Can you be a leader and not be confident?

Hell yeah.

While the Obama’s, Clinton’s, Trump’s , Blair’s and even the Bush’s of the world all seem to be confident (even if where they’re placing their confidence is just plain nuts), I’m willing to bet that there are times when they don’t know what the heck they’re going to do and are shaking in their boots.

The same goes for leadership on a smaller scale. If you’re a new manager or have some leadership responsibility then don’t worry, you’re allowed to not be confident.

There are many styles and definitions of leadership, but as I see it, a leader is simply someone who takes people from point A to point B. A leader is someone who knows what the destination is, believes in the benefits of getting there and inspires others to join them on the journey.

A leader has confidence in the direction they’re heading in; a leader has confidence that the end point is ‘right’ and a leader has the confidence to fully engage with the journey.

And here’s the key difference – a leader does not need to be confident in the specifics of each step of that journey, they just need to be confident that the journey matters.

Read that last sentence again.

People can spot a leader who’s faking it from a mile away, so the real trick if you’re in a leadership position is to put effort into getting to the same place of (un)confidence. That’s true, authentic leadership, and the only way to have that is to know yourself well enough to have figured out that you can learn, adapt and grow, and from knowing what really matters to you.

This ties in nicely with the 3rd Principle of Self-Confidence – “Being truly confident doesn’t mean you can’t not be confident”, and the leaders who’ve inspired me and who I look up to most certainly have this in common. I’m willing to bet that the leaders you look up to do too.