Confidence for the new project manager.

Confidence, what does it mean and where can the new project manager find it.

M-W.com defines it partially as:
A: a feeling or consciousness of one's powers or of reliance on one's circumstances
B: faith or belief that one will act in a right, proper, or effective way

My students know my motto is "Indolese rapio" so in this case I am going to do a little stealing by just pointing you in a good direction.

How can you gain confidence. One of my favorite improvement web sites is "Mindtools" and click here to see what they have to say about confidence.

There is also a nifty 3 minute video on improving your confidence.

From my vantage point, the most important part of building self confidence is learning new skills, honing and practicing that skill and using it often. Every time you successfully complete a task, remind yourself that you are building confidence.

One thing that confidence brings is the ability to inspire others to want to work with you and to convince clients to let you take the lead. The flip side is over-confidence which is mightily destructive in my view.

So if you are (or want to be a "confident" person, first get competent and then smile a lot.

Confident people are upbeat and smile a lot. They don't go around scowling and complaining.

I once had a Japanese client come to my beach cottage for a weekend. He remarked, through the interpreter, that he now knew why I was so personally confident. I asked why was that?
He said: "You don't worry about the success of work so much, because you are so wealthy:" From his perspective of the cost of a beach house in Japan I must be a multi-millionaire (I was not, it was a cottage not a Macmansion) I told him what I had paid for the home, and his jaw dropped. I then pointed out that my confidence came from my team and my clients who trusted me to successfully get things done for them. I also pointed out that smiling used less energy than scowling.

I am pretty sure that while I am mostly a confident person, when I was not feeling competent I didn't always exude confidence.

But I tried always tried to look confident by dressing well and smiling a lot.

Now that I don't manage so much, I still try to dress at least OK and smile even more.

Its amazing the effect one person can have on a group by being upbeat and confident that the future will be better than the past.

My suggestion to become a confident person:

• Learn a lot of skills and practice them. (be competent)
• Dress well, look good (you don't have to be movie star to project your best)
• Smile a lot (it uses less energy than frowning)  

During these trying economic times, would you rather be working with confident people or gloomy folks. My guess is that if your bosses are half competent they will be looking to hang on to confident people not workplace doomsayers.