Don’t confuse lack of confidence for competence.
When one of your top performers gets promoted into a senior role and they aren’t delivering as well as you thought they might, it's down to competence; one promotion too far isn’t it?
Or is it. Look more closely.
As a coach, I work with senior managers to help them see what might have changed for them in the step up and what’s holding them back from bringing their best selves to the role. So often it's their beliefs and assumptions about themselves or ‘how things are’ that impact their confidence and get in their way.
Here are four telltale signs that your manager might be lacking some confidence in their more senior surroundings.
They stay busy – all jobs are busy and as you go higher up the ladder, your time is in more demand but notice when they are always in meetings and don’t have time to make decisions, sign off work or have that awkward cross departmental conversation. Meeting rooms can provide a good hiding place.
Not letting go – being able to delegate effectively is a cornerstone of management, if you don’t do it, it can lead to a multitude of other problems (like some mentioned here!). When someone isn’t letting go of the work their team should be doing it can be because it's what they know and feel comfortable with. It's their comfort zone.
Micromanaging – they’re afraid of making mistakes and the work ‘being wrong’ so they micromanage the team or department so that the work is done ‘how they would do it’.
Procrastination – As a result of all of the above, they ‘don’t have the time’ to deliver the things that the business and CEO needs, like the department strategy or that restructure that’s badly needed.
As an HR manager, director, or member of the C-suite team, if you spot any of these signs, don’t jump to a conclusion that it's down to competence, it could well be confidence.
Want to support your managers or leaders? Training courses help with best practices and techniques, but often it’s the ways of thinking, beliefs and assumptions that hold people back from being the confident leader they can be.
That’s where our inside and out leadership programme can help. Our group coaching sessions take everything back one step to focus on the person. We’ll shine a light to help them find their own managerial and leadership style by exploring how they perceive, think and respond will help create authentic and emotionally intelligent leaders.