Management Tip of the Day: Strengthen Your Confidence

Confidence isn’t something you either have or you don’t. It’s a dynamic emotion that, like a physical muscle, needs exercise to grow stronger. Here are two ways to build and maintain it: 

• Take inventory of your past. It’s easy to doubt yourself and your abilities. But if you look at your track record, chances are that your successes outweigh your failures. And, more importantly, you likely survived your missteps and gleaned lessons along the way.
• Focus on strengths. Most leaders are very strong in a few competencies, average in the majority, and weak in a few. Concentrate on leveraging what you’re best at. Then, manage your average and weak areas so they don’t detract from your effectiveness.

Adapted from “To Strengthen Your Confidence, Look to Your Past” by Amy Jen Su and Muriel Maignan Wilkins.