The Confidence Gap
There’s a lot going on at the moment in relation to gender equality. Everything from the #metoo movement to podcasts and literature discussing women’s struggles. A recent favourite of mine is Jamila Rizvi’s book, ‘Not Just Lucky’, discussing why women are doing the hard work but not taking the credit. It’s amazing, so if you’re a young woman who struggles with confidence and/or is insecure when accepting praise, go and read it. I think I bought about six copies and gifted them to my boss, my bosses boss, my family and friends.
One of the topics raised in the book is about what we’re teaching our little women from the day they’re born. Not just our parents, but also our teachers and society in general. The idea that, basically, we teach our girls to look and be “nice” from day one (because that’s what good girls do), that releasing anger through tantrums and aggression is not acceptable, and therefore the only outlet to release these frustrations is through crying. We’re never challenged to understand our feelings and rarely find a different outlet to release them as we grow up, so it follows us into adulthood. This isn’t particularly helpful in a boardroom.
This was not a new concept for me. To be honest, I was first smacked over the head and left dumbfounded with this revelation when I came across a Cosmopolitan article (yes, you read that correctly, good ol’ Cosmo mag) many years ago. The article discussed this topic in great detail and I related to it so deeply, that I gave it to my boss, as I couldn’t find the right words to explain my lack of confidence and how it paralysed me in the workplace, quite as well as the article could. The last time I saw my bosses personnel file on me, this article was still sitting in the very front.
I always liked school and for the most part was good at it because I followed the rules. Be polite, be gracious, try your hardest and you’ll be rewarded for it. But the corporate world doesn’t work like that. Overnight it changes. Polite only gets you so far. Graciousness is overpowered by ego and assertiveness. Trying your hardest is no longer enough, if you can’t get the results. There’s no reward for trying (without outcome), other than not getting fired. Which is completely overwhelming to a 21 year old entering the workforce. Everything I knew for the first 20 years of my life, no longer served me, and so my tears continued to roll down my cheeks when my voice failed me. Time and time again.
For those close to me, they were perplexed by my lack of confidence. I certainly don’t present that way to my family and friends. But when I stepped into the workplace, challenged by people, smarter, stronger and more versatile than I saw myself, it was crippling. My late 20’s demanded growth in this area. Purely because I just couldn’t continue to be a mute; fearful of my colleagues opinions.
There is no easy singular path in overcoming confidence issues. For me, it started with the cosmo article. Understanding that I had been conditioned as a young girl, to react to emotional triggers in a certain way; putting me at ease that I wasn’t crazy and I certainly wasn’t alone. Having a boss and mentor who understood my struggles assisted me to hash out issues when they arose. My boss would put me on projects which I could utilise my analytical skills, deep-dive into data and then present this information back to my colleagues. Having data, which for me is black and white and very safe, helped me feel comfortable with what I was speaking about. My boss also become a cheerleader for when I had a small win, for example succeeding in a group presentation. But the biggest step in overcoming my self deprecation, came when on an interstate training session. I, for the first time, saw without the rose-tinted glasses on, my colleagues’ value vs my own. For years, I had only valued my colleagues ‘best’ attributes and only ever acknowledged my ‘bad’ ones. When I sat back I noticed that overtime, I had grown to know just as much as they did. They were showing signs of fear and discomfort when speaking in large groups, just as I did. And through this balancing of value; I found my feet, then my voice, then my confidence.
My learning’s from filling my confidence gap:
- Read as much literature as you can (or at the very least, Google and YouTube them). Jamila Rizvi, Brene Brown, Sheryl Sandberg are just the beginning.
- You’re not alone. Talk to some colleagues, a mentor or your boss. You’ll realise how common, for both men and women, lacking confidence is.
- Analyse your value proposition. Are you being fair to yourself? Are you truly seeing everyone, including yourself, in the same light?
