10/24/2023

How to Navigate Feelings of Confidence and Self-doubt After a Promotion

Successfully transitioning to a leadership role requires self-confidence

When you get promoted to a higher-level leadership role, it's exhilarating. Your company has finally validated your talent and trusts in your potential to guide the organization's future. At the same time, the stakes are higher and you now find yourself in a fishbowl for all to watch how you tackle the new job. This leap in scale and scrutiny tests every new leader’s mettle in many ways, most notably their self-confidence.

In my work as an executive coach helping senior leaders during transitions, I've observed the dichotomy of extremes in executive confidence. On one end, many leaders operate with hubris and overconfidence. And on the other, they flounder in self-doubt and hesitation.

Neither extreme is necessarily bad in certain contexts. For instance, despite their flaws, overconfident leaders may show more infectious energy, make faster decisions, and be more persuasive with customers and colleagues. And a recent study showed that overconfident CEOs are more effective when turning around companies after taking over for an overconfident incumbent leader who presided over the performance decline.

Please select this link to read the complete article from Harvard Business Review.