Fight against your own limiting beliefs. You are worthy of being a leader.

I see strong leadership as two things – Competence and confidence. When you’re new to leadership, it’s important to work hard at competencies, because this is ultimately what’s going to help you get far. For me, confidence will always come second and by building competencies and seeing success, my confidence is able to grow. I have always been fighting against my own limiting beliefs, and telling myself I wasn’t good enough or worthy of a leadership role. But this just hinders my ability to grow and I really have to fight against my own thoughts to grow as a leader.

I don’t ever see confidence as something you gain and then can maintain or lose in an instance, but rather it takes the shape of highs and lows. Some weeks I am doing well in my role execution and the confidence is high and other weeks I face setbacks or my team needs more support and that can cause my confidence to fall.

I’ve found that who you surround yourself with is vitally important when you’re a new leader. Navigating a world of leadership when your team, and business results count on you can be a lonely place. I learnt the hard way that having a supportive team, who can listen to you and then support you on your journey can be transformational in your own growth.

I’ve had experiences where I didn’t have trust as a leader to make my own decisions, I’ve had experiences where I did have trust but failure wasn’t an option. But now I have the perfect equation – I am trusted to make decisions and when I fail, I am supported through the situation and can learn from it. This has been the key to me finding confidence and fighting those inner demons, because I am constantly reminded by my peers that I am capable.

One of the ways that I have helped cope as a new leader is through feedback. I am always looking for ways to improve as a leader as well as learn the intricacies of my team. Feedback works both ways and it’s important to both deliver feedback as well as ask for it. I’m really intrigued by human behaviour and so I read a lot of books and listen to podcasts to learn more. My favourite topic is to learn about what makes people who they are. This has really helped me become a better leader because I can apply that knowledge to situations. I no longer make assumptions about people, and I strive to deepen my understanding of them as people outside of work, before them as a person in their role.

One of the biggest lessons I’ve learnt over the years is that women have a tendency to really lean into competencies whereas I see men lead with confidence more so. As a strong female leader, I like to help my team build their confidence and competencies, regardless of the place they are starting from, or their gender.