When it comes to furthering your career, you already know that skills, experience, and qualifications are all critical to success. But what about confidence?
Career confidence plays a pivotal role in pursuing opportunities and developing the leadership skills you need to keep climbing the career ladder. It is equally essential if you want to launch your own business or if you apply for a new position. So why is confidence so important for executives and how can you cultivate it?
What is career confidence?
Career confidence & self-confidence
First, you need to separate those two concepts. Indeed, career confidence is different from self-confidence and from one’s capabilities that they can “do the job.” Actually, career confidence involves passion, purpose, and a realistic career plan. In other words, the answer to the following questions: what makes you tick? What unleashes your creativity? How will you take your conscience to work?
Here are 3 questions you need to ask yourself. Do you want to enjoy your work, gain satisfaction from your effort, feel like you are contributing and making a difference?
Passion, purpose and career plan
By combining passion, purpose, and your career plan, you have created a powerful combination of career planning that makeup “career confidence.”
- Passion: a boundless enthusiasm for what you do at work. Do I enjoy my work?
- Purpose: the meaningful goal to which you aspire. Why is this important to me?
- Career plan: a tool designed to fit your passion and purpose that does not lock you into a specific path but instead helps you map out possible career options. Do I gain satisfaction from my effort or feel like I am contributing and making a difference with my work?
“Career confidence gives you the ability to adjust your aspirations as you move forward with life”
Why career confidence is important
Career confidence: navigating your career adventure
Indeed, you have set up a career goal, an action plan to achieve it and, you also know the fundamental reasons why you want to achieve it. Career confidence gives you the ability to adjust your aspirations as you move forward with life. 
The link between confidence and career success
You can probably think of a dozen examples of people who are successful in their career who also have a high degree of confidence. In fact, it is hard to think of a successful person in any sector who is not confident and self-assured. The link between confidence and career success is not just anecdotal: the statistics back this up. One study showed that people with self-confidence will earn $28,000 more per year than peers with low self-esteem.
If you are not confident in yourself and your abilities, it makes it difficult to further your career and pursue leadership opportunities. Even if you are relatively successful, there are many reasons why you may lack confidence. For example, if you have climbed the ladder thanks to your natural abilities but without a formal education, you may be insecure about potential gaps in your knowledge.
Alternatively, you may dream of starting your own business but are not confident that you have the necessary skills and knowledge to make it a success. Although it is completely natural to feel insecure in these situations, this low self-esteem can be damaging to your career in a variety of ways.
How confidence can advance your career and boost your leadership skills
Let’s take a look at why confidence is so important, and some of the ways it can impact your career:
- Confident people are more likely to get promoted: Promotions are awarded based on merit, but also because of confidence. In identifying potential leaders, managers will look for people who are comfortable with taking on responsibility and who will be confident in leadership.
- Confidence makes you a better leader: Not only does confidence make you more likely to be promoted to leadership positions, but it will help you to excel in these roles. Confidence that is rooted in the knowledge and tools needed to lead will better equip you to be a leader, and make you feel confident in the position.
- You can pursue niche-based career opportunities: Being confident in your skills and knowledge in a particular area can open doors to exciting new roles, or even allow you to transition into a different industry. For some areas requiring specific knowledge, this may mean looking beyond on-the-job training. Specialised courses such as Corporate Finance or Advanced Strategic Management can give you the additional skills and experience you need to advance your career in an exciting direction.
- It helps to minimise risk and stress when running your own business: Confidence that is rooted in the right skills and knowledge will make your business more likely to succeed. Diving into entrepreneurship without further education can potentially make you more vulnerable to risks, and create unnecessary extra stress if you are full of self-doubt. A Master’s in International Business Management can give you the extra knowledge, tools, and confidence you need to launch and run your business, as well as deal with the inevitable challenges.
How to build your career confidence?
Evaluate your career confidence
How Comfortable Are You in Your Job Right Now? / How Good Are You at What You Do? / What’s Going on Inside Your Head?
