Confidence vs Arrogance

There’s a very fine line between coming across as either confident or arrogant. So what’s the deciding factor. Well there are three 1) empathy, 2) Attitude and 3) Knowledge and you have to have all 3 working together for confidence otherwise you could come across as arrogant.

Now you can have the knowledge but still come across as arrogant and that’s because you do not show empathy and can have a bad attitude. You can also have empathy and a good attitude but do not come across as confident if you don’t have the knowledge.

So how do you teach good attitudes to your staff? This is a tricky one as you cannot teach a good attitude. But if you create a safe environment for your staff who are well trained and empowered to do their roles and your staff want to come to work because they genuinely love their job and feel supported by their managers they should have a good attitude. In my experience, bad attitudes are environmental. It may be something happening at home or something happening in the workplace. We cannot control what’s happening at home, but we can be aware and listen to them, let them vent. We have full control of workplace issues, so talk to your staff, find out what’s happening and make any changes that are causing bad attitudes.

Empathy can be taught. It is hard to teach but you can teach your staff to genuinely care and show understanding to your clients. This does involve management leading by example. If management shows empathy to their staff then they will feel this and will pass it on to the clients. If an organisation does not show their staff empathy how do you expect your staff to show empathy to the clients. The old saying treat your employees well and they will treat the customers well is so true.

Knowledge is 100% necessary for confidence. People can generally tell if you are bull shitting them but if you are knowledgeable then you will be able to speak with confidence and conviction. As a leader, it is your job to part with the many years of wisdom and experience.

The cost of training is a necessary evil when it comes to the profit and loss statement. For leaders, it is a balance in how much training is necessary while not sending a business broke by increased payroll costs. A well trained team offering the right services can increase revenue though, so I encourage all organisations to have a healthy training budget.

When dealing with the public, we need to have our workforce come across as confident not arrogant as you will loose clients if they are arrogant. Ensure that your staff are knowledgeable and trained well showing empathy to the clients and most of all, create an environment where staff want to come to work as they love their jobs and have great organisational culture so they have a good attitude.

#happiness #selfconfidence #selfworth #success