What do you do when someone on your team has the skills to step up, but lacks the confidence to do it?
Maybe it’s a head chef who stays silent in a senior meeting because they’re not comfortable outside the kitchen. A new manager struggling to lead briefings. Or a team member who lacks the confidence to handle a guest complaint without you getting involved. Or maybe it’s you – finding it hard to have a difficult conversation, delegate something important, or speak up when you know you should.
Confidence can be a complicated thing. For some people, it can be rooted in years of poor self-image and insecurities. But as a leader, you’re not people’s therapist. And you don’t necessarily need to solve all of that to help someone become more confident at work. Sometimes, you just need to help them take one small step outside their comfort zone. That’s where micro-challenges come in.
Micro-challenges are small, specific actions that sit just outside your comfort zone – small enough to feel manageable, but uncomfortable enough to stretch you a bit into your learning zone.
The most important thing is to pick an action. Doing this takes you from “I want to become a more confident leader” to “tomorrow I’ll give one bit of feedback I’d normally avoid”. Every time we do something slightly (not overwhelmingly) uncomfortable, we discover, I can handle this. And that discovery builds trust in yourself. And that trust in yourself to handle things is how confidence grows.
Try it this week
Before your next service or day at work, choose one micro-challenge. Make it something you’d normally avoid and make it small enough to feel manageable but big enough to be a bit of a stretch. For example:
Speak first in a meeting
Ask a team member for their feedback
Delegate something instead of doing it yourself
Introduce yourself to a guest you haven’t met
Tackle some numbers or data if that’s something you've been avoiding
And if you’re leading a team, don’t keep micro-challenges to yourself – ask the team to identify one small thing they can do to stretch themselves a bit this week at work.
