Leadership is a matter of having people look at you and gain confidence, seeing how you react. If you’re in control, they’re in control. – Tom Landry
Confidence is one hell of a drug. It is thee base drug at the foundation of all others. Love, happiness, joy, lust, all these have one base commonality despite all their differences. And that is the feeling of confidence they deliver. It means never having to second guess yourself and be paralyzed by it.
If you think of the most widely popular and consumed drug of choice, alcohol, it has always been so addicting in spite of all the side effects simply because of that surge of confidence people admit to have while drunk.
But external factors and substances can only ever get you so far until they bring you down. But our search for that confidence is never ending, and in the wake of all other methods we all will grasp at any means of getting it.
I could tell you that you need to cultivate your own confidence. I could also tell you to “fake it till you make it”, but ultimately, you yourself will always feel off if you bullshit yourself. There is no cheat sheet to gain confidence. You must go through the painstaking and arduous motions like all the rest of us. Build up one small success after another, chain them all together and remember it’s a numbers game and slowly but surely you will gain confidence, in the work you do and ultimately in yourself.
But while you are at it, the people around you cannot spot the act if you deliver it well enough.
So make it a point to keep a calm and confident demeanor for your people. Conduct yourself with calm and poise. If you find yourself in over your head then act confused, but do so sincerely. Nothing wrong with being confused or even lost. Just don’t appear frightened or anxious.
Keep a calm, composed facade if necessary, anything you need to do to appear calm, cool and confident. This will inspire those around you to also be confident. They will cool off, calm down and borrow from your confident demeanor and slowly but surely build up confidence for themselves. You’ll do fine.