How To Be Confident At Work

Now, confidence at work, I think, is little bit different to confident, say, at a party. Because when you are at work, confidence is only useful if you are actually doing a really great job. There is a danger in being overconfident, I would say, at work especially if you are starting out.

So, first up I think it's really important to say that if you want to be confident at work really work on developing your skills. Know what your strengths are, know what your weaknesses are and work really hard on developing the things that people at work want you to develop. When people give you criticism, listen to what they say.

It's something that when I talked to Elli Sactis for my book The Star Qualities€ there were people who had done really well in their careers and they all said it's so crucial to listen and to take criticism. And I think often we get really scared of being criticized and we don't listen fully. If you can take home board what someone is saying about you and really work at it then you are going to progress through your career much more quickly.



Once you have got your skills really together and you are doing a good job then it's really worth starting to think about how to have gravitas or credibility because sometimes you do have to stand up in a meeting and make your points and you won't be able to listen to them. Things to think about “ There is a good rule called you have got to be an oaf. And what I mean by that is that if you want to make a big impact in a meeting you have to set your outcome.

You have to decide what you want from that meeting. Do want to get a laugh? Do you want to get people's business cards? Do you want to get people to buy into your project that you want their buy-in from? What is it that you need? Then you need to be aware of their responses. You have got to really listen, pay attention, notice how they are taking what you are saying, then you have got be flexible.

So, you can't be too fixed. You have got to respond to what they are giving you. And if you do that, you will start to have more influence.

Another tip that I think can really help people is if you think about using the language that other people use to you. So, if your boss uses a certain turn of phrase or talks about certain values you can use those values back at them. So, may be they always say “we need the project to be successful”.

If you start your pitch in your meeting with we all want this project to be successful, then your boss is going to feel that you are looking at the goal the same way that they are looking at. You have to careful obviously. You want to make it very shuttle but using their language can really help you.



Another thing to think about is asking lots of questions. If you find out from someone what success looks like “ you can actually ask someone that – what will success look like if we achieve this goal. Then you find out what matters to them and if you can give them what they want, you are going to be successful and you are going to start to feel more confident.

So, listen to people, do the work, set clear goals and then really tune in to people's values and you will start to develop a really healthy sense of confidence. That's because you are doing a great job. And frankly, there is no other kind of confidence to have at work.

Anything else is just arrogance. So, that's how to be confident at work.