Welcome to Friday 411, issue #090. In 4 minutes, with 1 insight and 1 action, you will embolden employees’ confidence, resulting in better decisions and fewer mistakes.
1 Insight
You can’t make employees more confident, but you can create an environment where confidence can flourish.
A friend of one of our kids works at a movie theater. After a long shift, he stopped by for a visit. We asked him how his day was.
“Stressful,” he responded.
We were curious what made slinging popcorn and filling sodas more stressful this day than others.
“The district manager came in today,” he explained.
“What makes the district manager so bad?”
“The DM is actually a very nice lady,” he said. “The day was stressful because of the theater manager’s reaction toward the DM’s visit.”
He went on to tell us, “About twenty minutes before the DM showed up, our manager got word that she was coming. He flew into a tizzy and started running around screaming, ‘The district manager is coming! I don’t care what you do. Just look busy!’ While the DM was there, the manager would make eye contact with us and mouth the words, ‘look busy.’”
“Later that day, after the DM had left, the manager lamented how stressful the DM’s presence was. He said, “‘I’m so glad I don’t scare people like she does.’”
Our son’s friend laughed. “He has no idea we are just as scared of him as he is of her!”
Who’s Afraid of the Big Bad Boss?
Even though fear in employees is normal, it is undesirable.
It’s normal because people have a natural fear of position of authority.
Did you ever get called to the principal’s office as a kid? All the children would scream “Ooooooohhhhhh! You’re in trouble!” Your hands would sweat. Your throat would close up. The long walk down the hall would feel like a death march.
That fear you felt for the principal’s authority is the same fear people feel for your authority. If they didn’t know you and saw you in the grocery store, they wouldn’t be afraid of you. It’s not actually you they fear.
Rather, they fear the perceived power that your position holds. You can make their lives better or worse. You can hire or fire. Promote or demote. Praise or reprimand. Give extra time off or make them stay late. Give them a bonus or cut their pay.
So, they fear you. It’s normal.
But it’s also undesirable. It’s undesirable because this fear diminishes the confidence of every person on your team. When team members don’t have confidence, it can have multiple effects. Low confidence can cause them to:
- Make mistakes more often,
- Cover up costly mistakes,
- Become paralyzed with inaction,
- Make decisions more slowly,
- Second guess their decisions, or
- Come to you more often to make sure they’re not messing up.
Their lack of confidence creates more stress for them and you.
You Can’t Make Them Confident
Your job becomes much easier when you have confident team members. Unfortunately, you can’t make them have confidence. You can only influence their confidence. Psychology Today reports that 85% of people have low self-esteem, meaning the odds of having confident team members are already stacked against you.
You can’t make them have more confident, but you can create an environment where it’s more likely for them to become confident. In order to create that environment, you need to understand the two subconscious questions that drive fear.
Two Subconscious Questions
While you can’t make team members more confident, you can influence their confidence by bringing these questions to light, discussing them, and answering them together.
Let’s look at each of these questions:
Question #1: Does My Boss Trust Me?
For generations, we have lived in a society in which employees have been told that their leaders do not trust them. They’ve heard messages like, “You have to earn my trust.” That’s why they squirm with anxiety when you call them or ask to talk for a minute.
If they don’t feel trusted by you, they will demonstrate behaviors they hope will earn your trust. The theater manager told everyone to “look busy.” He hoped it would earn the trust of the district manager if all of his staff was active.
You can help your direct reports feel trust in two ways:
First, give them trust rather than expecting them to earn it. Let them know that you trust them. Remind them why you hired them and why you keep them. Give them challenging assignments that will help them live up to the trust you have for them. Encourage them to make decisions for their responsibilities without seeking your advice on everything.
Second, intentionally and proactively build Relational, Integrity, and Skill Trust with them. We’ve written about these different types of trust on several occasions, so we won’t rehash it here. What is critical is that you as the leader seek to build trust with them rather than passively waiting for them to “earn it.” When you take a proactive role in building trust, it communicates to them that you trust them.
Question #2: Am I Meeting My Leader’s Expectations?
Every employee knows if they don’t meet the boss’s expectations, they won’t stay employed for long.
The challenge is in knowing which expectations to meet. Cal Newport describes this as the Principle of Least Resistance: “In a business setting, without clear feedback on the impact of various behaviors to the bottom line, we will tend toward behaviors that are easiest in the moment.”
As a boss, you can build much greater confidence in your employees if you are clear about your expectations. Many leaders attempt to create this clarity with a yearly review. We have found that once-a-year meetings are not frequent enough to communicate expectations and drive accountability.
Instead, we recommend two types of conversations: Quarterly Expectations and Monthly Check-ins.
Here’s what it could look like to build confidence in a person through these regular one-on-ones:
Quarterly Expectations
Once every quarter:
- Identify the most important priorities this person is responsible for in the near future (3-12 months).
- Determine any critical outcomes or metrics for each of those priorities. What would it look like to meet expectations in each priority? What would it take to exceed expectations?”
Monthly Check-ins
Then, every month, meet one-on-one with each of your direct reports. Look at their priorities, outcomes, and metrics. Each month, you can score how they’re doing for each outcome and what needs to take place in the next month. They can share where they are stuck and what they need to exceed expectations. Additionally, if the priorities need to change, you can make adjustments.
The biggest pushback we hear to more frequent one-on-ones is the amount of your time these demand.
- What you give in extra time will boost employees’ confidence and increase
overall productivity.
- When you are meeting with individual employees more frequently, the meetings do not need to be as long. The conversations can be quick and efficient.
- If you are struggling to find time for meeting with each of your direct reports quarterly and monthly, this may be an indication you have too many and a restructure is necessary. In most industries, under 10 direct reports is optimal. A manager tends to lose their effectiveness when they have 15 or more direct reports.
When all of your employees know (1) that you trust them and (2) that they are meeting expectations, you will develop a more confident work force. That will make their lives better and your life as a leader easier.
1 Action
This week, use these methods to practice helping one direct report build confidence.