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Show up authentically
One other critical component for women in terms of confidence is authenticity. We found after a lot of interviews, and especially from some insightful guidance from Christine Lagarde, who’s the first female head of the IMF and a wonderful confidence role model, that confidence will not always look the same way in women as it does in men. It won’t always manifest itself the same way. So we all think of confidence in this sort of Mad Men- style bravado – speaking up first, I’m going to do this, I’ll handle that. That might just be male behavior. That might not be the way confidence will look in a confident woman. And understanding that there has to be an authenticity to our confidence, I think is very important and very powerful because, again, in all of the data about diversity and why diversity works in the workplace and how it helps the bottom line of companies, it’s because it’s a diversity of style – of management style. A diversity of confidence is also something that I think is very powerful for companies, keeping in mind that we don’t have to wear someone else’s armor when we’re trying to be confident. We can think about ways in which we’re confident that feel comfortable to us.
Move from “me” to “we”
One thing that I think is a really useful trick, something useful for women to know based on something that we feel very strongly, is moving from “me” to “we”. Women are heavily motivated by acting on behalf of other people – on behalf of the organization, helping other people, helping your colleagues. You can get a women to do something she would never do for herself if you say, but look, it’s going to help the team. She’s there. We just have a lot of natural confidence and power when we’re doing that. So when you have a situation where, maybe you’re giving a speech you’re nervous about, maybe you have to turn in a presentation, maybe you’ve got a new job and you don’t think you can do it…if you can change your mindset and tell yourself, this isn’t all about me. It’s not me standing up here talking about me. This is me speaking on behalf of my team. This is me speaking because I think I’m going to make a difference on this particular political project. This is me speaking up at this meeting because I really think that the shareholders need this to happen. Anytime we can change our mindset like that we tap into a natural reservoir of power that gets us to confidence a lot more quickly. It’s almost a confidence shortcut.