In her September 13 “Your Best Next Move” video, Bobbie LaPorte the last of the three “shifts” that all leaders need to make right now: how to regain confidence even when life keeps throwing us curveballs. In today’s uncertain world, confidence can no longer be based on our functional knowledge or past accomplishments. Instead, it’s all about self-awareness—and building on the leadership strengths we already have to use our talents in new ways.
Transcript of Your Best Next Move: Regain Confidence When Continually Being Hit with Curveballs
Hi everyone, Bobbie LaPorte here again with my weekly tip for your Best Next Move – where I help you have more agency in your work, acknowledge your capacity to act, and see what you can do right now.
In the last two weeks, my tips have been covering the major shifts I believe leaders must make – now – to successfully navigate uncertainty. The first tip was how decision-making has changed; last week we covered how to respond to unexpected situations.
This week – I want to cover the third shift: that is that confidence in an uncertain world has changed from a traditional definition of confidence based on functional skillsets to one based on self-awareness, self-knowledge, and using your strengths and assets.
And that’s because success in today’s world is more about your self-awareness and self-knowledge than your functional knowledge and past accomplishments
And it’s less about relying on your past experience to efficiently deliver results, than it is to expand what you are capable of, to more effectively deliver results drawing on what you already do well.
To make this shift, you must understand your strengths, to see how they can be used in a broader way to expand what you are capable of…..moving beyond what you’ve done in the past, to what you can do now.
It also requires you to develop deep self-knowledge and self-awareness; to rely more on your internal compass. Readiness for leadership success in an uncertain world is “an inside job”. You must be prepared to examine your fears and doubts, to acknowledge that you don’t have all the answers, but that you can move confidently forward, putting you in a position to know that you will always have a response to challenging situations.
I want you to know that I have experienced all three of these shifts on my Ironman journey. It was a transformational one for me, one where I learned to make split-second decisions that allowed me to regroup and not get derailed; to quickly respond to an unexpected situation, to see possibility, not loss. And I learned what confidence looked like, and it meant looking for and finding the answers I needed within myself.
Let me tell you – this was hard for me, as I am not by nature someone who enjoys self-reflection and self-examination. I think this is also true for many successful leaders, who feel that they must power through challenges, not show any signs of weakness, pretend they have the answers when they do not.
Does that sound familiar to you? If it does, you are not alone.
Your journey to success in today’s world, one where you can confidently see what is possible, make no-regret decisions, and put your best gifts to work begins with self-awareness… with believing in yourself.
Reflect on a time when you were faced with a difficult situation that threatened your confidence: were you able to shift and see how you could draw on your internal compass to restore your confidence? Did this knowledge create a different solution outside of your functional talents?
If your answer was that you automatically defaulted to your functional skillsets, to what you’ve done in the past – here’s my tip:
Trust yourself that you will find the answer if you stop to think about what you can do based on what you already do well; on the gifts, you have as a leader. With our world changing so quickly, there’s a good chance that what you might have done in the past no longer works. You can and will find the way forward if you define your confidence in your ability to use those talents in new ways – to always have the answer and be ready for anything.
As always, I want 2021 to be a year of momentum for you, one of possibility thinking that takes advantage of the agency we sometimes forget we have.
That’s my tip for this week. My book: “When the Curveballs Keep Coming – A Leadership Playbook for an Uncertain World” – will be out in the fall. Stay tuned for more information.
I’ll see you next week. Take care of yourselves.