At our recent Design Club we talked about Wonder Woman. The iconic superhero with the famous ‘power stance’. This stance is often referred to when talking about building our confidence and feelings of power.
We used words like empowerment, assertiveness, bold and self-assured. Words that have a particular tone and resonance. Amy Cuddy’s research showed that taking a power pose or open stance, even for 2 minutes can increase our feelings of power and confidence.
Confidence levels affect us all. But research by Harvard Business Review showed that leaders are prone to attributing a lack of self confidence to a failure in career progression, particularly in women. Women are often told to’ be more assertive’, ‘stand their ground’ and ‘fake it til they make it’ . While balancing the expectation to be likeable, unintimidating and not domineering.
Confidence culture leads to the expectation that women in particular are responsible for their lack of career progression. Not the organisational culture or workplace structures they live and work within.
This places yet another blocker on women’s professional development and personal wellbeing.
Confidence and wellbeing
High self-confidence and self-esteem are associated with better health and social lives. They protect against mental ill health, and support healthier coping. And a level of confidence is particularly important in the workplace. It means we can be braver, ask questions, challenge, speak our minds, and feel assured in our abilities. It's also a balancing act. Overconfidence often has negative connotations and impact, particularly on relationships.
Showing a level of vulnerability and humility is humanising. It creates psychological safety and makes us more relatable. Nothing undermines confidence more than feeling unable to say what you need. Say how you feel or to feel blamed and judged.
For women in particular there are life experiences that can affect confidence. Taking time out to have a family, caring responsibilities and coping with menopause. All while juggling careers, can have a negative impact on self-esteem and confidence.
As a woman in the menopause stage, I find the effects often difficult to manage. Hot flushes and brain fog are just two of the symptoms that are impacting my confidence and self-esteem. It’s difficult to give a presentation when you’re raging hot, you can’t concentrate and you can’t recall words!
For Emily it was returning to work after maternity leave.
“We don’t have family nearby to help. Our son has eczema and allergies which means more meal preparation ahead of childcare. And I have continuous thoughts about prioritising my son while adding value to the company and growing my career. It can feel overwhelming.”
So how can organisations support the confidence of their employees?
With kindness! Kindness is not a soft, weak, ‘nice to have’ concept. It’s about making a choice to do something that helps others, or yourself. Being authentic and compassionate. And not expecting something in return. That can be hard to do.
A kind organisation is one that starts from a position of trust. One that knows and values people as individuals and affords them a high level of autonomy. That supports growth and development opportunities. And understands the balance between our personal and professional lives. That offers flexibility, open and honest communication, and values care and attention. Where people are able to ask for help and speak up if they are struggling without fear of judgement or criticism.
If founders, leaders and colleagues behave with kindness then we are better able to support each other's confidence. That may be knowing what an individual needs and finding ways to support them. Or open up the right opportunities for them. Or noticing and taking a moment to check in that someone is OK. Giving positive feedback and showing gratitude to each other. Building pro social behaviours like this into organisational culture goes a long way to building confidence and resilience for everyone - no matter what their personal background or experiences.
Is it useful to talk about confidence?
As individuals we can do things to improve our levels of confidence. But organisations also need to both support people and provide an environment that doesn’t further entrench negative patterns of behaviour.
From research, the Harvard Business Review recommends that until organisations are certain that the confidence narrative isn’t negatively affecting women, it shouldn’t be a focus in relation to feedback, performance and reviews. This is interesting. It suggests that employers should build women’s capabilities in alternative ways. Look at the organisational structure or roadblocks that prevent women from entering leadership roles.
What do we do at Unboxed?
As a small organisation with over 50% women it is important for us to think about how we talk about confidence. And how we support all our people to thrive and deliver good work. We are lucky to have experienced, talented, humble, curious and kind people and we want everyone to feel confident in themselves. For their professional development, personal wellbeing and for our clients.
In my personal experience, I have appreciated the understanding and care of colleagues. And the flexibility afforded to me while managing challenging menopausal symptoms. An open and transparent culture makes me feel more confident to talk about my experiences. I can work from home if I need to and I can ask for help when I need it.
Juggling a new addition to the family and coming back to work, Emily reflected on how she felt with the new change:
“I was comfortable with asking for part-time/flexible work hours. I’m not made to feel like I’m being difficult if I work from home or leave early to collect my son. And I don’t feel I am treated differently if I can’t stay for work socials. With such big changes in my personal life, ultimately I feel confident enough to work in a slightly different way, in a space that is safe to do so.”
Bereavement is something that affects us all at some point. Rhian sadly experienced a bereavement and found her confidence knocked.
“When I returned to work at Unboxed, after losing my father my confidence was at a low point. I was able to talk honestly about how I was feeling. To have those feelings validated made all the difference to me and gave me space to recover after the bereavement.”
Dawn came back from maternity leave and felt quite anxious.
“I was exhausted and couldn’t imagine being able to juggle home life with the role I had left twelve months before. But Unboxed gave me the time to find my feet again. It allowed me to familiarise myself with tools and processes, learn new skills and regain the confidence I needed before returning to project work.”
We don’t always get this right. But our values of care and attention, healthy relationships and openness and transparency support the team to build confidence and deliver for our clients. We all have the confidence and humility to say “we don’t know” sometimes, but we’ll work together to find a way forward.
Understanding and enabling people to play to their strengths builds confidence. We often find ourselves in challenging situations. Knowing we can ask for help without fear of judgement or criticism means we learn new things and find the best solutions. Our monthly guided reflection sessions provide a safe space to process our emotions and highs and lows. Peer to peer mentors and experienced leads listen and provide knowledge and support. Dedicated monthly reflection time offers the space to process, reflect and set goals.
So we would argue that kindness builds all of our confidence and provides the best solutions for our clients. Read more about kindness in the workplace and why it matters in our blog post.
