How CEOs Manage Doubt

Real CEOs exude confidence. Radiate certainty. Act decisively. Or so popular mythology has it. (Think Don Geiss, the fictional chief executive of General Electric played by Rip Torn on NBC’s comedy 30 Rock.)

In fact, the overwhelming majority of CEOs confess that they have doubts. That’s one of the striking findings of The CEO Report, the product of a yearlong global research partnership between Saïd Business School at the University of Oxford and Heidrick & Struggles. Of the more than 150 CEOs who sat down with us for confidential, in-depth interviews, 71 percent not only admit to doubt but also embrace it as a basis for better decisions.

“If you don’t doubt yourself in a constructive, positive way,” said one participant, “you are borderline dangerous for your company.”

Doubt is a challenge of both knowledge and emotion. Knowledge can fall anywhere on a continuum from full not knowing to full knowledge. Feelings of doubt can fall anywhere between anxiety and fearlessness. How much knowledge do you have when you face a difficult decision? How anxious do you feel? How might you use your uncertainty as a tool?

Thinking about doubt along those two dimensions, with their four possible combinations, provides a systematic way — for CEOs and other leaders alike — to manage doubt and even use it as a competitive advantage:

Low knowledge/no fear. This is perhaps the most dangerous combination of all. The risk is hubris — charging blindly ahead, despite what you don’t know. The remedy is preparation. The means, say the CEOs we spoke with, lie in risk management to increase the odds that what you don’t know won’t hurt you. Techniques can include scenario planning, worst-case scenarios, long-term planning, contingency planning, and more. The goal, as in all instances of doubt, is to find a comfort zone in which you can act decisively despite not having full knowledge.

High knowledge/no fear. Of all the possibilities, this one would seem to entail the least doubt. Even so, there remains the risk of myopia — the chance that a false sense of security has led you to overlook other important choices. The remedy is challenge. Diversity of thought provides the means to get there. As one CEO put it, “One of the most important things is having people around you that tell you how wrong you are.” You can seek diverse points of view from your management team, your board, and a wide variety of other people inside and outside the company. You can also use techniques such as war gaming or a devil’s advocate to surface contrary views, and you can foster a culture of constructive dissent.

High knowledge/high anxiety. The risk here is angst — not just another word for anxiety, but a deep-seated fear that could prevent you from pursuing a course of action you are convinced is right. The remedy lies in validation. You can seek it from mentors and the board, from other internal sounding boards, and through benchmarking. And if you don’t get validation, you can at least learn that your fear was justified.High knowledge/high anxiety. The risk here is angst — not just another word for anxiety, but a deep-seated fear that could prevent you from pursuing a course of action you are convinced is right. The remedy lies in validation. You can seek it from mentors and the board, from other internal sounding boards, and through benchmarking. And if you don’t get validation, you can at least learn that your fear was justified.

Low knowledge/high anxiety. This is the worst of both worlds and the condition likely to generate maximum doubt. The risk is paralysis — an unaffordable risk when a decision must be made despite the state of your knowledge or your emotions. The remedy is awareness, encompassing the cognitive and the emotional. You can constructively harness doubt in this situation through continual learning, including wide and deep reading, data collection, expert advice, and conversations with a wide variety of people about both dimensions of your doubt.

Understanding the risks and remedies for doubt enables leaders to mitigate their discomfort, whether its source is cognitive or emotional, and return to a zone where they can make more productive and well-considered choices, turning doubt into a powerful decision tool.

But what of the nearly 30 percent of CEOs who were reluctant to admit that managing doubt was a part of their job? Are 3 out of 10 companies led by chief executives who rarely have second thoughts? Probably not. In fact, around 10 percent of the interviewees who denied having any doubts went on to describe how they reduce uncertainty and gain clarity — in other words, reduce doubt. Like their peers who approach doubt more consciously and systematically, they recognize that certainty can be not only an illusion but also a dangerous one.

Written by

Bonnie Gwin

Vice Chairman, CEO & Board Practice, Heidrick & Struggles

Overcome the Eight Barriers to Confidence

by Rosabeth Moss Kanter 

To get a more confident You in the new year — or a more confident company, community, family, or team — first know what gets in the way. The best resolutions will go nowhere without the confidence to stick with them.

Confidence is an expectation of a positive outcome. It is not a personality trait; it is an assessment of a situation that sparks motivation. If you have confidence, you’re motivated to put in the effort, to invest the time and resources, and to persist in reaching the goal. It’s not confidence itself that produces success; it’s the investment and the effort. Without enough confidence, it’s too easy to give up prematurely or not get started at all.

 Hopelessness and despair prevent positive action.

To muster the confidence to work toward your goals, avoid these eight traps:

Self-defeating assumptions. You think you can’t, so you don’t.  A British Olympic runner is so rattled by a misstep that cost her a contest that she dropped out of the next. A company team decides that a popular world leader is so far out of their league that they don’t issue an invitation to speak at their customer event. Talented women sometimes “leave before they leave,” as Sheryl Sandberg puts it, assuming that they won’t be promoted (or succeed when they have children) so they start behaving like they’re departing years before departure, thus foreclosing their options. It’s one thing to be realistic, it’s another to behave like a loser before entering the game.

Goals that are too big or too distant. I know how often leaders say they want to tackle BHAGs — “big hairy audacious goals.” But having only enormous goals can actually undermine confidence. The gap between a giant goal and today’s reality can be depressing and demotivating. Confidence comes from small wins that occur repeatedly, with each small step moving you closer to the big goal. But the small steps must be valued and turned into goals themselves. Winners think small as well as big.

Declaring victory too soon. This is the dieter’s dilemma: lose the first few pounds, and feel so good that you reward yourself with chocolate cake, and when the pounds go back on, you feel so discouraged that you have more cake to feel better. I saw this pattern in a college football team that was coming off a 9-year losing streak (yes, 9 years!). After winning the first game in nearly a decade, a team member shouted that now we’ll win the championship. First, of course, they had to win the next game — which they didn’t. Step-by-step discipline builds confidence.

Do-it-yourself-ing.  It’s a trap to think you can go it alone, without a support system and without supporting others. Losing teams have stars, but they focus on their own records, not how well the whole team does; the resulting resentments and inequalities provoke internal battles that drag everyone down. To build your confidence, think about building the confidence of others and creating a culture in which everyone is more likely to succeed, whether through mentoring them or recognizing their strengths. Giving to others boosts happiness and self-esteem, as numerous research studies show. Supporting them makes it easier to ensure that they support you.

Blaming someone else. Confidence rests on taking responsibility for one’s own behavior. Even in difficult circumstances, we have choices about how to respond to adversity. Whining about past harms reduces confidence about future possibilities. When the blame game is carried out within companies, everyone loses confidence, including external stakeholders. Confidence is the art of moving on.

Defensiveness. It’s one thing to listen and respond to critics; it’s another to answer them before they’ve done anything. Don’t defend yourself if you’re not being attacked. Apologize for your mistakes, but don’t apologize for who or what you are. Instead, take pride in where you’ve come from and lead with your strengths.

Neglecting to anticipate setbacks. Confidence involves a dose of reality. It is not blind optimism, thinking that everything will be fine no matter what. Confidence stems from knowing that there will be mistakes, problems, and small losses en route to big wins. After all, even winning sports teams are often behind at some point in the game. Confidence grows when you look at what can go wrong, think through alternatives, and feel you are prepared for whatever might happen.

Over-confidence. Confidence is a sweet spot between despair and arrogance. Don’t let confidence slip over into the arrogant end. Over-confidence is the bane of economies (e.g., the irrational exuberance that preceded the global financial crisis), corrupt leaders (who assume they’re so necessary that they won’t get into trouble for a small expense account fudge), or individuals who swagger and feel entitled to success rather than working for it.

Arrogance and complacency lead to neglect of the basics, deaf ears to critics, and blindness to the forces of change — a trap for companies as well as individuals. Sure enough, like the old proverb that “pride goeth before a fall,” the slide into a losing streak often begins with a winning streak. A little humility goes a long way to moderate arrogance and keep just the right amount of confidence.

Remember, it’s not enough just to feel confident. You have to do the work. But with an expectation of success, you can try new things, form new partnerships, contribute to shared success, and revel in small wins that move you toward bigger goals.

Rosabeth Moss Kanter

Rosabeth Moss Kanter is a professor at Harvard Business School and the author of Confidence and SuperCorp. Her 2011 HBR article, "How Great Companies Think Differently," won a McKinsey Award for best article. Connect with her on Facebook or at Twitter.com/RosabethKanter.

How to Spot a Great Leader in Four Easy Steps

Leadership can be an incredibly hard concept to define and an even harder quality to learn. There are some who argue that great leaders are born but I have always believed that you can learn and develop the necessary skills through hard work and experience.

Not all of us can be leaders, and there are plenty of people who are happy not to be, but it would be foolish to think that leadership is an easy skill to master. The really top people in any field, whether it be business, politics or sport, are constantly examining their performance and most important of all looking at ways to improve and keep standards high.

Here are four signs of what truly marks out the great leaders from the rest of the field.

Confidence
First and foremost a good leader has to have confidence in themselves and their ability. As a decision maker or chief executive you should never forget that all the people you manage are constantly looking to you for inspiration and guidance and setting an example is a major part of the job description. There is of course a very big difference between confidence and arrogance, and it is important not to cross that line. But you have to ask yourself the question: if you do not have confidence in yourself then how can you ever expect others to place their trust in you?

Intuition
Some may call this intelligence or even good luck, but I prefer the term intuition. Knowing what course of action to take in any given situation is a great skill to be able to draw on. The ability to react in the right way to changing circumstances is something that usually comes with many years of experience. But those who are just setting out on the journey to becoming leaders can learn very quickly by following the example of people around them who have proven track records.

Decisiveness
Speaking from personal experience, it is when times get tough that the best leaders are able to show their true qualities and mettle. It is easy to lead when things are going well and a business is running smoothly. However, the true test of leadership is when an unexpected crisis rears its head. When my first business Alexander Mann started feeling the effects of the recession back in the early 90’s, it came as a real shock. However I knew that in situations like that, staff are looking for reassurance and someone who looks unsure and indecisive is also going to come across as weak. I came in one morning, called everyone together and explained the situation in very stark terms. I then told them the actions we were going to take to try and rectify things. I am not suggesting making reckless decisions without thinking – but every step you take should have an decisive air about it.

Empathy
The so-called soft skills of management are sometimes overlooked in business and management manuals but I have always seen them as a crucial part of the job. You can have the best product or service and can spend thousand of pounds on things like marketing, but businesses are built on the quality and motivation of the people within. Any good manager needs to be able to understand what makes their people tick and what motivates them. This also helps to build staff loyalty which is a crucial element of running a business. The best leaders are usually the ones who have a good grasp of human nature and behaviour.


Posted by:James Caan

To Strengthen Your Confidence, Look to Your Past

by Amy Jen Su and Muriel Maignan Wilkins

Confidence..It is an attribute we seek to have and look for in others, especially those in positions of leadership. Yet, time and time again, we meet executives who lack a confident presence. (We also encounter those who are overly confident — to the point that they are blinded by it — but that is a topic for another time). What many fail to realize is that confidence is dynamic and not a static emotion. Just like a physical muscle that needs exercise to grow stronger, a leader's confidence requires continuous attention. 

Face the Facts: To strengthen your confidence, first face the facts. When you look to your past, you'll realize that successes often outweigh failures. And, more importantly, that you survived through the failures and gleaned priceless lessons along the way. Your track record provides an inventory of what has happened over the long run, which you can then balance against what you fear may happen in the short term.

Take for example, an executive we coached in a global marketing service — we'll call him Dave. Having recently been promoted to a senior vice-president position (the third person to take the post in two years), Dave found himself facing new challenges: turning around a low-morale staff, driving new initiatives, and rebuilding the reputation of the department. He also had a whole new set of relationships to manage; he was now part of the executive team and frequently sought for advice by the CEO. "I often feel like I am going to get caught — that someone is going to realize that they made a mistake by promoting me into this position," said Dave at one of our coaching meetings. 

When Dave stepped into the executive suite, his confidence stepped out the window. After taking inventory of the various promotions that he had received throughout his career, Dave realized that he had successfully faced new, albeit different, challenges before. His track record served as a basis of truth against the uncertainty he currently felt. While a cliché of sorts, there is truth in the saying "confidence starts from within." Ultimately, confidence is the counter to the fears we face — fear of failure, fear of change, fear of inadequacy.

Focus: With your track record as a foundation, it is helpful to focus on your strengths while managing your weaknesses. Most leaders are very strong in a few competencies, average in the majority of competencies, and weak in a few. Successful leaders focus on leveraging their strengths and managing their average/weak areas so that they do not become a deterrent to their effectiveness. Dave accepted that he was not going to be great at everything (nor did anyone expect him to be). With the help of a 360 assessment, he identified his strengths in "managing others" and "creating vision." By focusing on what he knew he could contribute, Dave grew more confident in his ability to tackle the challenges ahead.

Faith: It is not by accident that the Latin root of the word "confidence" is con fidere, which translates to "with faith." The ultimate faith is a belief in the unseen. Leaders are called to create vision and change for the future out of uncertainty — fundamentally, they operate on a level of faith that helps give purpose, strength, and trust to the path that they carve out for their organizations. Dave's fear of failing obstructed his ability to succeed. By shifting his attention to the excitement of building, creating, and leading something new, he tapped into a deeper purpose, beyond his day-to-day successes and failures. 

Confidence is a constant strengthening exercise. Like a well-conditioned muscle, it needs to be challenged and it also needs relaxation. Facts, focus, and faith each on their own may not get you there. But when you leverage all three in an integrated way, your confidence will absolutely grow.

 

Amy Jen Su and Muriel Maignan Wilkins

Amy Jen Su and Muriel Maignan Wilkins are co-founders and managing partners of Isis Associates, a boutique executive coaching and leadership development firm. They are the authors of Own the Room: Discover Your Signature Voice to Master Your Leadership Presence.

From Shy to Schmoozer: 10 Tips for Business Networking

If the thought of networking in a room full of strangers starts your knees knocking, rest assured that you’re not alone. In addition to being prepared beforehand (see 5 Things To Do Before You Walk in the Room) here are 10 simple tips for making the most of your next business networking event.

1) Eat before you go. Networking is best done ‘hands-free’ – leave plates, glasses, portfolios at the table. If you’re forced to carry something, make sure you can do it easily in your left hand, so that your right hand is always free.

2) Remember, everyone is there for the same reason as you are – to connect with other business people who might potentially become clients or whose services might be helpful to you or someone you know. This is not the time to try to sell something on the spot but to meet and get to know some new people and to start building some solid business relationships.

3) Put your name badge on your right side (not your left, which is the intuitive thing to do) because you greet people by shaking with your right hand which puts your badge in clear view and avoids awkward stretching to read your badge.

4) People love to talk about themselves so ask them why they decided to attend this event. How did they get started in their business? What are the things they like most about it, etc. Listen for clues that will help you decide whether this person might be a good contact to develop a longer-term mutually beneficial relationship with.

5) Read the newspaper on the day of the event so that you’re not caught flat-footed on today’s headlines.

6) Be prepared to handle questions like “What do you do?” with a simple, 10 or 15 second elevator pitch or infomercial that tells the listener what you do, for which type of client, that solves which specific problem for them.

7) Carry a pen to make notes on the cards you collect – date, function/event, other relevant details. Also make a note if you think the person you have just met would be worth introducing to someone else in your network.

8) If you need to start with baby steps, ask someone you know to introduce you to someone you particularly want to meet.

9) If you’re nervous or ill-at-ease, the best way to relax is to stop thinking about yourself and how anxious you feel, and concentrate completely on the other person. One strategy is to approach someone else who is standing alone (likely feeling as nervous as you are) and finding ways to make them feel at ease!

10)  Act confidently even if you’re not.  You may not like the expression “fake it ’til you make it!” but the truth is that we become good at what we practice, so practice acting confidently with your shoulders back, head up and a smile on your face.




By: Mary Lou Gutscher , Magnetic Business Solutions