Welcome to the new manager podcast.
I'm your host, Kim nickel. Hello and welcome.
I'm so glad that you're here. We are going to get right into
our topic for today. It is confidence.
And this is something as a human just existing in the world, I
have had to find my own relationship with and also, as a
coach. So by work with a Of new
managers. A lot of my clients that might
have identified as Leaders, but are now moving into more visible
managerial roles confidence comes up a lot in the course of
that work. And so what I wanted to bring to
you was first This perspective, that confidence is one of these
immeasurable assets, right? We've talked a little bit about
this concept, of immeasurable assets on this podcast before.
And it's generally this sense of something that is valuable.
Even when it's difficult to measure or sort of put a clear
box around what it is. And confidence is one as one of
those things. You know it can be tricky to
correlate your confidence with your income or with you know,
other kinds of formal measures or recognition but just being a
human in the world when we do not have that.
Everything becomes much more difficult and much more
challenging when you do have confidence.
It allows you to move through the workplace through your
career through creating relationships in your life in a
very different kind of way. And it just changes the way that
you get to experience being a human in the world and being a
human at work, confidence become so important when we are Looking
at the context of being a manager.
And being in a manager relationship with other humans,
confidence becomes incredibly valuable.
And if you have ever had a manager who seem to lack
confidence who is always uncertain or who was changing
their mind in a, very haphazard way, because they couldn't
simply decide and hold true to that, then, you know, that can
be a very difficult and uncomfortable working
relationship to have so confidence.
Comes very valuable for us at work.
I also want to acknowledge that the way we use the word
confidence is not just in the sense of having a quality of
belief in one's value or quality of certainty in oneself.
But we also use this word confidence in the sense of
holding, something in safety, holding something with respect,
and in protected care, in the sense of, if I share this.
With you. Will it be held in confidence?
I'm going to tell you something, but it is confidential, which
means you are not to share it with anyone else.
You must keep it safe within the protection of your own ears and
your own mind, your own brain. And we can use confidentiality
in a way that we kind of forget that it includes this, the sense
of what What does it? What does it mean?
What are we saying when we say confidence?
So I want to offer this perspective to you which is that
when you think of confidence, I'd like to invite you to think
of it as having Fidelity or having loyalty the sense of
being safe within the space. So when you are thinking about
self-confidence, that is about Having full loyalty, full faith,
full Fidelity, with your self. When you are thinking, in terms
of holding information in confidence, you are doing that.
With a sense of full, trust full loyalty, full Fidelity for what
is being shared with you. And I want to be really clear
about this because what I've seen and I've experienced this
in my own life, the sense of confidence as being a
performative thing. Like, I will put on a show of
confidence, I will display the characteristics of it.
And what it feels like for me, is this kind of like putting on
a costume and sort of puffing myself up and trying to present
a display? So, confidence, as a
performative. You know, behavior that you put
on in order to influence how other people are perceiving you
and that can become difficult. It can become it can actually
sort of undermined confidence because you can feel like you're
being fake or it can feel like you're trying to Puff yourself
up and make yourself bigger than you actually are, so it can be
useful in some contexts. But I also just want to get us
back to the Fundamental perspective of what confidence
is. It doesn't require any outward
performance or an outward display.
It's not about presenting yourself in a certain way, in
order to influence how other people perceive our experience.
You, that's not what we're talking about today.
And when you sort of slow down, and you think about this
question of, can I be faithful to myself?
Can I hold my own self with loyalty and Fidelity?
Can I bring a sense of certainty and safety to myself?
That is the kind of confidence that becomes incredibly
valuable. And here's why it starts To
unhook you from all of these other uncertain and variable
things. So, for example, I have coached
folks who are coming back into the workforce or going into a
professional place, after having many years of education and
school and Academia and one of the things that's really hard
that's come up in so many of these conversations.
Ian's is the sense of well I can be confident when I'm presenting
my research, or I can become confident when I'm presenting my
data because I have run the numbers because I have designed
this project to capture the most accurate data in the most, with
the greatest of integrity. And so, I feel confident that I
can present this research, or these findings, or this data
with, Sense of great. Certainty.
And then what happens when they move into the workplace is
things are very uncertain. There's a lot of uncertainty,
all of the time, there is imperfect information, there are
things happening outside of your view.
And so you might be called to present or called to deliver
your findings, or your strategy, or your plan.
An or what your best guess is. And for someone who is so
steeped in an academic environment, where your job is
to look with highest level of scrutiny and get the most
uncertainty like to eliminate uncertainty.
And then present with confidence this shift into a workplace
setting or things are changing all of the time and you don't
Have access to perfect information can become very
unsettling. And what I have seen happen and
I'll share actually that I see this.
Also this can also show up within the legal profession and
you might know, I have a background in the legal
profession, I'm officially a lawyer.
I don't practice, I haven't practiced.
But that is a part of my path here.
And I mentioned that too. Because what I see is that
there's this desire for certainty of what is happening
in the outside world. And then when we attach our
confidence to That, that becomes very precarious, and it becomes
a little bit tricky. We will withhold our confidence.
We will say, I can't present this with a lot of confidence
because I'm just not sure and what can happen as a result is.
Then when you are presenting to upper management or you are
presenting to your team, you end up hedging, you end up saying,
well, you end up Saying you know it could go this way or that
way. I'm really not sure and what you
end up doing is you bring all of this uncertainty, this lack of
confidence? This self-doubt by presenting
all of these different angles? And because we record this
podcast in the real world at the moment.
There are all of these amazing motorcycles going by outside.
So that's a thing that happens sometimes.
So confidence when we attach it to certainty about the outside
world becomes problematic, and as a result, you can then show
up in a way that reflects great uncertainty, that reflects a lot
of doubt. And then that kind of has this
ripple effect. And I'm not saying to present a
false belief in the certainty of Uncertain things, but here's
where I want to direct you instead is I want you to Anchor
not into the outside world but to within your inside world the
sense of yes, even in the midst of changing circumstances and
even with the limited data and information we have I am making
this judgment call. This is my decision.
This is our best yes, because this is why.
You can still claim that confidence even in the presence
of uncertainty because you know why you're here, you know what
Falls within your scope of care. You have full Fidelity loyalty
and Trust in who you are as a person not that you are perfect
and have perfect information. But because you simply decide
that, you know what, I'm going to have my own back here.
I'm going to make this choice. I know why I'm here, and that's
enough. That's okay.
I've also seen this come up a lot when I have clients who are
an only. So if you are the youngest
person at the table, if you are the oldest person at the table,
if you are the only one who had a different professional
background before you joined a company.
If you are the only one who looks like you, if you are the
only one who has had the kind of background that you have, The
table. If you feel like, oh my gosh,
everyone here is this and I am not and so that feels like a
wavering in your sense of self-confidence.
What I want to offer is this thought you can always have
confidence in knowing why you're there.
I know why I'm here. That is what your confidence
anchors into. So if you are the youngest
person in the room, your job is not to be older than people.
Your job is not to have more knowledge than people but you
know, why you're there? Maybe the way you answer that is
I'm here to provide a perspective that would not be
here. But for the fact that I am here,
Or you might decide I am here because it is my job to be here.
It's really simple. And even while I feel a little
uncertain, that's okay. Because I have certainty that I
am here, for a reason. I know what that reason is.
So now, let's move forward and it takes so much energy to hold
self-doubt. It takes so much energy to hold
that lack of confidence. When you start to find that
place within yourself, where you can say, you know what, like, I
have full Fidelity for loyalty, full trust in myself, and it's
okay if I'm wrong sometimes and it's okay if I don't have the
most experience sometimes because I know why I'm here,
That creates so much ease. It allows you to really show up
in a more powerful way because then you're not trying to hide.
You're not trying to be what you're not.
You're really just able to inhabit the space as you and
it's that confidence that allows you to do that.
Now, one thing that can get in the way is I'd like you to
remember that as a human, we are kind of wired for social
connection. We are wired to seek a sense of
belonging and to feel connected with others, we will perceive
the emotions of those around us. And because we are human and we
take everything personally, we tend to make everything about
us. So if for example, I am at the
leadership table and I feel like I am, the only one who is my
age, or I'm the only one who is of my ethnic background and I am
starting to feel like I don't quite fit in and I'm with people
who may also hold Old unconscious biases and may
actually feel like I don't fit in what happens is, if I
perceive or sense, their uncertainty, I can then
internalize that and feel like, oh, maybe there is something
wrong with me, or maybe I am somehow not enough.
And I have to prove that. And this shows up in very subtle
ways between humans all the time, it's been happening since
you arrived on the planet. It's one of these in Visible.
But incredibly powerful, you know, things that happens with
people. And so with respect to
confidence at work, the idea I'd like to offer you is that it's
okay for others to feel uncertainty.
That's okay, they can feel uncertain but I have certainty.
I know why I'm here. I know what I'm here to do.
I know what matters to me and how I'm here to contribute in
this situation. I don't need to have perfect
information and I don't even need for them to be on board.
With me, I can have enough space so that I am not attached to
them. And as a side note, this is Also
one of the things I find to be so valuable about having a
coach, or a community, or a counselor, or someone who is
outside of the work environment to process thinking and have
these kinds of conversations with because things happen
through our work, all of the time and we don't always have
that that moment to pause and say, whoa, what just happened?
Something weird happened and because it was in this meeting.
Ting. I just kept my mouth shut
because I wasn't quite sure how to process that, but being able
to speak with somebody else who's not within that
environment can be incredibly grounding and orienting.
So when you feel uncertain or when you feel like gosh, maybe
I'm feeling a lack of confidence and I, you know, I don't believe
that my manager Believes In Me Or I don't believe that my
Believes In Me as an initial starting point, just decide
that, that's okay, that's okay. And then decide What is it that
you can find certainty in? How can you find confidence?
In yourself, who you are? Why are there even when things
are uncertain or you might not have perfect information?
I think one of the things that I most love about working with new
managers is, it's very often this Age of realizing that who
you are being in the world can influence and affect the larger
organization that you're a part of just because you exist in
that space. And one of the things that's
hard is that you will feel a pressure to conform to sort of
how things are done. And there's always going to be a
bit of a negotiation between what is the existing landscape.
Scape and power structure that you're working in.
And who are you here to be? And how will you influence and
gently change the shape of that? Just because that's who you want
to be. I need to do another podcast
episode on the distinction between leadership and
management, but I just want to offer you this perspective on
it. While I have you here leadership
is a choice managing People is a set of skills.
And what this means is you get to be a leader.
Whether you are the newest person in the organization, even
if you have no direct reports, you can be a leader just by the
choices you make and how you relate to others and in how you
show up for yourself. And for those that you are
connected to, that is completely separate from the skill set of
man. Judging people.
And so working with new managers and why I'm so delighted to have
this time with you and to have you here is that we get to begin
to explore. What is this going to mean for
you as you rise invisibility, as you gain responsibility and you
feel the uncertainty around your sense of confidence and then
begin to find a more study footing with that.
So it might be interesting as you go into your work week to
take time and notice where do you feel a sense of confidence?
Where do you feel that absence of that?
Where do you feel like you need to perform?
And display the presentation of confidence.
Where do you actually feel it? Genuinely in your life and if
it's been a while because some of us have had work experiences
that were so undermining of our sense of confidence in our self
and it's a real drag when that happens, but it's definitely a
thing that that happens in the world and recovering that
recovering from that can be a bit of work.
But take time to also notice what is it like for you
personally to feel a sense of confidence when have you
experienced that? What does that feel like?
When its present for you and maybe it has nothing to do with
your work life? Maybe it's about something else
that you've experienced in the course of being a human on the
planet. But you want to understand for
yourself what is it? Genuine feeling of confidence
feel like for me, it's Kind of this sense of trust with myself
that even though I can't control everything and there's a lot of
uncertainty. I know that I'm good with me.
I know that I'm good with me that it's okay to not be perfect
that it's okay, to make mistakes to appreciate what I do.
Bring into the room and I'll share to and, you know, in the
last year as my work. And the way that I've worked
with, people has changed a lot because of the pandemic.
And what that has meant for working with people, one of the
things that I have really found a great sense of confidence, And
relief in this question of, why am I here?
What am I here to bring? What is it that I want to
contribute, and I've distilled it into this one statement that
I will share with you. Now, in case it is helpful and
it's this I use my gifts. Doing work.
I love with people. I respect for people.
I care about when I remember that.
I use my gifts doing work, I love with people, I respect for
people. I care about that's something I
can anchor into my sense of confidence, feels so grounded
and so clear. And the way that I live, that
the way that that truth shows up in my work, life can look like a
lot of different ways, right? Like it can look like my
coaching practice can look like tea.
In my meditation classes, it can look like working within a
global organization. But this through line that is
something that I have confidence in, that is something I am loyal
to, because I have chosen that I have decided that I have
Fidelity and I hold myself with care.
That is the kind of confidence. I want to point you towards in
yourself. Because that too, when we're at
work, that is something that is so valuable in our leaders and
for you as a manager, when you can bring that sense of
certainty and calm groundedness to your team.
It is immeasurable the value and the benefit that you bring So
that is what I wanted to share with you today, this idea of
confidence of finding a sense of being in true faith and Fidelity
and loyalty to yourself that no matter what.
You've got your own back that no matter what else changes you are
good with you. Bringing a lot of Grace to
yourself and then allowing that to radiate outward, to all of
the relationships that you have in the workplace.
Thank you so much for listening. I hope you have a wonderful rest
of your day. I'll see you in the next
episode. Do you want personal
confidential help with your situation at work?
I offer one-on-one coaching and can help you overcome challenges
reach your goals and become a more effective leader to
schedule a consult. Go to my website.
Kim nickel.com Coaching and we'll schedule time to talk
about what's going on with you and how I can help talk to you
soon. Coaching and we'll schedule time
to talk about what's going on with you and how I can help talk
to you soon.