Stephen H Baum Leadership

SELF-DOUBT OF leaders has been among the top issues in my career as a coach to CEOs. One of the key learnings from interviewing three dozen CEOs in 2007 was the extent to which they worked on overcoming self-doubt and how they did it. In fact, I wrote a book about it:

what made jack welch JACK WELCH still available on Amazon. Through a series of shaping experiences they developed their desire and their ability to lead themselves and others.

Last week, the NY Times published an article on self-doubt Paul Jasnukas, on the faculty at Maryland Institute,

Self-doubt and The Confidence Game  in which he argues that:

(1) in no line of work is extreme confidence <always??> wholly justified yet we are constantly tested to see if we have it with “moment-of-truth” gut checks – “…are you sure?” Others ask us to test us.  “To be sure and unsure at once, to suspend doubt long enough to perform your role with convincing élan — this is the challenge.”

This far, his view is consistent with my research and professional experience.

Then he goes astray from my findings and decades of experience, saying:

(2) It is necessary to act with loud-voiced bravura. In our society, “it pays to brag and boast” and act with brawn and braggadocio.” He cites sports champions and Donald Trump. He asserts that avoiding perceptions of weakness requires affecting such persona. Speaking quietly in meetings, he asserts is a bad thing.

Having worked closely with CEOs in moments of high stakes, this is rarely effective and even more rarely required.

In fact, GRAVITAS is the more important quality and (as argued in my two prior posts on this subject) the behaviors are anything but brawn and braggadocio – and the best followers recognize it when they see it. If you wish to learn how to know Gravitas when you see it and if you wish to understand what is going on inside the leader who lives it, read two prior posts on this website:

Gravitas: Best of the Best Leaders

Leadership maturity: Inside the Eminence Grise

If you are an aspiring future leader, if you are already a leader and aspire to be better, there is more downside to following Jaskunas’ second assertion. Confidence is not a game. It is a developed state of mind.

That’s just my view. What’s yours?