As a leader, you spend an exorbitant amount of time, energy, and mental space focused on what your team and organization need to succeed. 

As a result, you’re likely operating on auto-pilot, often. One thing I often see with leaders I coach and work with, is that they’re lacking in self-confidence as a leader and low self-esteem is quietly purring in the background driving many of their actions and decisions as a leader. 

It’s high time we turn the focus back onto ourselves as leaders, and work on building confidence and showing up more courageously as leaders. 

Many leaders struggle with low confidence for various reasons. When we continuously show up with low confidence, we may miss out on growth and new opportunities and lack the ability to step into our fullest potential so we can achieve our best personally and professionally. 

This isn’t about building confidence as a leader simply for confidence’s sake. It’s not about becoming arrogant or superior to others. Building true confidence in yourself as a leader helps us to have an appropriate and realistic measure of our abilities and improve our performance.

Confidence as a leader can help us to make stronger first impressions, improve our credibility, put others at ease, increase our own motivation in pursuing goals as well as inspire our team and organizations in the same, and reduce fear and anxiety. Building your confidence as a leader has the power to help improve your health, and well-being, increase your happiness and offer you peace of mind. 

When you build confidence in yourself as a leader, you increase your capacity and effectiveness as well as exponentially boost your executive presence. 

Where Does Confidence Come From? How to Build Confidence in Yourself as a Leader 

We often think that confidence is a precursor for taking courageous action when in fact, courage often precedes confidence. 

This is why I believe that courage is a cornerstone of leadership. 

In the words of Brené Brown (who has many wise words on courage and leadership), “We desperately need more leaders who are committed to courageous, wholehearted leadership and who are self-aware enough to lead from their hearts, rather than unevolved leaders who lead from hurt and fear.”

Courage is foundational to being a great leader, and sometimes when we choose courage, we fail. We make mistakes. But as we step out and take acts of courage, outside of what’s comfortable, we build our confidence in knowing we did what we needed to do and advocated for ourselves and others. 

Committing to courage is the key to building and developing confidence as a leader. 

Five Steps to Build Your Confidence and Courage as a Leader

Understand Yourself as an Individual 

Building your confidence as a leader begins with self-awareness so you can lead from within. It begins by understanding, I mean really understanding, and being honest about your strengths and your weakness so you can work on them accordingly. It means getting clear on what your values are, what motivates you and being able to observe your personality and habits in action when they leap into sabotage you or send you into autopilot. Knowing thyself and becoming aware gives you the power of choice, and as you make choices grounded in belief, conviction, and a deep knowledge of yourself, you will start to build your confidence as a leader and show up more courageously. 

Choose Ambition Over Fear 

Recognizing and observing when we choose fear, and how we respond to it is vital to making different choices. To be a confident leader, you need to take proactive, calculated risks, which can feel frightening at times. You need to be willing to fail and make mistakes and learn from the actions you take. Choosing ambition over fear means changing the way you speak about various opportunities and circumstances. 

For example, instead of saying, ‘I can’t do that…” we can shift to saying, “I will…” or “I’m going to share my thoughts here.” 

We can also change our mindset about situations and recognize that we’re here because we’ve been asked to be here. We are where we are because we DO possess value and deserve to be where we are. 

Not allowing fear to overcome and overwhelm us also means speaking candidly and clearly and being open with others in communication. Sometimes this looks like advocating for ourselves, or for others, or for what we know is right and ethical. At other times, it may look like asking for help and expressing vulnerability. And it’s also daringly refusing to tolerate the intolerable and the things that are keeping us where we are. 

When we continuously practice stepping out of our comfort zone and moving forward (even when things feel scary), we start to build those courage muscles exponentially. And the best thing about courage is that as you start to build it, confidence continues to naturally grow. The more courageous you are, the more confident you become as the evidence unfolds that you CAN and are succeeding. 

Letting Go of Comparison and the Need to Know Everything 

You can’t and won’t know everything. The faster you can come to recognize and embody this, the faster you will come to realize that is enough right now. It can help you to let go of your inner critic and that negative self-talk and the constant comparing yourself to others and where they are, their talents and skills, and their knowledge base. You are a work in progress - we all are! You can focus on letting go of the need to know everything as you simply take the steps to educate yourself on a regular basis. Educating yourself and having a mindset of curiosity is a huge piece of building your confidence! The ability to being open to learn, and having the desire to learn is a strength in and of itself. 

Celebrating Your Wins 

This may seem like a small thing. But sadly, so many leaders I know do not celebrate what they’re excelling at or their successes along the way. They simply focus on the next thing, the next milestone, goal, or skill to be attained. Celebrate your wins and accomplishments along the way -even the little stuff. Celebrate when you navigate a difficult conversation with someone on your team, celebrate when you stay focused on a project and bring it to completion, celebrate when you accomplish a goal you set for yourself. Bringing attention to your regular success will help you to build confidence in even the small actions, and keep you motivated as you continue to build and grow your confidence as a leader. 

Learn to Rise with Resiliency 

Building your confidence as a leader takes place as you continue to rise above challenges, obstacles, and setbacks. Resiliency takes the approach of looking to what’s working, rather than dwelling on what’s going wrong and moving forward to make the changes needed to keep reaching the organizational and professional goals. Resiliency keeps you more positive as a leader, as you can be confident in knowing there’s a way through every block and what’s happening at this moment is not the full picture long-term. As you fail, struggle, and experience defeat as a leader and continue to rise with resiliency, you build confidence in yourself and your ability to handle anything that comes your way. 

Remember that when you decide to begin building confidence in yourself as a leader, it’s an ongoing process. Offer plenty of self-compassion and patience as you gradually build the confidence you desire to lead more effectively and show up in the fullness of who you are. 

And as a personal reminder from myself to you, you are enough, right now. You possess worth and value that you can only begin to imagine, and you can do this! 


Questions to Reflect On: 
On a scale of 1-10, how confident do you feel right now in the areas that matter most to you? Take an honest look at your personal life and professional abilities and evaluate where you feel you are right now. 
Where would you most like to build your confidence as a leader? 

If you’re seeking support in this vital area of developing your leadership skills, I’d love to help! I help leaders and executives every day show up more courageously and compassionately. I help to rewire the negative self-talk that’s holding you back from achieving your highest potential so you can increase your confidence within yourself and how you show up with others.

Let’s talk!