The key to demonstrating confidence

“You have enemies? Good! It means that you’ve stood up for something, sometime in your life.”

— Winston Churchill

I have always struggled with knowing whether or not I have projected confidence in any interaction. There are meetings where I’ve walked away feeling good, but that’s not necessarily because I’ve been confident in my interactions. It could simply be that I’ve raised and discussed a few good points that others have agreed with. And in the meetings where I’ve walked away feeling like rubbish, it is always because I knew that I didn’t project confidence. It is always a combination of me not defending my point confidently or not graciously admitting that I was wrong.

The latter is the most important. As we strive to make our introvert voices heard and convey our ideas, we are more likely to be wrong or not articulate our ideas in such a way that others understand fully where we are coming from. In such cases, we need to have the techniques to confidently re-articulate our points to maximise understanding, or confidently call-out that we see the alternate point of view and are willing to take our point back. Too often in the past, when an opposing point is raised, I have simply retreated into silence. Silence doesn’t just convey that you have seen the other point of view, silence conveys retreat and defeat. When we are wrong, we need to hold our confidence so that others see that we are open to opposing views, and then build on it to take the idea forward to the next level. That conveys ownership, that conveys accountability, and most importantly, it conveys leadership.

The boys at Charisma on Command have identified what core confidence looks like. Confidence isn’t about talking loudly, or shouting, or using your position authority. You don’t have to be an alpha male to convey confidence. All you need is to recognise and understand frame, followed by some simple techniques that can be adopted straight away to demonstrate confidence in day to day interactions.

Hold the FRAME

A good understanding of FRAME is the key to demonstrating confidence in any interaction. The frame of any interaction is simply the focal point of the interaction itself and the parameters within which the interaction must occur. In its simplest definition, it is you being clear on what it is that you want from the interaction and how the interaction should proceed. Whether you think about it or not, this happens in every interaction. If you work in the consulting profession, a client engaging you in an assignment is often framed as “client paying you money to achieve (or demand) a set outcome”. You have accepted the client’s frame that he/she is more important than you.

Demonstrating confidence requires you to enter into an interaction with a certain frame in mind and then maintaining that frame throughout the interaction. Holding the frame requires you to maintain both your mindset and your objective in the face of attempts to break your frame. Political animals or those who have a sense of entitlement will often try to break your frame in order to demonstrate their confidence. Your interactions with them will often be frustrated by apparently random changes in topics, meandering conversation, laughter at things that aren’t funny. These are all attempts to break your frame.

If you have a point to convey and it appears that the point hasn’t been received, then you continue your communication using different techniques or perspectives until the point has been received. Too often we give up pushing our point even though we know that other person is rejecting our ideas because he/she simply hasn’t actually understood what we are saying. Of course a bit of finesse is required. If they’ve actually understood but disagreed then we should stop pushing the same point. But in most cases, it is often that your point has not been understood and just needs to be conveyed from a different perspective to get it across.

In the consulting example above, you should hold the frame that a client is ‘partnering’ with you achieve joint success.

Don’t react - move slowly and deliberately

When you hold the frame, others will often try to break your frame, and when words don’t succeed, it is likely they will resort to aggression and verbal intimidation. Rare but it happens. To demonstrate confidence, you hold your frame, don’t react emotionally (or don’t let people see that you are flustered), and then speak slowly and clearly, and move your body with deliberate intent and a slower pace.

I recall a few years ago, in front of the CIO and his leadership team, he berated me on the uselessness of my Internal Audit team in reviewing areas that he felt were well controlled, and causing him to have to divert attention away from delivery to fix issues that my team had raised. This went on for about eight minutes (I did look at my watch), during which time, his 2nd in command, and other supplicating individuals jumped on the bandwagon. When he had finally calmed down and I could put my point forward, I simply said in my calmest voice “I hear your concerns. But ultimately, I review areas of highest risk as endorsed by the Board of Directors. Regardless, if an area is well controlled, isn’t it also worthwhile to have an independent party validate that rather than just yourself”. I was like a duck, deep inside, I was panicking: a mixture of fear, anger, and a thirst to put him in his place. The mixture of emotions meant that I moved very slowly and the need to think on my feet to respond meant that I talked slowly and deliberately.

That one sentence stopped him in his tracks and his only come back was “You’ve heard my views, I’d like you to just consider that in the future.” Unbeknown to me at the time, I had held my frame as an independent party with the authority to review whatever I deem fit. I received kudos from others in the room afterwards, as well as apologies from those who felt the CIO’s behaviour was over the top considering my junior position relative to his.

Tonality - command not question

We’ve mentioned this in previous posts but it’s important to reiterate here. How you end your sentence makes a big difference to how people perceive you. Raising your tonality at the end of the sentence is perceived as a question. Keep an ear out for this in the future. Next time you are in a new group and you are asked to introduce yourself via your name first, 99% of the people will have an upwards inflection towards the end of their name. It’s a natural and ingrained human behaviour as we try to fit into a new group because upwards tonality is less dominant and less threatening. But upwards tonality also conveys a lack of confidence.

Next time, when conveying a point, make a conscious effort to have a downwards inflection in your tonality towards the end of the sentence. This conveys that you are making a statement and there is no question in your statement. You are not subtly inviting comment. You are making a statement because you believe your point is important and should be heard.

Challenge other people’s frame

The key point the boys from Charisma on Command have identified is this: when an interaction gets heated and you need to challenge the other person, don’t challenge the specific contents of what they are saying but challenge the frame that they have put forward. It’s hard to demonstrate this through written words but in the video below, go to 4:42 and there are two perfect examples.

In my professional role, the most common example of challenging frame rather than content is when the people I audit challenge whether the observation I’ve made is rated Medium or High. No definition is ever perfect and ultimately it is a judgement call. My judgement call to be precise. So when people challenge me on whether a finding is Medium or High, I focus the conversation back on whether my finding is factually correct and what is required for remediation. Because I don’t really care what the rating is given how arbitrary it is. If I am correct in my finding, then I just want it fixed as quickly as possible.

Importantly - don’t supplicate

This is one of the hardest things to do for most introverts. Particularly those who are people pleasers. You do not exist to please other people. While deep down we all know that, decades of social proofs in our lives have made people pleasing behaviours one of the most ingrained. We’ve gone through life thinking that if we are ‘nice’ to someone, eventually, they will give us what we want. Afterall, there are so many examples in our own lives where that’s the case.

But being nice doesn’t mean you give up on what you want (frame) or that you are a lower value person than the other (frame) or that you always need something from them (frame). Even in a boss - staff relationship, the boss still needs the staff member. The worst performing Manager of my Division still has some value since I need to go through the effort of terminating him/her and then finding a replacement, and then ramping up the replacement. During this time, there is an impact on productivity.

So when holding the frame, make sure one of the key criteria is not to instil supplicating behaviours. It doesn’t matter what authority, influence, or power the other person has, you will always have something that is of value to them. So approach every interaction with a clear knowledge of what you bring to the interaction and how valuable it is.

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