A short transcript excerpt of a Simon Sinek talk arguing that self-confidence is not innate but shaped by upbringing and treatment by authority figures (parents, teachers, bosses). Sinek gives personal examples (his sister, a team member who lied) and prescribes patient, empathetic leadership that reassures people they will be supported when they make mistakes so they can rebuild confidence.
Chapters
No one is born with self confidence. Zero, right? Every single one of us. Our self confidence was determined by how we were raised. The parents we had, the teachers we had, the bosses we've had, the jobs we've had. My sister worked for a company for 17 years and her boss destroyed her self confidence. She came out of that job and she didn't realize until she got into her new job how afraid she was to make decisions because of her boss. And it took a while for her to get her confidence back.
And so if somebody is insecure, we have to over and over and over again prove to them because we don't know where they came from. We don't know what kind of trouble they got in before for being honest, right? Or how they were raised. We don't know. And so we have to total empathy and just prove to them that if they make a mistake, they're going to get helped, not hurt. They're gonna get supported, not yelled at. And the first time, they won't believe you. They think it's a game, they think it's a con, it's a trick. The second time maybe, and we just have to keep at it. That every time I used to have. I used to have somebody on my team who would regularly lie to me, right? Because she would rather lie to me than tell me that she made a mistake. It was. And I could. And if I saw the lie, I would ask so many questions to get at a certain. To me I screwed up. I'd be like, well, this doesn't make sense because I can't say you're lying to me, right? I just say, this doesn't make sense. This doesn't make sense. If this adds up to this, then why is it that. And the lie would get bigger and then she would yell at me about how I don't trust her. And then at the end, I have to be like, listen, it clearly doesn't add up. I'm okay if it doesn't add up. If you made a mistake, just tell me and I'm good and we'll move on. But when you deceive me, I'm gonna ask you so many questions to get to the truth that it's gonna get worse and worse and worse. I had to have that conversation with her probably 50 times before little cracks started to show. Where she showed up to me once where one number wasn't there. And she looked at me and said, I made a mistake. And I went, cool. Thanks. Alan Mullally puts it brilliantly. He says, you have a problem, you are not the problem. So if something goes wrong, we have a problem, but you are not the problem. And that's the point is we've too many times told people that they're the problem. So I think it's just going to take time and patience, and you have to do the hard work of helping that person build up their confidence again.
