Nothing signals leadership like confidence, and those who seek influence are warned to develop theirs. It takes confidence to stand for something. It requires confidence to stay strong in the face of inevitable resistance and to listen carefully and openly to others’ concerns while advancing your own.
Confidence comes in two measures. One is basic – the self-assurance from having done your homework: knowing the situation you face, what you believe, what needs to happen, what you plan to do, and what you can anticipate. This part is tied to preparation, resolve, and readiness for action. Determination is its close companion.
A second part is more personal – and is the direct link to joy. It involves the unabashed and uncensored use of your talents, leveraging your full self with its full range of quirks, to your efforts. This is not advocacy to shoot from the hip and let it all hang out. Leadership is a strategic art and science. Rather, we increase our effectiveness – and raise our capacity for joy – when we implement our plans in ways that don’t stress and stifle us.
Students and executives too often come to leadership training and weigh themselves down with a self-imposed, heavy leadership mantle. In their search for more skill, impact, and effective, they get stiff and serious. Seriousness about learning and making a difference is not the same as becoming rigid or downright dour in how you handle your professional self. Nor does it mean that you’ll succeed by learning to be like someone else.
You have your best shot of success when you bring a light heart and confidence that you have something to offer. People will want to connect with you – and leadership, after all, is all about relationships.
Here’s where leaders – and leaders-in-training – can learn from artists who often exhibit a professional confidence and public comfort with their idiosyncrasies.
I’m very big these days on the PS22 5th grade Chorus from Staten Island. (See previous post. Check the Chorus out on YouTube. Mark your calendar to watch them on the 83rd Annual Academy Awards, February 27.)
As a leadership scholar, I like studying their leader, Gregg Breinberg. Mr. B’s a terrific musician and teacher, no question about that. But I particularly enjoy his authenticity – he’s been clear about his vision, unyielding on his focus, and relating to the kids and audiences in the same manner since the Chorus’s founding. The teaching point for leaders is his willingness to do whatever it takes to keep the Chorus positive, on key, and performing to their best – without feeling in any way self-conscious or as if he needs to become “more professional or serious” or to acquiesce to those with more status as the Chorus’s status rises. Those who have watched him work describe his style as that of an “overgrown 5th grader.” He is proud to claim his own “inner clown.”
“Watch my face. I can help you,” you hear repeated across rehearsal and performance tapes – and he’ll use his face, movements, body, humor, and energy the same whether he is in front of Oprah Winfrey, a famous musician who’s come to hear the Chorus, or the kids in the school auditorium during rehearsal.
No evidence of any worries about how to lead or of that nagging inner voice that leadership students report – the self-evaluations that keep them questioning themselves and just a little off-center. Am I dressed for success? Am I doing it right? Do I have the right stuff? How will others respond? Am I leading yet? What will my boss think?
So prepare, and then let go and act. Be the leader you were made to be. Give yourself the freedom to work in ways that fit your talents and style. It’ll make your work — and life — more joyful.