Taking the “Con” out of Confidence!

A client of mine recently shared they admired my confidence - I PANICKED!

As someone who is deeply aware of my positionality at the center of most power wheels, I know that a little confidence can be a dangerous thing.

I felt I needed a framework or model that could ground me, letting me show up confident without showing up biased, or frankly arrogant! For those who have followed my writing, you know I love a good framework, so I went looking… and I couldn’t find anything that resonated. I wanted a model that let me feel the joy of diving into complex challenges and exploring opportunities for organizations and partners, without the panic that I may be succumbing to my own perspective informed by my positionality.

So… I did some reflection and came up with my own! Below is a framework that helps me navigate the dangerous pitfalls of confidence":

🛶Humility: Confidence without humility is arrogance and narrows your perspective.

🛶Vulnerability: Be willing to change perspectives, be willing to hear hard truths, and respond with openness when your bias is challenged.

🛶Curiosity: Never have more answers than questions, let yourself be surprised by where research and conversations lead you.

🛶Consultation: Complex problems impact many stakeholders/ right holders - build trust and talk to them all!

🛶Co-Create: Once you understand the problem and have partners to generate solutions - use them! There is no such thing as a 'smartest person in the room', the wisdom of the room outsmarts us all.

🛶Knowledge: Once you've co-created solutions you have new knowledge. Confidence grows from knowledge, but knowledge is also fluid, so...

🛶REPEAT: Change happens, and it happens all the time. The confidence created through this model is finite, and we live in infinite systems. What we know today may not serve us tomorrow. True confidence can only be held onto if it's tended to continuously.

I'd love to hear your thoughts! What is in your confidence framework?