you do then to
cultivate your self-confidence, your levels of self-confidence?
How how can you boost yourself confidence?
And then my final question would be, how do you survive Knox to
yourself confidence? Absolutely.
OK, so how do you boost it? I think there's A at a very
practical, pragmatic way, I think the first thing is really
to define what your value is. OK, So what do I mean by that?
You can say it is define your value, define your success.
Why? Because most of us, what we're
seeking is to feel worthy, whether it's at work, outside of
work and life like and, and, and no, there's nothing negative
about that. I mean, that's a fundamental
need, right? A fundamental human need is for
us to feel worthy or feel valued just as much as it's to feel
connected and to feel safe. And so the, the point around
confidence is the reason we go look at it from the outside is
we're looking for that external validation to say, Oh yes, yes,
I'm valuable here in this meeting.
I'm valuable here in this room where while, if you want to
cultivate self-confidence, you've got to start with, well,
how do I define my value, right? What do I see as value in terms
of what I bring? So in a very specific example,
the next time you go into a meeting, for example, you can
ask yourself what is the value that I'm bringing to this
meeting? And it doesn't matter.
It does not have to be that you are the one who's going to come
up with the big solution and the big answer.
It could be that I'm going to come to this meeting because you
know what? I know the details behind the
details of this particular project.
And if anyone has a question, I will be ready to be able to
answer for it. Or the value that I bring is 1
of curiosity and I have an ability to ask questions in a
way that moves the conversation forward.
The the value that I bring in this meeting really to be the
person who can capture everybody's thoughts.
You know, I recall very early in my career, actually when I was
switching careers and I was trying to get into the world of
leadership development and I had really no experience in this
particular world and I went and volunteered to facilitate a
meeting. It just so happens the person
who was facilitating it with me was the head of leadership
development for this big global organisation.
And he said to me, oh, oh, you're great.
Like, here's what you can do for me.
And what he wanted me to do is literally be the person who sort
of put the spreadsheet together, kept the list like a lot of the
administrative work, because what he saw is I had very strong
organisational skills. Now, mind you, I had an MBA from
Harvard Business School, right? And here what he, what he needed
at that point was somebody who was kind of administrative, but
I had something to gain from that.
I wanted to be in the room. And so by God, if that's the
value that I could bring in that room, to be able to learn from
this person who was epic in his field as I knew it would not
last forever, that I would be able to leverage this, then I
would rather be in the room knowing this is the value that I
can bring. Because really I had nothing
else to add really. I really didn't.
And so that's what I did. So it's very clear that that's
what I was there for. I was not there to go toe to toe
with him and I was also not there to do nothing.
So the story is define and figure out what the value that
you bring and be comfortable with it.
Be comfortable with it because know that it is useful and that
it will bring you some use, just as I experienced in my story,
right? So define your value in any
aspect that you're in, but define it in a way that you
believe in it. And then also do some scenario
planning. If you feel like things might
not go right, do some scenario planning around if this were to
happen, how would I deal with it?
If this were to happen, how would I deal with it?
If this would I deal with it, Why?
Because that increases the chances of you feeling
resourcefulness, not so much that those exact situations are
going to happen, but that you have done some warm up in terms
of understanding that you do have self efficacy, that you can
deal with things that might your way.
So it's feeling prepared for any eventuality.
You've got something to suffer from.
Absolutely. I always say don't wait till
you're in the situation to then figure out how to feel confident
about it. It all starts in the warm up and
in the preparation. What about any advice around if
you suffer a big set back knock back in your confidence?
Feeling of self-confidence what? How should you frame it?
How should you think about it so it doesn't leave you demoralised
in a kind of wreck on the floor? Yeah, absolutely.
I mean, look, I think that the first place to start and this is
just an overarching philosophy while whether it is a set back
or a comeback, nothing lasts forever, OK.
I mean this has been, I did not make this up.
This isn't the research proves it, life proves it.
This isn't all the wisdom teachings from, you know, the
Buddhist teach about impermanence to any other that
you might look at. Everything has its season, OK.
And so just as much as we cannot stay really it is it is
deteriorating to stay attached to when things go well.
It is also deteriorating to stay attached to when things don't go
well. You want to sort of hold them
both as they just are. So when you have a set back, you
just see you have to accept it. This is a setback.
It's OK to feel sad.
It's OK to feel upset. It's OK.
It's OK and the set back is not
going to last forever. I have never met anyone who has
been in a set back their whole life.
It just is OK. So that is the first place is
come face to face with reality. Then take a look and I think the
first place to look is understand what was at play, try
to try to really analyse it in a way.
What was that play? What were the variables?
How did others contribute to it? How did I contribute to it?
Now the what I contribute to it is not to blame yourself.
It's not to beat yourself up. This is not the assignment.
The assignment is to actually give yourself grace.
OK, This is how I contributed to it.
And now what is within my control around what I can do on
2 levels. One, how I can experience this
set back because going back to early in our conversation, I can
experience it with realistic optimism and a growth mindset.
Or am I going to experience it from this place of a fixed
mindset? There's nothing I can do about
it. Glass half empty.
So how do I want to experience this set back?
Because the set back is here, OK, and then you can move to OK,
what do I want to do? All right, what do I want to do
to try to get through the season as well as move me to whatever
it is that I want to move to? But one thing that I'm going to
really caution people on is you don't want to move directly to
action right away. You don't want to move directly
to you know what, I'm just going to go talk to my boss about this
because what drives the action is the belief.
And so if you're still believing that you're not worthy or that
you don't have anything to add or that you shouldn't be in the
room or that you shouldn't have made that mistake or all these
things that run counter to the action and the outcome that you
want, you've got to make sure that your mindset is aligned
with the result that you want. And so when it comes to showing
up or or coming back from a set back, you've got to make sure
that you've done the work so that your mindset is aligned
with what you want that comeback to look like or else it's not
going to work. Mirrors some great insight there
and words of advice, something I'll put to good use as well.
I just wondered, was there anything else you any last final
pieces of advice you'd give around self-confidence before
you wrap up? I mean, I think, you know, we've
talked about it at length, but I think at the end of the day, the
biggest thing that you have in control is not everyone else out
there or the situations out there and the circumstances, OK?
So if you're really looking to cultivate yourself confident,
focus on the thing that you have the absolute most control on,
which is yourself, and that's where the real work starts.
So Muriel's advice to cultivate self-confidence is something to
bear in mind, and also that it's important to make time to focus
on ourselves. Now let's speak to Anita, who
has very real experience working within project management.
She gives her insight on why those in the minority can
struggle with self-confidence and why this is often a systemic
failure. Importantly, she gives advice on
what managers can do to boost the self-confidence of their
team members. Anita, thanks for joining us.
It's a pleasure to have you. Thanks for finding the time.
Thanks, Emma. I'm really glad to be here and
talking to you. Great.
Well let's try and get to the bottom of the subjects of
self-confidence. How much of A blocker to career
success is a lack of self-confidence, do you think?
And is it something that you've come across often, but in the
sexes in which you're familiar or the people that you've
coached or colleagues or your own experience?
So a majority of my own experience has been within the
construction sector and I predominantly have coached women
in project management across construction and technology.
And self-confidence is a topic that comes up nearly every time.
Really, even if it. Yeah, nearly every time.
Even if it's not the main thing that somebody comes in with
originally is definitely a key blocker that will come up in the
women that I've worked with. And, and not just women
actually, although I've predominantly worked with women.
Yeah, competence is such a big one.
And I think in these sectors in particular, where women
typically are from underrepresented groups, there
can be a culture which perpetuates this idea of
difference. And that can be then harder when
you're trying to progress in your career and seeing how you
can make the next move, particularly if that's a move
upwards around how is that possible when you don't
necessarily have the role models ahead of you?
And a lot of a lot of people in the sector, particularly women,
particularly women from underrepresented groups, they
often face quite challenging experiences as well.
It can be quite a toxic industry sometimes or unfortunately too
often. And sometimes I would find that
I was coaching women and actually, they would actually
really grow in terms of their own confidence, in terms of
their own belief in what they could do and we're capable of.
And we're owning that much more. And then they would still go
back into environments that were chipping away at their
confidence that could be quite toxic, quite, quite challenging.
And then we kind of come into this area of resilience, which I
think can sometimes get played as like a bit of an excuse in,
in, in certain industries or in certain environments of, well,
if you can't handle this, it's because you're not resilient
enough. So I think there is an overlap
with confidence and self-confidence then.
But ultimately, I think actually if this is an environmental
factor, then we can't put it all down to individuals,
particularly individuals that have differing backgrounds,
different lived experiences. And when they're facing these
challenges, that is all on them. So, yeah, so that's, that's the
experiences that I've seen. And I think that confidence that
comes up can often put certain people from taking the
opportunities. It can often be a blocker of
going for the opportunity even in the 1st place or because they
have time and time again, but their experiences have haven't
succeeded in the way that they wanted to.
So that ultimately that resilience or or those
experiences take that knock on confidence.
It was interesting for you to say that it can be easy for an
organisation to blame the individual and say you're not
resilient enough and put the onus on them to do something
about it or make them feel that they're failing to do something,
although that's strong enough. They don't have enough
resilience for us. In fact, it can be an
organisation or structural saying that's gone wrong.
It's not going right. So what if you're a manager of a
team and you want to make sure that the people on your team do
have healthy levels of self-confidence or give them
more confidence than they actually have because they owe
it to themselves to have that confidence.
What? I haven't asked this question of
anyone, but how? What's your responsibility as a
manager, as a people manager towards that and how Have you
got any tips on how to make that happen?
How do you boost other people's confidence?
Oh, I love that question. I think as a line manager,
you've got so much weight as as somebody who can influence
somebody's career, both in kind of building somebody's
confidence, but also their experiences and being able to
open doors for for them potentially.
I think a skill that isn't as strong as it could be in a lot
of our line managers is around giving constructive feedback.
And that can be to that can fall into like A2 fold challenge of
being able to give constructive feedback that can actually be
critical, but actually be good for somebody to help develop
areas where it would be really good for them to develop and be
very specific with that. So it's an area that actually
they can take on board and take forward if they choose to.
And if they see that, that's in benefit of their career and
performance as well. So sometimes it's about actually
that kind of sometime more critical element that can be
missing. And again, we do see some trends
in some of the research which say actually for women, and they
tend to not always get that or it tends to be less often that
they're getting that kind of constructive, useful feedback.
That's really specific. I know in my experience, I
tried, I at one point put myself forward for a promotion and just
to be on the path. And I was like, OK, what do I
need to be doing to get myself on that path?
And I got told I wasn't ready and that actually really
impacted my confidence, not because I wasn't ready, but when
I tried to unpick that feedback of like, OK, what do I need to
do to get ready? I just wasn't being met with
anything that was that I could grasp or understand or put into
action. And so for me that meant, OK, I
just won't apply again. I'm just not going to go for it.
I think the other part can be actually when we make mistakes
or we take risks that don't work out or there are like failures
and in like positive cultures, actually it's not always
possible. But in positive cultures where
it's as far as it's possible, that can be encouraged.
I mean, like it's OK to take a risk.
It's OK to foul a measured risk, a calculated risk.
And that as a line manager, we'll scoop you up and rebuild
you and rebuild your confidence, but also you took a chance that
you thought would work and that could be a really positive
things. But in environments where that's
not possible or the culture doesn't support that, then
taking then it can actually make people more risk averse because
they're really worried about taking that step and getting it
wrong. And actually, if they do make a
step and it doesn't quite work out perfectly, what would be the
consequences then? So as line managers, can we give
support? Can we support people to build
their confidence to take calculated, measured risks and
support them whether that works or whether that doesn't?
And again, we can get gender and race differences here because in
my, my own, my own research that I was doing, it came up in some
of the conversations and discussions around, well,
actually, I was particularly working with women from
underrepresented ethnic backgrounds.
And they were saying we can't afford to take the risks that
our white male peers can. Because if they, because they
have this really big support network around them and if their
risk didn't pay off, they still end up getting promoted.
And if our risk didn't pay off, then we are like the bottom of
the barrel and we're overlooked forevermore.
So again, it can be a culture piece, but actually as line
managers we can play a big role in supporting people and then
that feeds into self-confidence. I, I that's, that's fantastic.
Thank you. Was there anything else you
wanted to add before you wrap up?
I think one of the biggest things that come comes up for me
when I'm doing work around leadership, particularly with
women, particularly with women from underrepresented
ethnicities, is, is self-confidence, as we've said,
but very closely linked to it is quite challenging experiences
and this idea of all this experience of feeling alone in
that. So for me, the big thing that I
think it's really important to communicate is that when we're
going through those challenging experiences, we can absolutely
feel alone. And then that is a thing that
will directly impact and erode our self-confidence.
But know that you're not alone, even if it feels like that's
what is like in your environment.
And reach out to people, get support, reach out and build
your networks, your peers, your friendships and be supported.
And that's going to feed into yourself confidence as well.
So, as Anita says, our self-confidence can be boosted
by feeling supported by a network or a team of people
invested in us. In fact, asking for feedback on
your performance in situations where you feel low
self-confidence can make all the difference, says Inga Beale, Ex,
CEO of Lloyds of London, who shares that she has had to
contend with loaf of self-confidence throughout her
career. Inga, welcome to the OPM
podcast. Thank you for your time.
Thank you, it's so good to join you today.
The first question I had for you was around your own personal
levels of self-confidence, how that has been over your career.
Have you ever struggled with it, when and why?
And just to give listeners background, you you have worked
in a kind of male dominated company throughout your career.
So I don't know whether that's had an an impact or anything.
So yeah, how's, how's yourself confidence been over the years?
Well, actually I'm going to go back to before I even started
work when I was school teenager, I didn't, I was so under
confident about most things. And you know, the teacher, say
the English teacher wanted me to read out something, you know, go
up in front of the class and read a passage or a poet piece
of poetry. And I didn't want to, I was so
nervous and under confidence. So I know that that started with
me when I was at school still. And then when I got to the world
of work, yes, I was surrounded by men.
I, there was me and sort of 34 men in the in the office when I
started. And as was my way of coping was
because I didn't want to be different.
I just tried to be like them, which did mean that I probably
came across as quite confident, but deep down I wasn't.
So I would, I would sort of perhaps joke with them and, and
try and be like one of the lads. And I think that hid the lack of
confidence that I had. So I, I had that definitely when
I started at work. But the slightly sad thing is it
never really left me. So I couldn't do stages of my
career where at times and in particular moments and
particular experiences, I would be full of confidence.
But I could tell you if I go from the sort of beginning of my
career and then I go to the end, the last CEO role I had as the
CEO of Lloyds, there I was, I would made it to the sort of the
pinnacle of insurance. And yet I could go into a room
of my peers, other CEOs from around the world of insurers,
they would all be men. And my confidence would
disappear again. And I would feel like I was when
I was young. And the way I sort of coped with
that was just tell myself sort of to be angry with myself to
say, look, come on, you're the CEO of Lloyds, you deserve to be
here. But this confidence thing, I, I
can tell you there've been moments throughout my career
when I felt really underconfident, but there, there
were a few particular things that that helped me get over
particular, you know, if I said no to something or I was
particularly nervous about something, I, you know, I did, I
did get better at it. But it's amazing, this lack of
confidence, which I think can can stop when you're still at
school. But so was was one of your ways
of managing yourself confidence and faking it until you felt
that confidence so just to get you going.
In a way it was. And I remember when I, I used to
play rugby and I think when I started work, you see, I used to
be in this environment during the day and then I used to go
off and do my sport. And when I was playing sport, I
was with all, all my friends and nobody cared about your
background or what you did for a job.
You know, you were just there playing sport.
And that, that was my sort of escapism and I think that helped
me keep going. But I do also remember the first
time I was going to give a speech at work and.
But it was A at a paid conference.
In other words, people were paying to go to this conference
and there I was. I wasn't being paid.
It was part of my job and I thought, Oh my goodness, I've
got to get up on this stage. And I was so nervous.
I practise and practise and because I was playing rugby at
the time, I really hoped that I would have a big serious injury
so I wouldn't actually have to do.
I was. It was that bad.
That's bad. Fish farming conference and
there were these burly fishermen there and I thought, well, I
don't. And I had to talk about insuring
fish farms, which I didn't really know that much.
I had to show confidence and I thought, Oh my gosh.
So I kind of, I found myself when I got onto the stage.
I think it's probably perhaps what actors do.
I, I sort of acted in a way and, and, and I at the end of my
speech, I got some compliments, but in a way I didn't recognise
that that was me on the stage. Afterwards I thought, how did
those words come out of my mouth?
It was as though someone had taken over.
So it was a bit like acting in that regard, yes, you know.
Is that is that? Have you got any tips around
building yourself confidence? Or.
Or giving yourself a beast when you most need it.
Yeah. Well, I, I also got promoted or
a promotion. I'd been working for 12 years
and I was promoted and or I was, I was told I was going to be
promoted and I was going to move up, take my boss's job.
He was going to move off to the side and be a peer of mine.
And I was going to manage a team of three people.
So it wasn't a big team. I said no to that promotion
because I didn't have the confidence.
I don't know whether it was that I thought I wasn't good enough
for the job, but it was almost as though I thought I'm going to
go up and now I'm going to have to get on with my ex boss who's
now my peer and what's he going to think of me here with all
these things inside my head? So I actually said no to the
promotion and then the firm helped me.
So my employer helped me a lot and surrounded me and asked what
what do you want? What do you need?
And I actually went on a course called Assertiveness for Women.
I don't I don't think in mount that exist today.
This was in the 90s, but I found it.
It was a week long course and my employer said yes, go on it.
And that I was there with seven other women.
And it was a very deep and meaningful week.
And actually I came out of it understanding myself much more,
having had lots of feedback about me.
And on the Monday morning when I got back to work, I went into my
boss's office. I said I'll take the job, Thank
you. And that was the first step on
the credit. And that course actually helped
me a lot. And when I look back, what I
think it was is you, you practised a lot, you, you had to
present to other people. But the big thing was that you
actually got lots of feedback about you.
You were sort of telling people, sharing people how you saw
yourself or how you, how you were feeling.
And they said, but we don't see you like that.
We see you like this. And I think that feedback is an
important part, how you can get confident because you have done
something as one would say, oh, that was brilliant.
And you might not have felt it, but they will say no, no, no, it
was really good in Ukraine across like this and that.
And so feedback I think is an important part.
But also I did learn if I was going into a very difficult
situation, maybe a big meeting or I had to give a presentation,
I was very nervous about it. I would make give myself a goal
and and nobody else was sort of measuring me against this goal.
But I would say right, Inger, I want you to say these three
things. I want you to talk for at least
10 minutes or so. And then afterwards, I would
sort of say to myself, you didn't do that very well or you
did that brilliantly. Well done.
And it gave me a sort of focus in the meeting to think not
about my nerves, but about what I had set myself as a target to
achieve. Yeah.
So that was that was that was really helpful.
And, and I tell you after that, saying no to that promotion, I
never said no to another job offer, however scary it seemed,
because it really helped this practise, you know, once you've
done something once and you realise, wow, this is pretty
cool, I can do this. It it helps, you know, there's
nothing like practising. And in sport, we practise a lot.
Yeah. You catch us all the time doing
moves and things. You get to work.
You don't really get to practise so much.
You're meant to just do something you know the first
time around without practising, but it's really, really
practising the repetition that can help give you confidence in
all sorts of situations. So what about the times when you
have a set back when something went wrong unexpectedly?
Everyone faces those kind of bumps in the road.
So how do you pick yourself up then to then I know something
terrible happens in the morning at work and you really feel
you've failed, but then you know you've got the rest of the day
day to continue with. So how, how?
What do you do in those situations?
I think I'm pretty good at compartmentalising things.
So for instance, if I, if something messed up in the, in
the early morning at work and I'd done something really badly,
I would, I would be able to sort of put it in a little box, carry
on with the rest of the day, then go home that evening.
Then think about it again, go and sort of think what, how did
I mess that up so badly? What, what, what was I thinking?
But then once I've sort of gone into really critical mode on
myself about messing up, I go to bed, I sleep well and the next
morning I've completely forgotten about it.
So, so I've, I've been always quite good at doing that so that
I don't, things don't linger with me for very long.
I try not to dwell on them. Now, how you teach yourself to
do that if it doesn't come naturally, I don't really know.
But that and there might be other people who are, who are,
who are actually skilled in this, who can actually teach
people to do this. But to me, I have that ability
to do to do that. And that meant if I messed up
the day before, it would have by the time I got up the next
morning, I would have usually it wasn't going to affect me.
I was it was over. I'd done it.
I'd messed up, chastised myself. But then it was over and and I
was on to the next day. So maybe it's leaving some time
for reflection on what, what went wrong and then you you've
done that bit, you've worked through it and you think, OK,
I'll do it differently next time perhaps.
Yes, yes, always trying to think what could I have done
differently, make myself more prepared because sometimes it's,
I mean, sometimes you can lack confidence because you haven't
had enough time to prepare for something.
That's also another reason. And that's usually because we've
got this pressure of work and, and maybe we've got something
going on in our personal life that we haven't freed up our
calendar enough to actually have some prep time.
And I've always found that's the most important thing.
Make sure you're getting enough sleep and make sure you have
enough prep time for these things.
Because rather than fill your day, you know, with back-to-back
meetings, which I know sometimes people can't control as Aceo,
obviously it's a little bit different, although I hardly had
any time to myself. But you know, I think, well,
it's your boss always wanting this, that and the other.
And it's a bit more difficult, but really try and free up that
time so that you you feel you've got a little bit of time to
prepare before you going into a situation.
Thank you, Inga. What?
Advice would you give to people who are struggling with their
self-confidence? I mean you've given plenty of
advice already, but is there anything?
If you could say something directly to them, what what
might you say? Yeah, well, there is something
about believe in your own ability because sometimes we
just we doubt all of the things that we can do.
So then you take time to I know I can do this.
And then you think back, Oh yes, I did that really well.
I did this really well. So you must take time when
something's gone well to actually say well done me and
reflect on actually that you did well and say I do have that
capability. I can do that and and use that
for for the next time. But The thing is that, you know,
for me, if when I was that young Inga starting work, I did not
believe in my ability, you know, I just didn't.
So again, have a, you know, have your manager or a peer or
someone who, who, who knows what you're, how you're working or
what you're doing just to give you some feedback, to give you
some boutique and some perhaps some positive constructive
feedback as well. You know, so not, not everything
is just wonderful in your grade. I mean, to me, I think it's much
better to have some realistic feedback, but you know, give you
some few, few really positive tips, but also then just say a
few things you can work on because that also once you've
had time to reflect on that, it can really help you get over
perhaps some issues that you know you have.
Don't don't waste time getting feedback.
That's just all about what a fantastic job you've done.
You know, it needs to be really real.
I found that's the best. Thanks, Singer.
There's a kind of follow up question to that, which would be
any advice to managers and leaders on making sure that
their team members feel as confident as they can.
Or if you notice A-Team member lacking in self-confidence, how
how do you kind of approach that in the right way?
Well, if it's in a team environment and you, and you see
that someone is, is really a bit nervous and often it can come
out, somebody might speak, but you can hardly hear them because
they also think they're speaking loudly, but they're not.
And then nobody can really hear them.
And then someone speaks over them and then they get even
more, you know, nervous the next time and they're lacking common
as you know, and they can all sort of build up.
So as a, as a manager in a team environment, and this can be a
virtual or a physical environment, it doesn't matter.
But if you do know someone who lacks confidence or knows that
there is someone who doesn't usually speak, please make sure
they have the time to do it. And the way I think it's, it's
best to do it, It's not to when you're so you've, you know,
someone's just said something. Well, that's a really great
point. But I think so and so has
something really good to say because I know that they've got
this experience. So you, you give them a little
bit of warm up time before they are to come in.
You know, you don't just say, oh, what do you think of this?
You sort of build them up a bit. I know you've got some
information. I know you've been working on
this. We'd love to hear some views
from you so that you're giving them a little bit of time for
their brain to go, Oh my goodness, my manager's just
asking me to speak. I've got to speak on this.
The manager can do that and it's very, very helpful so that
you're not putting people immediately on the spot and
they're all, you're already getting this slightly warm
feeling because they're already giving you some compliments
because they, they trust and they know you've got the right
knowledge. So that's, that's one thing you
can do in a, in an environment where there are several people
when you're just on your own with them.
I think the best thing is to try and listen to them to understand
and let them talk to you as to what it was that they were
particularly nervous about what why were they showing a lack of
confidence that day and see if you can help break that down.
Now. This can take a long time.
I said I got I always offered promotion and I said no.
I have seen this throughout my career as I've got more senior.
They've been wonderful and she's mainly the women I've I've
rarely had to persuade a man to take a job, but women have tried
to promote them and they said no, it can't possibly.
And then I've had to spend a lot of time understanding what it is
that they think they can't do. Why are they lacking confidence?
Once it took me nearly a year to get a woman to say yes to a job.
That's how long some of this stuff can take because it's
there's so much in your head. But when she took it, she did a
fantastic job and she looked, she said to me after she she
started, she said, I do not know why I didn't take it.
It's just I love this job. I'm good at it, you know, and
it's fantastic. And so you do have to sometimes,
you know, jump in the deep end. Well, what a fantastic manager
you are to spend a year persuading someone.
A lot of people wouldn't do that.
But that's, you know, I've been learning a lot about, you know,
the coaching manager and that's, and that's how you get the best
from people if you believe in them.
But Inga, was there any last pieces of advice you want to
give? Or if there's one thing you'd
like listeners to take away when it comes to self-confidence,
what might that be? Yeah.
So there's confidence and it's maybe a lack of confidence in
sort of taking a job, a lack of confidence in going and turning
up to an even even a networking conference where you have to go
and say hello to people that you don't know and things.
That is all. There are many moments, you
know, in in your life, but one of the things is, is often this
public speaking which puts really can make people very,
very nervous, even if it's not real public speaking, but it's
even in an office environment. And I think the best way to do
that is actually be videoed and practise and practise because
you'd be amazed if you actually watch yourself on the video.
You get your little tips and if you can't afford to have a
professional do a little session with you, you know, for a couple
of hours, it's, it's so helpful because once you actually see
how you are speaking, you think, oh gosh, yes, I'm, I'm actually
quite good at that, aren't I always?
I know the fact quite well, but if you and any little floor
faults you have, you also see them and then you can improve.
So there is nothing like, I mean, usually it's called sort
of media training or whatever it is, but nothing like doing a bit
of that, not in a real environment, but certainly with
somebody videoing you or you can even video yourself these days,
you know, using your computer and then watch yourself
afterwards. Most people hate it.
They always say they cringe, they don't want to see
themselves in video. But it's a really great way of
gaining confidence. I think that's a great tip if
you're brave enough to do it and then practise and then, like you
say, you'll reap the rewards. Inga, that just leaves me to say
thank you so much for your time. Some great advice that I'm sure
listeners will appreciate. So thank you again.
Well, thanks Emma. Thanks for having me.
Thanks again to Inga, Anita and Muriel for joining us and to you
for listening to the APM podcast.
I hope you've left with some helpful advice to help you in
those low confidence moments and feel reassured that even CEO's
suffer from it too. So don't forget to look out for
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