Is Fear or a Lack of Confidence Normal?

Everyone has fears and times where confidence waivers. However, as leaders, it is important that you acknowledge that these are a normal part of not only being a leader but being human. It is imperative for both yourself and your team to recognise these fears in yourself and your team member’s individual behaviours. That way you can progress forward with definite strategies and perspectives in place.

When you can identify the behaviours that come from a lack of confidence or fear, it makes it a whole lot easier to find solutions and embrace an individual’s strengths.

How can you combat fear and lack of confidence?

To combat fear and lack of confidence, you need to have a clear understanding of how to deal with them in the most effective way. Your strategies must involve looking at your strengths and utilising those to move forward.

When you know your strengths, it makes it easy to focus on them and find solutions to allay fears and doubts. Most of us know a few of our strengths, but there are many more that come into play in our daily lives. If you are not sure what your true strengths are or need a refresher, have a browse of the Via Character Strengths Survey. The survey gives you an in-depth look at all your strengths, not just the ones you rely on every day.

Take an objective approach over fear

Once you have identified your strengths, you can then take an objective look at how they play a part in your daily life as a leader and how you can use them to alleviate any fear or lack of confidence. Often the things that make us fearful are simply those that we have spent far too much time focusing on. Turn your perspective around and look at how you can best handle the task by utilising your strengths.

A common example of feeling fear is when you ask for a wage rise. This is often something that gets delayed due to a lack of confidence. If, however, you looked at your strengths and found that negotiating is one of them then it is easier to tackle. To help overcome this sort of fear and keep your confidence in check, try to recall times where you negotiated either for yourself or others and draw from your experiences. Using this method will help you to refer to the language you used and how you tackled the situation efficiently.

Taking an objective approach over fear comes down to breaking down the situation into smaller portions and then working through it systematically. When you treat every situation like a military manoeuvre and plan it out, it becomes far less daunting. By using this method you will suddenly find that without warning, the mountain that was before you, becomes a molehill and you wonder what all the fuss was about in the first place.

Tell me about a time when you overcame fear. Did you find that by taking a planned approach it became less daunting?