Convey Self Confidence

– if so you have heard a few of the popular expressions people use to stimulate someone into making a good impression. These expressions indicate how important our bearing and body language are in imparting who we are to the world. There is a lot of truth in the old saying that first impressions count. In fact, within just 5 seconds of meeting someone we will already have formed a judgement that will affect our behaviour towards them.

In a moment we will look at what not to do, but firstly lets make ourselves aware that self-confidence is a form of strength and that is why it is so attractive to others. Bearing that in mind, try to portray yourself in a way that avoids you looking inhibited or vulnerable. Some examples of this type of body language are: hanging your head, slouching your shoulders, or avoiding direct eye contact. These particular actions imply to others that you have a problem with self-belief.

Whether its for an interview or a business deal, you dont have to be Einstein to see that people wont believe in you as an ‘investment if the investment does not believe in itself. Correspondingly, in your personal life people will immediately pick up on the signals you give. Given that, what should be your plan of action,

The opposite of the examples given above should be first on the list - holding your head high and standing with your shoulders back are both confident gestures. But the most important signal of them all is eye contact. Maintaining eye contact while speaking and listening generates a sense of familiarity, resolve and sincerity between yourself and the other person. If I told you that a recent survey asked a group of venture capitalists what they looked for in a successful pitch and that the top answer mostly came back as eye contact, would you then take it seriously,

In order to install it as a natural aspect of your personality you will need to maintain an air of confidence at all times. This applies in every situation whether easy or stressful. It is a popular belief that you see the true measure of someone when the chips are down and in my own experience I have found that is usually the case. In stressful situations some people panic and rather than looking for a solution to the problem in a rational and composed way they will blame others and look for the easy way out.

To be an effective leader who commands respect from their inferiors you must deal with stress in a positive and confident manner, if you cant do this then perhaps being at the front is not for you. By remaining calm under pressure you are far more likely to project the right image to others.

Sometimes, I could reuse priorities defined by my superiors (vision documents, group mission statements); other times, I had to invent my own from scratch in response to ambiguity or unforeseen situations. But more than anything else, I was a prioritization machine. One side effect of having priorities is how often you have to say no. It’s one of the smallest words in the English language, yet many people have trouble saying it. The problem is that if you can’t say no, you can’t have priorities. The universe is a large place, but your priority 1 list should be very small.

Therefore, most of what people in the world (or on your team) might think are great ideas will end up not matching the goals of the project. It doesn’t mean their ideas are bad; it just means their ideas won’t contribute to this particular project. So, a fundamental law of the PM universe is this: if you can’t say no, you can’t manage a project.

Saying no starts at the top of an organization. The most senior people on a project will determine whether people can actually say no to requests. No matter what the priorities say, if the lead developer or manager continually says yes to things that don’t jive with the priorities, others will follow. Programmers will work on pet features. PMs will add (hidden) requirements.

Even if these individual choices are good, because the team is no longer following the same rules, nor working toward the same priorities, conflicts will occur. Sometimes, it will be disagreements between programmers, but more often, the result will be disjointed final designs. Stability, performance, and usability will all suffer. Without the focus of priorities, it’s hard to get a team to coordinate on making the same thing. The best leaders and team managers know that they have to lead the way in saying no to things that are out of scope, setting the bar for the entire team.