Confidence at Work E-Book

Claire Steichen

• Herausgeber: WS
• Kategorie: Lebensstil
• Sprache: Englisch

Seitenzahl: 151

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2024

Beschreibung

In work situations, one of the toughest things to possess is confidence. However, it’s also one of the most important. You need to be confident, not just in your work, but in your work relationships and interactions.

In this book, Claire shares her own, and her clients’, experience of breaking through confidence issues, when proven performance was not enough.  

Claire shares her I to the 4th Power program, developed over 15+ years working with hundreds of clients one-on-one. She provides client stories that will resonate with readers about actual clients who have used her programs to gain the confidence they were lacking in work situations. 

And she provides exercises and insights from her highly rated I to the 4th Power program. You can do these exercises and gain the confidence you desire to make your career a great experience.

Leseprobe

Published by Hybrid Global Publishing 333 E 14th Street #3C New York, NY 10003

Copyright © 2024 by Claire Steichen

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without the written permission of the Publisher, except where permitted by law.

Manufactured in the United States of America, or in the United Kingdom when distributed elsewhere.

Steichen, Claire Confidence at Work: The High Achiever’s Guide to Navigating Uncertainty

ISBN: 978-1-961757-66-0

eBook: 978-1-961757-67-7

LCCN: 2024945924

Cover design by: Julia Kuris Copyediting by: Sue Toth Interior design by: Suba Murugan Author Photographer: Hesh Hipp Author Website: clearstrategycoaching.com

CONTENTS

Introduction

Chapter 1

Skipping Through Life, at a Cost

Chapter 2

Impact: Know Your Strengths and How They Contribute

Chapter 3

Influence: Confidence in How You Deal With Others

Chapter 4

Influence: Build Your Brand to Accelerate Your Career

Chapter 5

Initiative: Confidence Is On the Other Side of Action

Chapter 6

Time Management for Energy, Balance and Connection

Chapter 7

Listening and Feedback That Build Foundational Confidence

Chapter 8

Innovation: Build Your Team’s Confidence and Leverage Their Talents

Chapter 9

Innovation: Creating Spaces for Ideas to Emerge

Chapter 10

Where Do We Go From Here?

Works Cited

INTRODUCTION

“Claire, I’ve left the company.”

The message came from Dana’s personal email.

Just like that, one of my most talented clients, one who I thought could transform her organization and could define the future of media in her industry, decided she had had enough.

Despite her incredible experience.

Despite the industry awards.

Despite the progress she was making in influencing key voices in the company. Despite her ambition, her energy, her fearlessness.

Despite the parade of creative solutions she appeared to pull off, even in the face of doubters in the organization.

To be honest, I wasn’t entirely surprised. Dana had been fighting the good fight. And she was tired. I wasn’t surprised, but I was frustrated. Because it wasn’t the first time I’d seen a talented professional struggle. In fact, it seems to be a new norm. The disruption, the rapid-fire change, and the rising tide of uncertainty enveloping even the best companies in America are taking a toll on the engine upon which their success rests – their high-potential leaders.

You know them. You may even be one yourself or wish you were because they seem to have everything going for them. The problem is that, even for the people who seem to have it all figured out, things are not like they used to be.

For everyone today, even the high-potential leaders, the roadmap that used to be a ticket to success is no longer a sure thing. The tight promotion timetable, the thought leadership, and the financial rewards all seem to have become so unpredictable that today’s careers are filled with uncertainty. Economic shifts mean that companies can no longer offer pensions, lifetime employment, lots of organic mentoring and plentiful financial rewards. Increasingly, it feels like the guard rails of career predictability are gone. The time-tested, dependable rules of achievement that used to make leaning in such a worthwhile endeavor have been pulled out from under us.

Because the more you lean in, the more it can feel like if you lean too far you’ll fall off a cliff. All those things that used to provide a sense of rhythm and certainty are different. Mentors are hard to find, the question of whether to job hop seems ever present, and even though everyone’s working hard, why some rise faster seems so random. The milestones that used to be concrete, linear, predictable, and cause-and-effect feel like they’ve dissolved into mush.

It’s jarring to see especially high achievers like Dana stumble, because it means this increasing uncertainty can happen to anyone with ambition today. Where do you find focus when you no longer feel a sense of agency or sense of control over your destiny? This new, unpredictable normal is even reflected in the fact that, for a growing number of managers and professionals, the lure of entrepreneurship actually feels more like a sure thing than the corporate paths that once provided a sense of stability.

As a trainer and consultant working inside Fortune 500 companies for the last 15 years and a coach working with the high-achieving individuals who form the backbone of these organizations, I have seen more and more of these kinds of disruptions:

• Managers don’t know what is expected of them and are less willing to take initiative as a result. That hurts their advancement.

• Increasing overwhelm and disruption make work less rewarding and more confusing. That increases burnout and disengagement.

• People’s ability to hang in, let alone respond effectively, is being challenged like never before.

In the midst of this uncertainty, today’s middle managers are increasingly holding themselves to impossibly high standards. Many were raised by parents who enjoyed successful careers in the 80s and 90s and want the same for their kids. Technology makes images of success and “15 minutes of fame” hyper present. Couple these pressures with the fact that these professionals are often thrust into positions of responsibility without adequate training, and their capacities are stretched to the limit. From the company’s perspective, the crucial results that today’s high-achieving managers deliver to the organization, critical to continued growth and innovation, are also in danger.

The good news is that there are ways to counter what seems like dizzying levels of disruption and disorientation, to put both the high-achieving managers and the corporations whose success depends on them back on solid ground. My work within the corporate world has focused almost entirely on how to help the middle managers on whom the success of the corporation depends, not only to respond to these challenges and disruptions but to emerge as stronger, more confident, more impactful leaders. So, they not only strengthen their ability to respond to the current disruption but develop new skills that set the stage for even greater success – for themselves and for the organizations they work for.

I have written this book for these skilled, ambitious high achievers and the corporations that depend on them. Its goal is to provide the CEOs, the corporations they run, and the high-achieving managers and employees who work with them with the road map to increased agency and confidence that gives their organizations a huge competitive advantage in the marketplace.

If you are reading this, chances are that you are an ambitious professional in a large, competitive organization. You have the motivation, but you want the focus and roadmap to grow in your career without sacrificing all the balance in your life. To achieve this and make it your new normal, I’m going to walk you through a series of insights and exercises to fortify and restore confidence, impact, and effectiveness. You will gain the tools to:

• Understand what you bring to the table, so you can enjoy more focus and get the recognition you want

• Know the visible (and invisible) pathways to advancement in your organization and your industry

• Expand your network of relationships and manage those (even difficult ones) so you stay on track

• Increase your executive presence so it springboards your performance

• Let go of perfectionism so you can take initiative and stay focused through the ups and downs

These tools, working in concert, are designed from the ground up to give you agency in managing your career and your team. So, you have the focus to be successful and the confidence to have balance in and out of work.

I believe that change is good. And I believe that having the right tools to thrive in a changing environment is possible. Join me in Confidence at Work as we explore how to shift from a facade of confidence to creating authentic, foundational confidence. We’ll look at techniques and insights to help you thrive and enjoy the journey so you can live up to your potential now and in the future.

CHAPTER 1

SKIPPING THROUGH LIFE, AT A COST

“When I met you, I thought you were perfect.”

My friend Catherine told me this after three months of knowing me in a year-long business coaching program we both were in.

At that moment, there was an awkward silence that I tried to break by saying, “OMG! that’s crazy!” I felt all eyes on me. And under the awkwardness, I felt alone, separate. “Here we go again,” I thought. I knew exactly what Catherine was talking about because it had been with me my entire life. Once again, without realizing it, I’d been subtly showing off in an effort to be liked. And the things I was doing to fit in had turned against me, so Catherine couldn’t really see me.

Catherine was referring to what I call the “confidence facade,” a coping mechanism for a lack of confidence. It’s leveraging knowledge or talent to build an impressive, inflated outside that completely conceals internal insecurity. That might not seem like a big deal. After all, “faking it ‘till you make it” can be a great way to get through moments that are outside your comfort zone. The confidence façade becomes a problem when it becomes a marathon and the new normal.

In the 15-plus years that I’ve worked with high-potential middle managers, I’ve come to the conclusion that the confidence facade is everywhere. In an increasingly uncertain and unpredictable landscape, it is also more present than ever. For some, it looks like always saying everything is ok when it’s not, as it did for me. For others, it looks like hyper-competence that always edges out colleagues. For others, it looks like “the pleaser,” always saying yes, no matter the cost to well-being. The confidence facade inhibits your ability to be vulnerable or ask for help. It can be confusing to colleagues who see you as more capable than you see yourself. It can even erode trust when that gap in perception of your capabilities comes across as disingenuous. The confidence facade makes it hard to be authentic, to feel recognized, or to create healthy boundaries.

The confidence facade had been with me most of my life, always making it seem like I was fine, like I danced through life. As one of my mom’s friends told her once, “Claire ... she’ll always land on her feet.” And like most people, as Catherine learned, I wasn’t perfect, and I wasn’t always fine. In fact, for someone who seemed to have a lot going for her, I was prone to debilitating bouts of insecurity that seriously hampered my sense of agency, my potential, and my results.

When people struggle to find their “True North” in their career, I believe it’s actually the confidence facade, which, over time, erodes intuition. You don’t trust yourself. To survive, you resort to using external reference points for success and happiness – the right job, the right relationship, and the right situation. Before you know it, you’re in a moment from the Talking Heads song: “Is This My Beautiful Life?”

Why does it matter? It matters because today’s knowledge workers, high achievers who are particularly vulnerable to the confidence facade, make up more than 40% of the US workforce.★ That’s a huge number of people working too hard and burning out, only to fall short of their professional potential. For companies, it matters because, in today’s competitive and uncertain environment, it’s not enough to have talented leaders. To succeed, companies need each of their middle managers’ talents, plus the advantage that comes from powerful collaboration. They need people at their best.

A GROWING EXPECTATION GAP

So Where Does This Confidence Facade Come From?

The promise of the American Dream has shifted. Specifically, there is a growing gap between what is expected of people, or what they feel is expected, and the resources they feel they have to meet those expectations. Consider the “IBM Man.” This mid-20th-century professional was usually a white man in mid-career. He had a pension, job security, and lots of layers of management that he could lean on to get advice. He worked in an expanding economy and a narrower labor pool.

The foundations for today’s professionals are much less solid:

• We have 401(k)s, which have advantages but are only as certain as one’s personal savings discipline.

• We have layoffs and winding career paths. It’s hard to relax and “just do your work.”

• We work in lean organizations with rotating bosses. Mentoring is hard to find, even while it’s more important than ever in our “post-information” age, where you can pursue so many directions, not all of them fruitful.

At the same time, expectations feel higher:

• Bigger and more diverse labor pools – a good thing – have upleveled what it means to be high-performing.

• Instead of a growing economy (and a growing paycheck), there is business uncertainty and wage stagnation.

• Many of today’s professionals were raised by baby boomers who unwittingly pile on the pressure with messages about their own success.

• Technology makes celebrities and influencers ubiquitous; feeling like they are “just like us” can make extraordinary levels of success seem attainable, even expected.

In the work I’ve done for the last 15 years, I’ve observed that the gradual but vast underlying changes to our economy and society have had an enormous impact on talented middle managers. Knowledge workers at the middle management level are under enormous pressure. At the same time, the pressure goes largely unnoticed because, as Americans, we live in a “rugged individual” culture where striving feels normal. Again and again, I’ve seen managers worn out by putting their best foot forward while they wait for a break.

Today’s mid-career knowledge workers are generally high achievers. They are usually college-educated and are in a competitive corporate career. Their aspirations have them consistently stepping out of their comfort zone, which can trigger self-doubt. This is true regardless of whether they were the first in their family to go to college or had a privileged upbringing. And because these managers have high expectations, they may not give themselves grace for how the workplace changes of the last 40-plus years have impacted them and their peers particularly hard. It’s easy to feel “less than” while leveraging experience or success to project “better than.” Living in this space of comparing others’ outsides to our insides can erode confidence, individually and collectively. With these managers doing the bulk of the work and decision-making at their companies, the confidence façade is putting them and the organizations they work for at risk.

A NEW PATH FORWARD

As we enter a period of increasing global challenge, the good news is that it is possible to meet today’s professionals where they are instead of managing their development the same way we would have supported the “IBM Man.” Companies need the collective wisdom of middle managers and their ability to leverage their experience. This book is about how I built a framework to shift the Confidence Invention from Façade to Foundational in my own life and how I have helped so many professionals do the same. It’s about how to recognize the confidence façade in yourself or your team and how to shift to authentic, foundational confidence. My hope is that this book will help you:

• Build foundational confidence and personal agency.

• Gain access to the creative potential in yourself and in others.

• Learn to bring the best of yourself to work and decision-making rather than your hesitant, reluctant, or abrasive self.

• Show up authentic and know how to manage others’ judgments and expectations.

• Share concerns and boundaries without seeming “difficult.”

• Enjoy being recognized for the amazing things you do every day.

• Know that others rely on you to make their work and life richer, and you feel it in the most positive way.

This book is about why, as an ambitious professional, you can be riddled with insecurities. And how those insecurities negatively affect your confidence, happiness, and success. This book is also for business leaders who are seeking to get more from their middle managers. For those leaders who hire talent from top schools and competitors and want to leverage that talent toward positive outcomes. For leaders who have big mandates and need all the wisdom their middle managers can provide, to innovate towards extraordinary outcomes.

I call my antidote to the confidence facade “I to the 4th Power;” I to the 4th Power is a blueprint for finding success as your authentic self, even when you’re faced with uncertainty, and I’ll spend this book sharing it with you.

UNDERSTANDING AND OVERCOMING THE CONFIDENCE FACADE

You might wonder where the confidence facade comes from, how it impacted me, even as a young girl, and why its implications are so crucial to managers and corporations in an era when so much is changing.

My own confidence facade came from being raised by high-achieving European immigrants in the United States. My mom was French, my dad was from Luxembourg, and we spoke French at home. In addition to doing well in school, we were expected to project confidence and ease in many different situations.

Navigating the world outside and always having to be gracious was disorienting and exhausting. I was different at school. I was different with friends. I was different in small, imperceptible ways. And it wasn’t just being different; it was that no matter where I went, I wasn’t good enough. To protect myself, I didn’t realize it then, but I learned to subtly show off. People would say, “Wow, you speak three languages! How amazing!” What they didn’t understand was that what seemed impressive came with crushing doubt about how to approach just about everything. Just like in the moment with Catherine, I was put on a pedestal and yet I still felt inadequate.

Somehow, I was able to muddle through without anyone noticing until the moment, right when I was about to hit what felt like career superstardom, it all came tumbling down.

FIRED FOR CAUSE AND THE SILVER LINING