Hope you will visit often and offer your view on any topic of interest here at Smart SenseAbilities(tm).

Kate

That’s exactly what I was insisting yesterday with a project leader! He was suggesting to push training IT people after doing the project so it doesn’t get delayed but I stopped the project and I fought for having training at the beginning of the project! I hope I was treating my IT support as adults

Regards,
Khalid

Many thanks for your contribution here.
Warmest regards,
Kate

Students (and employees!) need leadership and it actually takes a great deal of strength, courage, and confidence to say, “I want to learn from you. I want to become stronger, more knowledgeable, and more mighty in what I do because of your teachings.”

Leaders and professors need to recognize the gifts that they have to offer and find the confidence in ourselves to offer it! Ellen Bremen @chattyprof

I love this article. Judgments of another person’s confidence level all too easily can represent a form of escape for the judger — a judgment that quickly shuts down the person judged and slams the door on the conversation. Perhaps underneath there is a subtle threat for the judger — one that he/she might find by opening up the conversation. Perhaps, for example, had “Dr. Thick” stayed with the conversation, he would have felt uncomfortable about how he chose to handle the class. Perhaps it would have affected his confidence in his own decision. There’s every possibility the accusation, “you must not be very confident,” is really a projection.

In other cases, perhaps we’d have to acknowledge the other person’s temperament or style or conditioning for what it is, instead of reducing people to a simplistic conclusion of strong or weak. We’d have to accept complexity, and work with it.

Your advice, as always, is so appropriate — Go the other way! Open it up! Learn about the other person.

It’s interesting, isn’t it, that confidence can be such a sensitive topic; how judgments about it can lead to recognition and support or be used as a self-protective weapon. There is a lot of opportunity and tragedy in this. It’s a powerful leverage point. How much better we’d be in our leadership if we’d listen for that inner “performance goal” of the other person and help that individual meet it or revise it realistically. Such a “service” can benefit the parties enormously in trust, mutual problem-solving, and the development of collaborative solutions — instead of trying to escape from them.

Nice article.

I will pick up from Mary’s comment above, I’m an introvert and my boss was worried to make me take his position in future but I proved him wrong when I did!

Regards,
Khalid

I once had a young client who was an introvert assume that he couldn’t become a leader in a large organization. Of course he could (and I’m hoping he did)! I’m so glad that leaders are beginning to understand that personalities that don’t fit a stereotype can be very effective leaders; we’re all better for such diversity! Thanks for the mention and link to my article. Have a great week.