When you show a lack of courage, you will begin to damage your self-confidence. Therefore, show courage on the outside — even if you don’t
always feel it on the inside. Everyone is afraid sometimes,
so don’t worry about being perfect. There are never right or wrong answers to complex business decisions. The best that you can do as a leader is to gather all of the information that you can (in a timely manner), do a cost-benefit analysis of potential options, use your best judgment — and then go for it. Moreover:
Find happiness and contentment in your work. Life
is short. Research indicates that we are all going to die
anyway. Do your best. Follow your heart. When you win, celebrate. When
you lose, just start over the next day.
Develop greater self-awareness –
By developing self-awareness leaders can understand their strengths and
weaknesses in a balanced way. Acknowledging weaknesses or areas of
development in a constructive manner helps people to improve them and to
see them as challenges rather than obstacles.
Manage inner dialogue
– Often people are overly critical of themselves with the intention of
improving and motivating themselves to be better. Unfortunately this
sometimes erodes all confidence. It is important that when people
experience negative self-talk, they must take responsibility for the
mistake, and turn the situation on its head so it is more positive. They
could think for example, “I was careless in this situation and in
future I will pay more attention and learn from this”. In essence,
people should be kinder to themselves.
Don’t be afraid to fail –
Many entrepreneurs have failed during their working lives and gone on
to achieve great things. Richard Branson started almost a hundred
companies in his career many of which failed, however, people only
remember his successful companies.
Fear of failure often stops
people from doing things. One way people can tackle this head on is by
choosing to do one thing each month that they fear and tackling it, such
as making a presentation to a group of people, or attending a
networking event alone.
Ask for feedback –
Requesting feedback shows a huge amount of courage but it can really
help people see their blind spots. When receiving feedback, it’s
important to be open and not defensive about it.
Learn to live with failure. Great salespeople are
the ones who get rejected the most often. They just ask for the order
more than the other salespeople. You are going to make mistakes. You are
human. Learn from these mistakes and move on.
After you make the final decision — commit! Don’t
continually second-guess yourself. Great leaders communicate with a
sense of belief in what they are doing and with positive expectations
toward the achievement of their vision.
