The Hidden Work of Growth #1: Just be more confident
In this four-part series, I want to show what it means to work on capability development by sharing real stories. This one is about confidence.
By Elina ·
Confidence feels like one thing when we need it to influence the room, but it becomes many interacting things when we try to develop it. Today I want to use a specific case study to unpack what is behind “Just be more confident”.
Before the story, a quick offer:
I am currently opening places for Capability Practice, my practice-based coaching programme where mid-career professionals work on a real challenge and turn insight into new habits, changing the way they influence and show up at work.
As a Leadership Capability subscriber, use code SUBSTACK26 when you apply. If you decide to continue with the full programme, the cost of one session will be deducted.
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In this four-part series, The Hidden Work of Growth, I want to show what it means to work on capability development by sharing stories of real clients*.
You can’t practise confidence
My first story is about Svetlana. She has recently been promoted into a more senior role, with more face time with senior clients, a team to lead, and involvement in high-stakes projects. She was promoted because of her expertise and the trust of her management. However, the new title did not magically produce the sense of authority she was hoping for.
She still did not quite feel comfortable occupying the space of her new role. And she wondered whether people saw her as senior enough. The feedback she received was also fairly consistent: “You are doing great. You just need to be more confident.”
I don’t know about you, but my experience tells me that when you hear the word “just”, be ready for something that is way more complicated than it sounds.
Confidence is one of those complex things that you can’t simply switch on, like adjusting the volume on a speaker.
So that was where our work started. We started by exploring: what does “more confident” actually mean for her, in the situations where she does not feel it?
Because “confidence” is a collection of very different subjective moments:
A self-conscious thought that pulls your attention away from the conversation.
The tightness you feel in your body when you are about to speak.
The pitch or speed of your voice.
Hedging and filler words.
The way your intonation turns a statement into something closer to a question.
When we want “just confidence”, it can feel like a personality trait you either have or do not have. But once you start looking at the actual pattern, you have something to work with.
The next interesting question becomes: where do we start?
Do we start with the destination, with building a clearer picture of the person Svetlana wants to embody when she walks into an important client meeting? Someone who is calm, present and free from doubtful inner talk.
Or do we start with the surface habits? Perhaps replacing “I think maybe…” with “In my experience…”, lowering the intonation, or slowing down intentionally.
The answer is not either/or.
We do not have a single key to transformation. There is no silver bullet that changes everything overnight.
What we now have are different levers that are relevant to Svetlana and her context.
And over time, she started practising some of them: feeling her physical presence before an important conversation, relaxing her posture when she noticed herself contracting, slowing her pace, observing the thoughts that appeared when attention turned towards her.
And practice revealed more insights.
She started understanding what her hedging was trying to protect her from and experimenting with different ways of achieving the same thing.
This last one is actually a very important developmental point. Sometimes we assume that changing a behaviour means becoming somebody else.
But perhaps Svetlana’s hedging was not simply a bad habit. Perhaps it was serving a purpose. It might have been her way of remaining open, avoiding unnecessary conflict or protecting herself from being seen as arrogant.
Once you understand the purpose, you have more choice.
You don’t need to become someone you are not. But you can start practising becoming a version of you who sees and responds to the same situation differently.
You are not necessarily becoming louder or more assertive. You are not becoming arrogant. You remain yourself, but perhaps with a slightly different aura: a slower pace, a different way of entering a conversation, a filler phrase that expresses curiosity rather than self-doubt.
And eventually you give yourself permission to take the right amount of authority to influence the room without losing yourself.
That is real work.
Changing the pattern of your thinking and behaviour takes more than advice. It takes insight, experimentation, practice and accountability.
This is the work behind Capability Practice
Confidence is only one example.
Some people come with questions about confidence, authority or executive presence. Others are working on influence, strategic thinking, delegation, conflict or their relationship with their own career.
The starting point is always different.
And there is no generic playbook.
We start by exploring what is actually happening underneath the challenge and identifying the capability that may be worth practising. Then we work with real situations, not hypothetical exercises, and experiment with different ways of responding.
If there is something in your professional life that you know you want to change, but advice and good intentions have not quite translated into a different way of operating, Capability Practice might be a useful next step.
As a Leadership Capability subscriber, use code SUBSTACK26 when you apply. If you decide to continue with the full programme, the cost of one session will be deducted from the full programme price.
And if someone came to mind while reading this, feel free to forward it to them.
Elina
*The cases in The Hidden Work of Growth series are inspired by real coaching work. Names and identifying details have been changed to protect confidentiality. Each story may also combine recurring patterns observed across several clients, although one particular coaching journey remains the main inspiration for each story.
Originally published on Substack.