Download Otter for your meeting notes

149. Boosting your confidence as a leader to effectively run your business and team | Otter.ai

149. Boosting your confidence as a leader to effectively run your business and team

Brooke Monaghan23min

Brooke Monaghan

00:00

You're listening to transcend your dichotomy, the podcast where we break the rules that say we have to leave ourselves behind in pursuit of success. I'm Brooke Monaghan and I created the show for purpose driven business owners. Together, we'll talk about how to go for your goals have an impact, all while honoring yourself, your desires and your values.

Brooke Monaghan

00:27

In today's episode, we are going to talk about addressing your confidence as a leader, we're going to talk about what might be happening if competence is an issue. So this might give you an indicator of whether or not this is an area that you need to focus on or not, why addressing your competence is so important. And then some questions that you can ask yourself to start to address that confidence. And something that you can do, hopefully a tool that you can use to start to make progress in the area of leadership confidence. Now, over the past several episodes, confidence has been something that I've talked about a lot because honestly, so much of your the results that you get in your business do come back to your confidence. We talked about it when we were talking about having hard conversations that was an episode 146 If hard conversations are a thing for you, if you have a hard conversation coming up, listen to the episode, you'll understand why confidence is so important going into that. We also talked about it in last episode, talking about why your confidence is a leader is so important to creating a inclusive, collaborative and supportive culture within your business. But I also think that when it comes to having sales conversations, marketing yourself, putting yourself out there writing copy for your website, like confidence comes into business. In so many ways. Maybe this is obvious, but we tend to as business owners, many of us, I will put myself on this list, love to jump to other things that we can do. Rather than look at ourselves and say, am I being motivated to focus on something other than the uncomfortable thing because I'm lacking confidence here, right. And then the last episode where we were talking about why company culture oftentimes or why one of the most important things to creating a the desired company culture comes back to leadership confidence. One of the things that I talked about is that a lot of organizations are trying to kind of checkbox, the the organizational culture thing where they're trying to just, you know, do a few tasks and give employees a few things to keep them happy, and read a couple of books and hope that that's going to do it. Many of us do the exact same thing in our own businesses, when we lack confidence. So it's easy to sit from the perspective of solopreneur and look at large businesses and say, Oh, I would never do that. This is why I want to start having these conversations with y'all now. Because if you can start to practice this behavior, even in smaller areas of your business, now you're gonna set yourself up to be a truly game changing entrepreneur in the future. Because when you have teams, you are going to be a much more effective leader. And you're going to be the kind of leader who creates a culture that is truly aligned with your values, rather than just appearing to be values aligned on the outside. But when it comes to the people who are working for you, it's a different story. This also comes back down to the way that you lead your clients. Because if you are an entrepreneur, you are a leader, you're leading somebody, and your confidence is so important. So here's the thing, if you are not confident you can't lead your job, as a business owner, as a manager is not to control outcomes, it is to lead. And that requires confidence. Through leadership, you're going to get outcomes, but you cannot control anything outside of your behavior. That's where leadership comes in. And then when you're not confident, you cannot effectively lead at the time that I'm recording us. I'm recording this way early. But I just sent out an email to my list. Maybe you got this. It was probably about a month ago at this point where I was talking about how to give every one of your clients a really great experience. And I was referencing a real situation that one of my clients had where she had enrolled hundreds of people into a program. And she was really worried what if this is not a life changing experience for these people in this program. Now, that to me shows that she really cares that she has a really conscientious leader and that she gives a shit about having an impact on her people. But what I had to remind her of is your job right now is not actually to look at your work and change anything about the work that you're about to do. Because when you start doing that what you're actually doing is picking up on the desperation of these clients who are coming in who really need things to change, they really need your help. When you start to pick up on that desperation, you too, are going to start trying to rush through the process, and your work can't be rushed.

Brooke Monaghan

05:13

So you need to be the confident one, the calm one, the one who knows that you're going to handle things, so that whether your clients are freaking out, your team is freaked out. Anyone around you is having a tough time, you are that calm presence, who brings everyone back to what we're actually doing here, and leads people through the real work instead of getting sidetracked because you're freaked out, you're lacking confidence, you're feeling that desperation, or you're picking up on that from the people around you. So as a leader, whether it be of clients of a team of business of you know, whatever it is you one of your main jobs is actually to maintain confidence. Sometimes that idea can get a bad rap, because we see people who are overly confident, but I don't think those people are listening to this podcast, I'm talking to you, the person who is very values driven, the person who is very conscientious, the person who really gives a shit about doing a good job, I am talking to you. And I need you to understand how much of your job is just you maintaining your confidence. Now what happens if you are not confident in your ability to handle whatever happens? This is a situation this is something that I was talking about in episode 146 on having hard conversations. If having hard conversations is not about saying the right thing to get the outcome that you want. Oftentimes, you go into hard conversations thinking that that's what a hard conversation is about. And so we're kind of playing this chess match in our minds to figure out like, what am I supposed to say, What do I do to get the outcome that I want, you can't actually control that all that you control can control is your what you say how you go into that conversation. And the reason that confidence is so important there is that you need to trust that you will be able to handle whatever comes from that conversation, right. So if you are not confident in your ability to handle whatever happens next, right, if you're not confident in your ability to just figure things out, there are a few things that happen, you will go into hard conversations very misguided. So I want you to go back and listen to episode 146. If you haven't listened to it already, I've referenced this episode and last episode, because it's a really important skill for all of us to learn, being able to go into hard conversations, you'll rush through important leadership moments. So there may be things that come up where your team, your clients, people around, you are really struggling with something and they're thinking about things in a way that is really not helpful for them or for the team or for you. And if you start to pick up on that, because you're not confident that you can lead them through it, you might rush through that and just kind of try to get to an immediate fix, instead of helping people to make that shift along with you and actually lead them through it. So it's really important that you maintain your confidence in those moments when the people around you are having a tough time. So that you don't rush through those moments that could be really transformative for clients or for your team members. You'll try to control people and set yourself up for failure. Because anytime that you try to control people, that's what you're going to do. Right. So if you lack confidence, you might find yourself in situations where whenever you go into a situation, you're trying to figure out how to get people to do a thing. Rather than understanding that you can't do that. All that you can do is maintain your confidence in your leadership, but also maintain your confidence in them that they're going to be able to figure it out through their own process, right. And it might take a little bit more time than you would like it to. But you can't you can't control everybody, you can't control everybody's behavior are the outcomes that everyone gets. And if you're trying to do that, it's probably because you're not confident in your ability to lead. You won't successfully give feedback, we're going to do a episode on feedback next week, you will not be able to maintain trusting relationships, because you won't be able to simply hold what people are telling you. Right? If someone comes to you, whether it's a client, or it's a team member or a colleague, and they come to you and they just want to share something that's really hard with you, and you are lacking confidence, you are personally not feeling confident, what is going to happen is you won't be able to just hold that with them alongside them maintaining some confidence that they're going to be fine and that together the two of you can figure this out. And you're going to react in a way that probably is going to send a message to that person that you're not the person to come to with those things. So you need to maintain your confidence in order to have trusting relationships. And also if you have confidence issue, you are going to continue to look at other people, instead of looking at yourself, you're going to continue to look to what everybody else should be doing to change things instead of looking at yourself.

Brooke Monaghan

10:11

This might sound counterintuitive, because you might think, well, that's what I would think if I was confident, if I was confident, I would think I'm doing everything right, and everyone else is fucking up. No, that's not true. Confidence is not about thinking that you're right all the time, or thinking that you are doing everything like perfectly, it's actually very different from that, it's actually knowing that you can receive feedback from people, you can be honest with yourself, and you're going to be fine. And you're going to figure it out. If you are not confident in that, if you are afraid of finding something out about yourself, because deep down, you really lack confidence. And so you're covering it up with this air of confidence that isn't real. That's where you're going to be unwilling to look at yourself. And you're going to blame everyone else around you for what's happening instead of taking responsibility yourself for your own actions. So if you are feeling particularly defensive, if you find yourself avoiding hard conversations, avoiding giving feedback to people, when things are not going well expressing what you need, if you're having a hard time holding with people what they're sharing with you, and it's tough and feeling like you always need to jump to a fix, I think that there's a very good chance that there's a confidence issue going on. So here's what you need to remember, it is not your job to have all of the answers to arrive at quote unquote, fixed, right, that is not ever your job as a leader, managing people is the job leading people is the job showing people a way forward is the job, right? So if there are issues don't equate any issue to like a giant problem, because it's actually normal for there to be things that need work. That's why you're here. Right, that is why you're here that is the entire role of being a leader is that you are going to continue to help people navigate difficulty. So if you expect that every time that someone shows up in one of your spaces, every time that you have a conversation with a client or a team member, they should be like on fire and not having any issues. And if they do have an issue, it's like oh my gosh, how am I gonna fix this, there's a problem. We need to like rush to get this fixed. You're you're going into it and in a misguided from a misguided viewpoint. Instead, I want you to think about it like, yeah, that's why you're here, people have difficulties that they need to navigate, your job is not to have all the answers and fix things for them, your job is to help them navigate that and lead them through it so that they build their own skills, so that they can get better outcomes in the future, or they know how to deal with it better in the future, or they improve their performance. Right. So there's going to be issues, there's going to be some level of dysfunction on teams, probably sometimes there's going to be tough team dynamics, right, we all want to get to a point where everything is just like, you know, everything is just functioning like a well oiled machine. And all of our clients are just absolutely on fire. And I would love it if that were the case. But I also just don't think that it's realistic. And so you need to be confident in your ability to lead people even when things are not perfect, because at the end of the day, that's your job, right? So I want you to ask yourself a few questions. I'm going to list some questions. And I just want you to think about these. If you're in the middle of doing something, I actually will put these on the episode page for this episode. So you can go to my website, Brooke dash monaghan.com/podcast and open the episode page for this for this episode, and I'll list these, but maybe just take a minute if you are able to pause and think about these, or at least just kind of mold these over maybe throughout the day. So are you the first question is Are you afraid to receive feedback? Does the idea of somebody giving you feedback about how good of a job you are doing? Or how you're affecting them freak you out? Do you get scared to have hard conversations? Are you trying to control outcomes? Do you trust that you will handle whatever comes next? Do you trust your people? This could be the people who work for you or the people who you work with and this is so important, so important that you trust your people. Do you find yourself spending lots of time in your head coming up upon a hard conversation? So thinking going around and around and around but what you're gonna say and how you're gonna say it the right way. Are you resentful of your team aim where your clients? And are you being honest?

Brooke Monaghan

15:06

These are questions that can point you to really deeply rooted things that are affecting your confidence. So what I would do, if I were you is, if you are noticing that you have a confidence issue in your business or as a leader, take a moment, write down the answers to all of those questions and ask yourself why or why not? If you're afraid to receive feedback, why or why not, it's going to reveal some things to you that are going to be much more fruitful places for you to look, then reading another book, or taking another workshop, or like blaming things on your team, honestly, or blaming things on your clients, or getting frustrated with like your entire industry. Right? These are questions that can really point you to some really valuable information. So once you do that, and you start to gain some awareness around where your confidence is lacking and why that might be the case, here's what I really want you to think about, I don't want you to try to think your way into being more confident, I actually want you to just start taking action. So start being honest, and having the hard conversations, you're going to be freaked out. Sometimes I have conversations with new clients and or existing clients that I've worked with for a while and I kind of coach them through a tough conversation that's coming up. And they'll say to me, like you say that, like, that's going to be easy. Like, would you say that? And I'm like, Listen, I'm not saying it's gonna be easy. And I'm not saying that it's easy for me either. You might have to have some conversations where your voice is shaking, you might need to have some conversations where beforehand, you need to partner up with a coach or a friend or somebody who you can be like, Okay, I'm going in, like I need some support here, right? You might need to write an email with shaky hands are sweaty palms. That's a part of this, it is challenging. But the way to build your confidence is to do it is to take action and prove to yourself that you can do it and you're going to survive, and you're going to be okay. Right? Start soliciting feedback from your team or from your clients, open yourself up to what they have to say, listen to them. And if it is really a blow for you, then that's something for you to process, right, it's probably not helpful for you to avoid it, you probably need to hear it and you need to process why it's so challenging for you to hear it and process then from there, like how you want to move forward, give feedback, so your employees know or your team members, or even clients, right, because some some of you work with clients in a capacity where you're afraid to be to be honest with your clients. And I understand that there's some amount of professionalism that comes in to certain certain work that you might do. But there's also instances where your clients are not getting the results that they want to get because you're not being honest with them from your position as the professional, right. So give feedback so that people know if they are or are not doing a good job if they need to change their behavior. Tell people what you see. So that people can figure their stuff out and trust that they can handle you're doing your work to handle things on your end of the the equation, let people handle things on their end of the equation. So hello, the fuck down. Slow down. This is like one of those things where I have so many clients who one of the main things we have to work on is them slowing down. And it's one of the hardest things for them to do. Because to them, it doesn't feel like right, I'm talking about acting your way into a new way of thinking and do slowing down often means doing less, and that doesn't feel like an action but it is an action. Slow down, remind yourself, you're going to handle this, you're going to handle what comes next. You don't need to rush through this. You don't need to rush to a fix, you don't need to rush to done, right. You just need to be present and maintain your confidence. Hold space to have coaching conversations with team members. We have had a conversation about this in the last episode. So if you're not sure what that looks like, then pop back to the last episode about that. Check in with people on a human level. Check in with your clients. Check in with your team members on a human level,

Brooke Monaghan

19:32

hold some space and conversations to actually see how they're doing. Sometimes when you lack confidence, it results in you trying to like I was talking about before just like rush through things. You are just so desperate to get to a fix because you're just trying to hold everything together. Because deep down you don't have the confidence that you're going to be able to hold this and figure it out and that things are going to be fine and it means that we blow past people and we don't even know how people are doing. Hold some space. See, when you slow down to check in with people on a human level, see how people are doing before you jump into the conversation, it's going to prove to you that actually, it's okay for you to let some of that in and things aren't going to unravel, or the results aren't going to go down the drain just because you will have some of that in and live the culture that you want, right your people are looking to you for how to behave. This includes clients, if you have a client who is has a particular struggle in one area of their business, it's even more important for you to show confidence in that area of your business so that you can just model that for them. Right. If you have employees, they need to see that you are living the culture, they need to see that you are living the values that you say that you're about, and that you say you want them to live by because they're looking to you for how how to behave, they're not going to remember things that you had on a job description or on a piece of paper when they first started or in their orientation materials, they're not going to remember that what they're going to do is they're going to look to you for how to behave. And so that's why it comes back around to you first. If you are feeling like confidence is coming up in your business, and it is impacting your ability to lead, whether it'd be your clients or your team, then I would highly recommend that you book a call with me so that we can see where we can start working together. I do have spots open for both one on one work and my group program. The one on one work I will say is for established business owners who are at that level where there may be thinking about starting to build a team or managers, whether it be you already have a team, you own a business or you're working within an organization, I do offer management coaching. And I also have transcend your dichotomy training camp. And confidence is absolutely a thing that you're going to end up looking at in that program. So you can go to Brooke dash monahan.com. And you can actually take the self guided workshop that's going to pop up when you get to that page and it will tell you which of those you should start at, depending on where you fall in the process of learning to kind of break the rules and really step into leadership. But if you already know that you are ready to talk about addressing confidence in your business because you see how it is affecting your ability to lead. Then why don't you just book a call with me we can talk about where to start. I can't wait to chat with you. And if this episode was helpful for you then make sure you share it with someone who you know needs to hear it. Transcend your dichotomy is production of passion and process collaborative LLC. The show is produced by me Brooke Monaghan with production and marketing support from Alex Henderson. If you want to support me in the show, the best way to do that is to leave a rating and review on Apple podcasts and share the show with someone who you know needs to hear it for free trainings my weekly newsletter or to join us in the Rule Breakers crew. Go to Brooke dash monahan.com That's mon a Ghan love y'all. See you next week.

00:0000:00