One of the most common problems I encounter when helping managers and business owners become more successful is with leadership development and sales confidence.
Most people running a business begin with the skills they already have, and follow a style based upon past experience (or inexperience) or perhaps what they have observed and learned from others.
Eventually they discover they might not know the most effective ways of handling the variety of issues related to leading and running a successful business. This includes everything from managing employees and marketing their company to the face to face interactions with customers.
You can take classes on Management 101 or Sales 101 and learn tremendous leadership skills. However the sleeping giant I found with most business owners in the area of leadership development and sales competence is anxiety. Yes, that’s right we often bump up against our own discomfort when leading others toward our company vision and agenda.
Overcoming Leadership Anxiety
Now whether or not you experience true anxiety or not, we have found a direct correlation between leadership effectiveness and self-confidence, even if you have the normal skills for managing people. In fact, this the hidden source of most communication failure.
This discomfort can be experienced as everything from a mild sense of wanting to avoid an issue, to extreme anxiety. Notice what comes up for you when you think about confronting a sensitive issue. Can you lead with complete confidence? And I am not talking about merely acting confident. I am talking about feeling confident at your core—at the cellular DNA level.
Many people don’t realize that a hidden form of low self esteem is at the root of many patterns such as anxiety, procrastination, perfectionism, fear when speaking or doing a sales presentation, asking for a loan from a bank and so on. In fact there are numerous studies that show over 85% of all people (including business owners) live with some sort of self-esteem deficit.
I worked with a business owner, “Bob” who experienced extreme anxiety when needing to manage his team and keeping them accountable to following through on commitments. Bob’s pattern was “Every time I think about telling my team what needs to be done, I feel anxious and second guess my decisions or method. And even though I’m clear in my mind, I avoid it.”
There were 16 beliefs we found related to Bob’s pattern. The beliefs hidden in his subconscious included ones such as:
- I don’t matter
- What I have to say doesn’t matter
- People don’t care what I have to say
- I’m powerless
- My needs don’t matter
These are the types of hidden beliefs that hold an unwanted pattern in place. That is, until you learn how to uncover and release them. Can you see now where this man’s anxiety and indecision came from? And can you see the connection between the beliefs and the unwanted pattern?
If you have beliefs such as these running in your subconscious mind, they can render you essentially ineffective in getting the leadership results you want, such as achieving full accountability from your team. Once all the beliefs were cleared away, Bob was freed from second guessing himself that was fueled by the anxiety.
Gaining Confidence
Even when you recognize a confidence deficit in some area of your life, gaining confidence can feel like a mountain to climb unless you have the right tools.
That is where our special clearing process comes in. It is the most powerful process we have learned in our 30 years of study and work with personal and business growth to effectively overcoming self-defeating patterns, such as procrastination, sales anxiety, low confidence, fear of failure and so on.
Working with business owners, there are 3 kinds of confidence we work with, self confidence, leadership confidence and sales confidence.
I define confidence as a sense of certainty—certainty about your value, your leadership, your choices, your relationships, and your management style.
All of this contributes to high emotional intelligence—which is the ability to maintain internal stability when dealing with tough challenges.
And low self esteem is one of the biggest blocks to enjoying this inner peace and even your outer fulfillment…no matter your leadership status.
Building Robust Confidence
It doesn’t have to take long to clear away the blocks to success in your leadership development. In fact, in most cases it takes only about 90 days. It is amazing how in a matter of a few weeks working with the right processes, you are suddenly free from a pattern that has plagued you for years. Imagine what your leadership could be like with your confidence operating at full speed.
- Confidence in your leadership
- Confidence in your sales
- Confidence in your core self
The first steps in building robust confidence are to become aware of any discomfort you may have about your leadership. Then notice what types of situations trigger the anxiety or discomfort, such as whenever you have a different opinion or a new suggestion, or when your team is not buying in fully to your instructions. Notice at what point you begin to feel anxious or uncomfortable.
Next, search for hidden beliefs that may contribute to your discomfort. Look for beliefs such as “I am not important” or “What I have to say is not important” and so on. There are more steps to this process included in my November article titled Overcoming Low Self Esteem, How to Gain Confidence.
Yet, to completely clear the pattern and dissolve it for good, you will likely need the help of a trained facilitator who can help you uncover and eliminate all of the beliefs. But just these firststeps are powerful all on their own, and will help you in moving forward.
So when thinking about your next steps in your leadership develpment, indeed you need to learn the skills of leadership and sales. Just be sure to clear away the unwanted pattern(s) so you can lead with both skill and confidence.♥
Desirée Watson is a transformational success coach and trainer who specializes in helping people clear away patterns they wish they didn’t have. To learn more about how Desirée can help you go to your next level of success go to CoachDesiree.com.