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5 Ways To Build Confidence In Your Employees

Forbes Coaches Council

Asia Bribiesca-Hedin, MBA, MPA helps leaders lead and grow without self-imposed drama. Join our next free leadership program.

Skill, brilliance and expertise are not enough to help your teams reach their full potential if your employees lack confidence.

Some supervisors are unwilling to catch their team members winning. Still, for those leaders who recognize the importance of empowering and supporting the growth of their employees, the ability to help employees build confidence is an often-overlooked leadership competency.

“My manager always says ‘great job’ after a project. But they never give me specific details on what I did great. Now, I’m confused and starting to wonder whether she’s even paying attention.”

“My boss just gave me a new project because they said I’m the best person for the job. But I don’t even know where to start! I don’t want to ask for help because I don’t want to look stupid or disappoint them.”

These two scenarios highlight well-intentioned leaders trying to boost their employees' confidence. Unfortunately, their words sparked more self-doubt than self-confidence.

Building confidence in your employees is more than just showering them with praise—sincere or not. It starts with having an informed perspective on their behavior, skill level, strengths and weaknesses. It goes on to include facilitating development opportunities, inviting them to stretch their competence, encouraging their creativity and giving them room to fail.

In response, confident employees trust themselves (and you) to make meaningful contributions and share innovative ideas, even when they get it wrong.

Here are five ways to build confidence in your employees.

Catch Them Winning

Whether in personal relationships or in decisions to disengage or quit, the root cause of relationship failure is feeling underappreciated and unacknowledged. One of the most profound emotions humans seek is to feel a sense of acceptance and relevance. We want to know that we matter to the people around us. Consider your sense of purpose and satisfaction when acknowledged for an accomplishment or contribution. Imagine that for each of your employees.

Thank them for their contributions, big and small. Avoid empty, performative praise. When you thank them for their efforts, get into the details. Explain exactly what you love about what they did. This helps reinforce confidence and winning behavior.

Of course, appreciation can also be a bonus, award or extra perk whenever possible. Who doesn’t welcome that?

When employees know they’re appreciated, it fosters confidence, engagement and commitment to their work and team.

Listen To Them Like They Are Your Best Client

You might notice that when someone whose opinion you value is speaking, you perk up, pay attention, and get invested in what they’re saying. You might listen somewhat less attentively or disregard those whose perspectives you value less.

A pivotal opportunity to listen is your 1:1s with your team members. Employees often report that 1:1s are repurposed as data dumps, postponed, shortened or entirely canceled, without regard to their importance in the role of engagement and staff development. Leaders need to remember the importance of 1:1 communication with their team. It’s probably no surprise that this shatters confidence and sends a clear message that their input and time have little value.

Like leadership, listening requires discipline and empathy. You need to be an active listener, especially when it comes to your team. There’s no better way to communicate that you sincerely appreciate their input. As a bonus, leading effective 1:1s leaves you better equipped to support your employees’ growth and development.

Let Them Teach

Your responsibility as a leader involves eliciting the best your team has to offer toward a common goal. Creating opportunities for your team members to teach or facilitate learning for the rest of the team builds confidence and enhances their ability to contribute.

You can quickly implement this by dedicating 10 minutes of each department meeting to employee-facilitated learning. Staff can teach technical skills, provide policy tips, share new technology or introduce clever workarounds to shared frustrations. If the topic can add value to the team, it’s fair game. Once you get going, a sign-up sheet encourages employees to get excited about what to teach in future sessions.

Let Them Think

While micromanagement is typically a reflection of insecure leadership rather than a performance problem with a team member, micromanaging your employees conveys that you don’t trust their thinking. Your job as a leader is to ensure the professional capability of your team members, set goals and define boundaries. Employees should then be left to use their initiative to develop novel solutions to accomplish their goals.

Along the way, leaders should be available to provide support if their employees get stuck or are in doubt. When employees complete their tasks based on their own resourcefulness, it gives them more confidence in their abilities. Promoting self-leadership in employees fosters engagement and career empowerment.

Let Them Fail

Once you’ve empowered your team to work independently, you need to be willing to let them make mistakes and learn from their failures. When it comes to trying something new, we either win or learn.

Mistakes are an opportunity to learn. They encourage employees to reassess their work, create quality assurance rituals and ask questions. Conversely, when employees are punished for making mistakes, they retreat and withhold contributions. They avoid taking risks because they expect to be punished. They decide, instead, to play it safe.

Playing it safe is a booby prize. It hampers growth and advancement and hurts collaboration, engagement and job satisfaction.

Mistakes can make us feel inadequate, but confident leaders encourage their teams to recognize that failure is an inextricable part of success. Most importantly, mistakes provide employees with opportunities to learn until they eventually win.

Bottom Line

Fostering confidence in employees takes self-awareness and work, but it’s worth it! It helps to boost the culture of self-leadership in the workplace. It ensures career empowerment and higher-quality output and increases employee engagement and satisfaction. Building the confidence of your team members translates to having a confident, motivated and committed workforce that will take the organization where it needs to go. Confident employees help your organization win.


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