In sales, confidence is the number one factor in success.  Someone who is confident will make more sales than one who is less so.  As a leadership trainer for almost two years now, I have observed that a lack of communicating confidence is one of the key challenges holding women back from advancing in their careers.  It is not that women are not confident in their abilities, it is more about not wanting to appear arrogant or be seen as bragging by senior managers and peers.  In fact, I attended a ASIS Women in Security networking event in NYC, and this topic was one of the most dominant in our conversation. 

How do we do to own our confidence and work performance without feeling like we are being viewed as a narcissist by colleagues?

Well, to start, clarity of goals is absolutely critical.  You need to know what is your end game (a vision for your life in both personal and professional terms). What is your ideal career aspiration?  What is your ideal role, title, or position? Next, you need to determine and be conscious of your values to think about how your values are honored in your professional and personal activities.  You may find that your ideal career goal presents a conflict with one of your values; increasing awareness of this conflict will enable you to change the situation or accept the conflict temporarily.  Next, you need to identify your top 3 strengths/talents.  Doing so allows you to consciously acknowledge how you are unique and provides the foundation for owning your greatness and performance.  After this, you want to create a mission statement for your life.  I like to call it a Leadership Mission; it integrats your values, professional goal(s), strengths/talents, and the greater impact you desire and serves as a compass to help you determine whether or not a potential career opportunity is the right next step for you on your way to attaining your ideal goal.  There are plenty of resources on the web to help ascertain this information. 

The <a title="CSO Leader Launch program" href="http://csoleadershiptraining.com/training-products/">CSO Leader Launch</a> program includes tools to bring alignment to your values, career, personal time, and desired community impact.  Check out <a title="CSO Client Feedback" href="http://csoleadershiptraining.com/testimonials/">the feedback </a>from using these tools, if you like.

Have questions or thoughts?  Let's talk.  Leave a comment below or email me at <a href="mailto:Natalie@CSOLeadershipTraining.com">Natalie@CSOLeadershipTraining.com</a> to