Building Confidence as an IC Professional
A manager once told me I was “overly confident.” I can picture the moment when she said this to me. There we were in her gray, windowless office. Me on one side of the non-descript gray metal desk. Her on the other. I was in my twenties, an ambitious young professional awaiting her performance review. And I’m hit with, “You’re overly confident.”
Let me back up a bit and explain the context for my manager’s remark. Months (yes, months) ago, I’d approached my manager about a professional development plan. I’d been with this corporate communications team reporting to a different manager for about a year and was eager for advancement. What I wanted was a road map to do so. My new manager came with ideas and so did I. Her primary recommendation was for me to focus on my headline writing abilities. To that I replied, “Actually, I think I’m pretty decent in that category. Instead, I’d like to focus on an area where I have far more room to grow.” Wrong answer.
Flash forward to me in my manager’s office hearing that I’m “overly confident.” My refusal to comply with my manager’s first recommendation had apparently stuck with her. So much so that she nursed this little grudge for months (A note for managers. If you have feedback for employees, don’t wait months to give it to them. In-the-moment feedback is far more valuable). To me, this said more about my manager’s confidence than my own. I advocated for myself and my skills, while still expressing an interest in professional growth. And bruised my manager’s ego in the process. I didn’t listen to her, so therefore I must be the problem. While there are many lessons in leadership to take away from this interaction, let’s focus on the confidence-building side.
As an internal communication professional—or really any type of professional—confidence is key. I’m a firm believer that confidence and competence go hand-in-hand. The Harvard Business Review often covers this topic, noting in a 2013 article that “we (people in general) commonly misinterpret displays of confidence as a sign of competence.” So, imagine if you have the competence and an appropriately matched level of confidence. You present yourself as knowing exactly what you’re doing—and you actually do. Seems like that would truly make you a career force to reckon with.
So, how do you act more confident in a communication role? Here are a few things I’ve learned over the years.
Trust yourself and your expertise—As you learn more about your field, your organization, and yourself, you continue growing your competence. Lean on your skills and training in moments of self-doubt. Remember, that you are a subject matter expert. If you’re a team of one, you may be the subject matter expert at your organization. And if that’s the case, you’re automatically the most highly qualified person in the room to offer guidance on a communication course of action. Go ahead and own it.
Practice, practice, practice—Building confidence, particularly if you’re plagued by imposter syndrome, takes time. It took me decades to pull myself out of anxious tendencies that I had to be “just so.” The more I told myself, “You got this” and then proved that to myself, the more I believed it. Repetition, repetition, repetition. And clearly, it’s worked because my aforementioned manager saw the results of my confidence-building work.
Remember everyone’s obsessing about their own selves—A colleague of mine once shared that she was petrified of presenting in front of a group, even when she was fully virtual. Here’s the thing about presentations, particularly virtual ones, every person in that audience is thinking more about themselves than you. Humans, by nature, tend to be more critical of themselves than others (this is a real thing, I checked). That means while you’re presenting, your audience is thinking thoughts like, “Am I sitting in this chair weird? Why am I sweating so much? Can everyone else hear how loud my shoes squeak when I move?” When you’re in a virtual setting (or even in-person), there’s a solid chance that more than half the audience is multi-tasking. They’re checking emails, ordering lunch, contemplating getting a new ceiling fan—none of which give their full attention to the speaker. So, take a deep breath (or two or 12) and give yourself some grace.
