Episode Transcript
[00:00:05] Welcome to Transform and Lead. I'm Bron Stephens, ex CEO turned executive coach and I'm all about women uplifting women. If you're a high achieving woman who wants to lead with confidence, own your ambition and do it your way. You're in the right place. Today we're talking about the confidence myth. This idea that you need to build confidence before you can step up. But here's the thing. Confidence isn't the missing piece, it's the byproduct of action. I'll break down. Why? Just be more confident is terrible advice. What actually holds women back and the real strategies that help you lead with clarity, strength and ease. By the end of this episode, you'll have practical ways to own your ambition, claim your leadership strengths and move forward without waiting to feel confident first. If you're ready to stop playing small and start leading with power, hit, follow and let's get into it.
[00:00:54] Why be more confident is terrible advice? Women are regularly told that they need to be more confident and we've internalised this message. In fact, research from 2022 indicates that the vast majority of women blame a lack of confidence for missing out on opportunities. This is certainly backed up by my own work with women. There's this ugly assumption that confidence is the missing piece for women and when they miss out, they blame themselves for lacking the confidence to call out their skills, negotiate the raise or tackle the big issues. At the same time, they're told to be more confident, reinforcing the bias on the flip side. We all know though, that if a woman shows up too confident, the same way that men do, we're considered arrogant, abrasive or erotically overconfident. We're walking around feeling this pressure to be both confident and likeable. Hello, double standard. And the reality is, confidence isn't something you can just be. It comes from overcoming what's standing in your way. Let's get into escaping the confidence trap and talk about what to focus on instead. We've just talked about the fact that confidence isn't built, it's a byproduct of action and clarity. So what does that actually look like?
[00:02:02] I look at it as five key focus areas. Firstly, it's owning your ambition, being clear about what you want and going after it. Then recognizing and claiming your leadership superpowers, those strengths that you underplay, and figuring out what undermines them.
[00:02:17] Next up is owning and challenging your inner critic. This is all about that mean little voice in our heads that's always talking to us.
[00:02:25] Next, leaning into your own style. Of power and getting out of your own way. This is all about appropriate authenticity and leaning into the feminine or masculine strengths that you bring naturally. And finally taking action before you feel ready. Action builds momentum, and momentum builds confidence. Let's break these down and get into more actionable detail.
[00:02:47] Owning your ambition. What does that actually mean?
[00:02:51] So let's start with the definition of ambition. It only means a strong desire to do or achieve something that is literally the dictionary definition. And yet it's so often positioned as a positive for men and a negative for women. And it leads a lot of women to shying away from saying out loud what their ambition is. The problem with them doing that is that as a result, they miss out on important investments of time and money in their development. And that goes to people who are speaking up. They assume that others are going to know what they want, or they drop hints while their colleagues are just out there shouting from the rooftops what it is that they want.
[00:03:26] So step one is speaking your ambition into existence. Get clear on what it is that you want and speak up about what you really want in your career and life to those around you. Start safe and small if you need to, and build from there.
[00:03:42] Next, recognize and claim your leadership superpowers. Leadership doesn't have to look a certain way. In fact, the power of leadership comes from the diversity of styles, backgrounds, inputs and challenges in the room. So when everyone brings different strengths to the table and recognizes the strengths in others, it's a heady combination.
[00:04:00] Leadership superpowers are those unique things that make you uniquely you and your leadership. They're the strengths that you can leverage to get the most amazing results by identifying and understanding where they can be your blind spot or your downfall.
[00:04:15] The challenge is that most leaders don't know their leadership superpowers and they don't use them in their everyday leadership. They often only know one side of their superpower. And that's not enough. You have to know both the strength and the blind spot that it comes with so that you can overcome it and turn it into a superpower. You do this by using the strength to unlock the blind spot. Let me break this down in a bit of an example to make it a bit clearer. I've been working with a leader and she is absolutely phenomenal in her care and commitment to people first leadership. The people who report to her absolutely love her and would do anything for her. Her irrefutable leadership strength is her ability to create strong relationships and use empathy in her leadership. However, over time, she's been receiving this feedback that she needs to be more ruthless, which feels completely unachievable for her and has been undermining her confidence. And it is just absolutely not true. In our work, we focused instead on simply identifying what the blind spot is when she's using her empathy. And it's simply that she stops at empathy without adding accountability. By identifying this blind spot and looking at how adding accountability can be an act of compassion, we could unlock her empathy superpower and turn it into compassion. And by doing so, we were able to completely reject this be more ruthless feedback. Simply by knowing both the strength and the blind spot, you get the ability to do this. So how do you do that? Honestly, I think all leaders should complete a 360 degree leadership survey as a mandatory part of their development. However, if a formal process isn't in your immediate future, I'd invite you to start by asking the people you work with, your boss, peers, direct reports, and any other people who might have relevant feedback for you. And ask them the top three things that make you stand out as a leader and the top three things that hold you back from your best performance. You'll be surprised how those two things relate and interact. You can then use that to understand what sets you apart and what holds you back and look for how you can use that strength to unlock your blind spot.
[00:06:22] All right, next up, own and challenge your inner critic. Everyone, every single person has an inner critic and it's constantly at work, judging you, judging situations and judging others. Women Rising research found that 61% of women said that their inner critic is the number one factor undermining their confidence at work.
[00:06:44] More Alarmingly, in a 2024 research report by Text IO, they found that only 2% of the men received explicitly negative feedback, compared to 76% of the women. Additionally, the men are two to four times more likely to internalise positive stereotypes about themselves. So that's things like brilliant, genius, likable and talented. Whilst the women are seven, seven times more likely to internalize the negative stereotypes about themselves. So words like emotional, unlikable, lazy and difficult. So if you're wondering how come women have such harsh inner critics, this is a big part of the story we hear and take on board this feedback.
[00:07:26] I'm sorry, we're not going to have time to deep dive into owning your inner critic today. It's a really big conversation that I think deserves the time and space to dive into it. However, it is scheduled in an upcoming episode, so stay tuned. What I do want you to take away from this discussion, though, is that your inner critic is a big part of the puzzle and you do need to invest in unraveling it. It's not really about trying to vanquish it or ignore it. You just need to know it, see it, and be able to catch it in action to start to stop it. And over time, it will diminish. When you can treat yourself with that kindness, you really do start to change the way that you lead and that you feel about yourself. I will pop a link and you can get a copy of your own inner critic workbook that I've developed. And if you want to get started on that before we tackle the issue in this podcast, you definitely can. However, suffice to say that unraveling and owning your inner critic is one of the kindest and most impactful things we can do to improve our confidence.
[00:08:23] All right, number four, Lean into your own style of power.
[00:08:27] Women do not need to lead like men. In fact, women who try to lead like men often end up hating themselves, their jobs and their lives. And sadly, those working for them hate working for them as well. Women leading like men feel inauthentic, uncomfortable and harshly judged because they are.
[00:08:44] The very reason it's important to have an equal balance of female leadership is so that there is a balance in the masculine and feminine leadership and power within society and organizations. It's not about removing traditionally masculine energy or leadership. The traits are valuable and they're important. It's about equally amplifying and embracing feminine leadership. Many women really do fit into the stereotype of empathetic, collaborative and situationally aware. So just embrace these traits, stop trying to fight them, or take on masculine traits instead.
[00:09:16] However, if you are a person who naturally embodies masculine leadership traits, go for it. I'm not saying that you can't do that as well as long as whichever way you're leading, you're doing it in the authentic way for you. And it's what comes naturally, not based upon feedback that you've received from male dominated environments over time. So in being an authentic leader, you really want to recognise and celebrate the differences and embrace the power with and of your leadership style. Let people know when you're uncomfortable and simply speak up and be heard with a difference of opinion. You can take a unique approach to an issue that other people don't have and these are your points of difference. When you embrace them, they give you the power you need.
[00:10:04] Let's talk about number five, the last one. Take action before you feel ready. The biggest confidence myth is that I'll act when I feel confident I'll go for that promotion when I've insert unnecessary thing here. We've all heard the statistic by now that men go for the job when they have 4 out of 10 required attributes and women when they've got 9 out of 10, still won't go for the job because they don't meet the essential criteria. I'm telling you now, the way to build confidence is getting runs on the board. Momentum in your leadership, changes, rejections, learnings and successes will build your confidence. Set a big scary goal and then go and get it. Stop waiting for the perfect conditions. Time or roll. Just start. If you fall down, stand up, brush yourself off and keep going. Each time it happens, you're going to build a little bit more resilience and a little bit more resilience and a little bit more resilience. And whenever we know that we can come back stronger, we actually are building our confidence with that little action and that little bit of resilience building every time. It's amazing how action builds confidence and not the other way around. So start trying new things, starting with the ideas in this podcast we've talked about the Big five. So where to from here? Let's talk about shifting the narrative at its heart. Women don't need to be fixed to have more confidence. They need to own their ambition, femininity and power. And that starts with having the confidence to back themselves, to show and use those things. Unfortunately, the reality is that women are going to continue to be told to be more confident as a euphemism for something else. And the double edged sword of confident women appearing arrogant is going to continue in the immediate term. So the next time you're told to be more confident, ask for specific examples of what they want to see from you or when you haven't appeared confident and what they have done in that situation.
[00:11:52] Ask them how they would have responded if you did in fact act the way that they would have. It can be educational for both of you and it can really highlight some bias that's at play.
[00:12:03] Ultimately, know the issue that you're facing isn't about building confidence, it's about overcoming the things that block your confidence.
[00:12:10] If you leave this podcast with no other message, know this. You are beautifully, uniquely you and I want you to own it.
[00:12:21] As I wrap up today, know that this is just the beginning. You are not alone. Over the coming weeks and months, we're going to be getting into the more practical ways for you to own your ambition, femininity and power so if you want to keep growing like and subscribe and let me know in the comments what you want to hear more about. Even better, if you know a high performing woman who would benefit from hearing this message, share this podcast with her. Thank you so much for being here and I'll see you soon. We're going to talk about identifying and owning your leadership superpowers. The next episode of Transform and Lead. And I am here for it. Have a great day everyone.
