My professional voice (be confident)
My presentation
Create a PowerPoint presentation consisting of three slides that answer the following questions:
Understanding confidence
Confidence is a representation of how competent you are to others. It's hard to definitively measure how competent someone is at their job or how well they will fare in certain tasks or under different conditions. That's why confidence is important to convey to others that you are important and that you do bring value.
Results don't always speak for themselves - simply because sometimes results cannot be directly attributed to individuals. Whether a person makes a sale cannot always be directly because of their skill, as there could be a variety of factors that cause that to happen. Good marketing could lead someone to that sale, or competition could drive sales away - both which are independent and unrelated to the salesperson themselves.
Since it's often difficult to distinguish luck from performance, people evaluate your competence based on how you carry yourself. This means that it is extremely important to convey confidence when faced with hypothetical situations to avoid being perceived as less than competent by first impression.
Moreover, your own attitude can affect how well you perform. In games, if you have the idea that you can lose from the beginning, this can influence how you play and may deter you from making risky or blind you from seeing obvious ploys. This idea of tilt is so powerful that it can cause a person to drive themselves to the ground and limit their potential behind their own mindset. Consequently, having an air of confidence that you can do it, will positively affect your performance and push you to do better than not.
Why do people value confidence?
An explanation that I find is easy to comprehend is that once people are told something and accept the fact, they will often look for evidence that supports this idea to confirm their belief. This inclination towards a certain idea means that the initial impression that you give to others is critical in how they see you, and will shape the image that they form of you in their head.
This is often denoted as the phenomenon of 'Confirmation Bias' where people have a tendency to focus on things that confirm their belief system. It's this reason that make people fixed towards their own contentions and why you may deviate towards those who have something in common or think alike; resulting in factions, cults, groups, etc.
So essentially, if you project confidence, others will believe your words and look to filter information that supports their impression of you.
Showing confidence is a matter of communication
Confidence is a delicate balance
While it is important to be assertive to ensure that your ideas are heard, confidence is a delicate balance. There's a fine line that shouldn't be crossed where you may veer into arrogance, where over-confidence can put you in dangerous situations leagues above your true capability.
This balancing act requires a good amount of self-awareness and emotional intelligence to keep yourself in check as you project confidence.
A healthy amount of confidence should push you just enough out of your comfort zone to provide a meaningful challenge instead of creating an unpassable wall of overwhelming difficulty.
Companies value confidence
What's more - confidence is extremely attractive, so people naturally gravitate towards people who exude confidence. If you have the confidence, you can be decisive and intentional with your actions - meaning you provide a clear direction as a leader. People will be able to trust you and feel that you have control over the matter as a team.
Another valuable aspect of confidence is that employees which often become the face of the company represent to the public what the company is, such that their perspectives are shaped by their interactions with its workers. With confidence, employees can be more atute spokespeople of their organisation and be more engaging with those outside of the company (this is the very concept of brand perception).
If you think like this, the receptionist of your workplace thereby is extremely important as they serve as the first interaction people will have once they step into your space.
Additionally, confident people are typically more active and contribute positively; serving as good role-models for being productive and innovative in the workplace. Again, confident employees are people who are sure of themselves - so they can serve as pillars for other individuals to look up to.
Don't fake confidence, but recognise your worth
While confidence should be displayed, you shouldn't blindly project false confidence as it portrays a false image of you. One should be confident, but also aware of their own shortcomings and where they can communicate lack of ability/knowledge - that too is a strength of communication. For genuine confidence, you should seek to understand your own worth and where your strengths lie.
The importance of confidence stems from the idea that too much comes across as arrogant and boastful whereas being too humble and meek builds on the possibility of failure when others are considering you as part of the equation. Think about it - who would you realistcally rely upon? Someone who is too shy and unapproachable, or someone who is confident and sure of them themselves?
If you yourself cannot trust in your own abilities, how can you expect others to? People will feed off your own energy and accept the image that you bring to them.
To convince others of your abilities, you need to get in the habit of communicating to others what you are good at. This is especially true in interviews - these people don't know you. They don't know your story, nor have the time to sit and understand everything about you. They can only evaluate what you present to them, and judge whether or not you are good for the job based on your appearance; this pertains to your behaviour, actions and speech.
Authentic confidence is understanding yourself
To be fully confident in yourself, you need to understand what value you have as a person. This can be determined by asking yourself things such as:
What am I good at?
What has been my greatest success so far?
Why should others be led by me?
What do I know that others don't?
Similarly for jobs, you have similar questions to the same end:
What are your strengths and weaknesses?
What is your experience with?
Why are you good for this position?
You cannot expect to convince others if you have not convinced yourself of your own worth. This is what confidence is. To recognise you are worthy is daring, and can lead to challenges for yourself - but that alone spurs on your growth. Being confident isn't limited to simply praising yourself of your abilities but even simply displaying optimism in the face of adversity shows others that you are a rock they can rely on.
People will naturally gravitate to those who appear strong as those are the ones who rise and become leaders. This is the voice that is the clearest in the storm and stands firm and confident in their position. By being confident, you set yourself up to be recognised for your accomplishments and competence.
Strategy: Closely monitor your success
I think coming out from this task, I have a more whole understanding of confidence and how important it is, especially when interacting with people at work. This image of you that others see is greatly affected by what you show them. Therefore, choosing confidence to positively bring to light your strengths is something that I want to develop more so that I can take on more challenges and grow and people will want to rely on me more (becoming more dependable and competent).
So I want to start tracking my accomplishments (usually this is placed in a resume) but having a place to mark these down of things that are impressible and feats that I consider extremely worthwhile. Moreover, I want to work towards more challenging projects so that I feel and become more competent!
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