Think about watching a sports match between two teams, where one team is more confident than the other.  The members of the more confident team know that they have a good chance of winning. As a result, everyone on the team makes good decisions, and the players work together seamlessly. Meanwhile, the other team’s confidence is shaky. Players doubt their abilities, they hesitate, and they don’t commit fully to any particular course of action. When this happens, it’s likely that the more confident team will win.

The same principles apply in the workplace – when you have people on your team who have low self-confidence, this can hold them back from reaching their full potential. This is why it’s important that we do what we can to boost the confidence of those around us, especially if we’re leading a team.

Recognizing Low Self-Confidence

People who lack self-confidence rarely thrive. They see more risks than opportunities, they don’t perform particularly well in new situations, and they often have low self-esteem. What’s more, they rarely trust their own judgment, and they may see any successes that they do achieve as resulting from luck, rather than from their own efforts.

By contrast, people who have high self-confidence are more productive and more effective, and can raise the morale of the entire group. They’re also more comfortable taking risks, which can have benefits for their own careers, as well as for their teams.

Confidence can make or break people’s ability to achieve their life goals. So how can you help boost the self-confidence of the people around you?

Help Them Develop Knowledge and Skills

Chances are that there are several skills you rely on to do your job well. When you use these skills successfully, what happens? You feel confident! These are the skills that you’ve worked on over the years, and you’re comfortable that you can use them to accomplish the task at hand.

The same is true for the people on your team. The stronger their skills are, the more confident they’re going to feel.

So a good way to increase the self-confidence of people in your team is by encouraging learning, and by providing plenty of opportunities for additional training. The more knowledge and skills that people have to do their job, the more confident they’re going to feel, especially when they approach challenging projects.

Set Clear Goals, and Help Them Achieve it

Many people get confidence from completing tasks and projects successfully. But that confidence only comes if people know what it is that they’re supposed to do.

This is why it is so important to set clear goals for every member of your team. Goals define success, and give people an objective to shoot for. Without them, they’re working aimlessly.

So make sure that the people on your team know what goals they’re supposed to be working toward, and help them to achieve these goals. Then, when they succeed, celebrate their achievements!

Encourage Autonomy

If you want your team to tackle tasks with confidence, it’s important that you allow them the autonomy to make their own decisions. When your people have the power to decide what needs to be done, they start to take ownership of their work. It truly becomes their responsibility, and when they succeed, their confidence can soar.

Whenever you can, delegate tasks, and give your people the power to make their own decisions.

Be aware, however, that people who have low self-confidence may resist this at first: after all, they may doubt that they’ll make the right decisions. To fight these doubts, encourage them to take on small, achievable projects. Then, if they rely on you too much for help or guidance, encourage them to be more independent.

Celebrate Success

It’s important that all of us celebrate the success we’ve achieved, because recognition of success builds self-confidence.

Whenever your people accomplish a goal or hit a key target, then celebrate with them! Reward them (member-only article) with a party at the office, or even do something small like bringing in cookies or cake. At the very least, congratulate them on their success, and let them know how much you appreciate their hard work.

It’s also important to keep your team excited about what they’re doing. Celebrating success helps with this, but keeping motivation high long-term is key to building a team with high confidence levels.

Encourage Positive Thinking

Many people who lack self-confidence focus on negative thoughts. They may think things like, “I can’t do that!” or “I’m not smart enough.” These negative thoughts cause people to spiral down further, reinforcing their belief that they’ll never be good enough to succeed. Of course, this just makes things worse!

Encourage people to think positively. One technique is to show them how to “flip their thoughts” – every time they catch themselves thinking a negative thought, teach them to think its rational opposite.

For instance, if they think “I’m not smart enough to finish this project,” instead they should think “I know I have the knowledge and skills to finish this project. If I do need help, I can always ask for it.”

Balancing Self-Confidence and Over-Confidence

When people become more self-confident there’s always the risk they can become over-confident, or even arrogant. There’s no doubt that there is a fine line here, but once it’s crossed, these people can start to impact the morale and productivity of the group in a negative way. What’s worse is when people get careless, because they over-estimate their own ability to improvise in difficult situations.

If this happens to a person on your team, start by gently bringing the situation to her attention. Chances are that she might not have realized that she’s crossed the line into arrogance. Meet with her in private, be specific about what she’s saying or doing, and explain why her behavior could be construed as arrogance.

Key Points

If you work with people who have low self-confidence, there are several ways that you can help.

First, encourage them to develop additional knowledge and skills. Help them set clear goals, and sit down with them to identify specific situations that cause their confidence to plummet.

If you’re leading a team, give your people as much power as you can to make their own decisions, and celebrate the success they achieve along the way. But remember that too much self-confidence can be just as damaging to your team as low self-confidence, so help them find the right balance.

 Vacations are a good time to take rest and recover energy, but When this moment arrives, some managers don´t take the time or go out for a few days “stick” with the notebooks and blackberries…

The vacation time it is very important for a Manager, nevertheless be in the office allows him to resolve any issue inmediatly, this happen more often when the manager don´t know how to delegate. A Manager knows that it is impossible to do everything by himself, but sometimes them avoid to delegate tasks. There are four causes because manager don´t delegate:

- “I can´t delegate, because I need to control it everything”

 This atitud show a lack of confidence to his employees, to resolve this, remember that confidence can be built based on:
 - Comunication: as a manager you need to talk and listen to the members of your team
- Compromise: your co-workers must be align with the enterprise goals.
- Competence: you must be surrounded for the best people you can

- “I have no time to teach the task, so I do it by myself”

The reality is the opposite. A Manager must have a time to teach to his employees. Each task that no teach avoid our growth capability in the enterprise, instead of think that teach a task is a waste of time, you must think in this as an investment.

- “I do the job better than nobody”

If you think in this way, maybe you are not a good leader.Great leader surround with people better than himself, so they can complement their own capabilities.

- “The task it is so important to be delegated”

As a primary responsibility a Manager must define the strategy. The execution of this strategy and all the tasks involved, must be in charge of his team. If we do operational tasks, who is think?!

Please, If you want to take vacations and have a balanced style of life, keep this concepts in mind.

We spend a lot of time helping leaders learn what to do, we don´t spend enough time helping leaders learn what to stop…

Interesting, isn´t it?

To know in what he invests the time: identify “his spendthrifts of time”  of his team of work. Are you doing things that he does not need, like to go to unproductive meetings?

To focus in the contribution: he must asking himself: what can I do to affect of significant form the results of this organization?

To develop fortitude: his own and the his subordinates. If you work with the people, benefit from his fortitude instead of concentrating on his weaknesses or flaws.

To establish priorities: do the most important things first. Those who commit themselves with a long list of projects, and advance a little every day, they do not reach turned out in any.

To systematize the decision making:
a) define the problem in precise and finished way.
b) specify what the decision must achieve.
c) turn the decision into action (report what debit to do to him who it should do it).
d) prove the effectiveness of the decision obtaining feedback.

• He knows that his worst enemy is the pride and the self-sufficiency.
• It understands that to live extinguishing fires does not allow to generate the conditions to avoid them.
• He avoids to create rules that could not be applied.
• He constructs an ambience of work where the people want to be.
• It understands that the fear, it is not a tool to persuade the people.
• He insures himself of making people more productive.

2. THE LAW OF THE INFLUENCE
The real measurement of the leadership is the influence — nothing more, neither more nor less

3. THE LAW OF THE FIRM AREA
The confidence is the foundation of the leadership

4. THE LAW OF THE INTIMATE CIRCLE
The potential of a leader is determined by those who are closer to him

5. THE LAW OF THE VICTORY
The leaders find the form of which the team wins

6. THE LAW OF THE SACRIFICE
A leader must yield to rise

7. THE LAW OF THE OPPORTUNE MOMENT
When is to be a leader so important as what to do and where to go

8. THE LAW OF THE LEGACY
The lasting value of the leader measures itself for the succession

9. THE LAW OF THE GRANTING OF POWERS
Only the sure leaders grant power to others

10. THE LAW OF THE RESPECT
For nature, the people follow leaders who are stronger than they themselves