Confidence doesn't always have to be hard-earned; sometimes it just needs to be named.
When people take on new responsibilities, there might be excitement and joy, but also trepidation.
Bad Bosses hand out new assignments with disregard for people's strengths or workload. They might focus more on what they, the Bad Boss, don't want to do rather than who is the best person for the task.
Effective leaders will do their best to assess the new responsibility and who on the team might have the skills and time to do the task (or take something from their workload and reassign that).
Effective leaders will have a conversation with their team member. When the person receives new work, they might be nervous about their skills to get the job done well. The leader who is interested in success will point out what they see as the skills that align, how the team member has already demonstrated competence, and what might be some learning opportunities.
The team member might not have had confidence at the beginning, but when an effective leader identifies and labels their prior successes in this context, their confidence goes up so they can start the project from a mindset of success rather than an aspiration to avoid failure.
For those comfortable sharing, what's a situation where you pointed out someone else's competence or someone identified yours?
Cover Photo by Basil James on Unsplash