In an exclusive taster of a major feature in the Q4 edition of Dialogue, Dr William A Cohen explores the three ways of becoming self-confident
Peter Drucker believed that no manager can operate effectively without taking risks. The fact is that taking risks demands self-confidence. Drucker wrote: “Living in fear of loss of job and income is incompatible with taking responsibility for job and work group, for output and performance.” That’s all well and good, but how can you not fear job loss, especially in times when loss of job is a real possibility, regardless of tenure or prior highly successful performance?
The answer is usually self confidence
I challenge you to find any ‘up-and-comer,’ ‘fast burner’ or whatever you want to call managers who seem to zoom right up the corporate ladder and right past their contemporaries, who don’t possess a healthy dose of self-confidence as well. Self-confidence is always a necessity for significant success. Unfortunately the fact that it is a necessity doesn’t in itself tell us how to acquire this important trait.
Drucker’s secrets
You must acquire self-confidence yourself before can you instill it in others. Yet in my research into Drucker I found only three ways to have self-confidence:
1. Being born with it
2. Gain it slowly and laboriously over many years as you acquire experience. Make mistakes, learn from them
3. Start building your self-confidence yourself, purposely, improving in whenever you decide
You have little control over the first. Yet the second and third type are things you can work on. Want to know how? Watch out for my major feature in the Q4 edition of Dialogue, out this fall.