Finding Your Voice: A Coaching Approach to Building Confidence

"How do I become more confident?"

It's one of the questions I hear most often from first-line managers.

Sometimes they're asking about speaking up in meetings. Sometimes it's giving difficult feedback, presenting to senior leaders or making decisions without constantly seeking reassurance. As managers, we're also likely to have team members who doubt themselves, underestimate their abilities or hesitate to step outside their comfort zone.

Our instinct is often to reassure with phrases like:

• "You'll be fine."

• "You're doing a great job."

• "Don't worry."

Although well intended, reassurance is usually short-lived. A coaching approach builds something much more sustainable.

It helps people create confidence from the inside out.

1. Confidence isn't a personality trait

One of the biggest myths about confidence is that some people simply have it and others don't, because in reality confidence is highly contextual.

Someone who appears incredibly confident leading a team meeting may feel completely out of their depth when presenting to the Executive Team.

Confidence grows through experiences, evidence and reflection, not simply positive thinking. As managers, our role is less about giving confidence and more about helping people notice the confidence they already possess.

2. Our brains are brilliant storytellers

During our confidence workshops I introduce the idea of Automatic Negative Thoughts (ANTs). Once we begin to believe something about ourselves, our brain starts filtering the world to prove that belief is true.

Perhaps you've thought:

• I'm not leadership material

• I'm terrible with conflict

• I always say the wrong thing

• I'm hopeless with spreadsheets

  
  

Once that belief exists, the brain quietly collects evidence to support it while filtering out everything that contradicts it. For example, one awkward conversation becomes proof and twenty successful conversations barely register. The belief grows stronger and the confidence shrinks.

One of the most valuable coaching skills is helping ourselves and others notice the stories we're telling ourselves before automatically believing them.

3. Self-coaching: Finding your own voice

Before we coach others, we need to coach ourselves.

When you notice your confidence wobbling, pause before accepting your thoughts as facts.

Instead, ask yourself:

• What story am I telling myself right now?

• What evidence actually supports this belief?

• What evidence contradicts it?

• If someone else described me this way, would I agree?

• What would I say to a colleague I cared about who had this same thought?

• What would a more balanced perspective sound like?

Often confidence doesn't arrive because our thinking changes. Our thinking changes because we deliberately question it.

4. Build your "Wall of Evidence"

A favourite confidence exercises is creating a Wall of Evidence.

Our brains naturally remember failures more vividly than successes, so don't rely on memory, collect evidence of success.

Keep a record of:

• Positive feedback

• Thank-you emails

• Achievements

• Qualifications

• Successful projects

• Difficult conversations you've handled well

• Promotions

• Compliments from colleagues

• Strengths others consistently notice

• Problems you've solved

When self-doubt appears, don't ask your emotions make sure you consult your evidence.

Confidence becomes much easier to sustain when it's built on facts rather than feelings.

5. Coaching confidence in others

When someone lacks confidence, our instinct is often to convince them they're wrong.

But instead of saying:"You're much better than you think." Try to become curious and help them uncover their own evidence.

Questions might include:

• What makes you think that?

• When have you handled something similar successfully?

• What strengths helped you then?

• What feedback have you received from others?

• If someone else were watching you, what might they notice that you're overlooking?

• What evidence do you already have that you can do this?

The goal isn't to persuade, but to help people discover. Confidence that people discover themselves tends to last much longer than confidence borrowed from someone else's reassurance.

6. Build confidence in everyday conversations

Confidence isn't built during annual appraisals, but in hundreds of ordinary interactions and the small moments matter.

For example, instead of immediately answering every question, try asking:

"What's your thinking?"

Instead of:

"I'll do it."

Try:

"How would you like to approach it?"

Instead of praising outcomes alone:

"Well done."

Notice the capability behind the outcome:

• "I noticed how calmly you handled that difficult conversation."

• "The preparation you put into that presentation really showed."

• "You stayed curious instead of becoming defensive."

This reinforces behaviours people can repeat not simply outcomes they hope to achieve again.

7. Stretch builds confidence

Confidence doesn't appear before we do difficult things, but grows because we do them. That is why a coaching approach encourages manageable stretches rather than giant leaps. 

Ask:

• What's one conversation you've been avoiding?

• What's one small step you could take this week?

• What's just outside your comfort zone, but not overwhelming?

• What support would help you succeed?

Every successful stretch adds another brick to the Wall of Evidence.

8. Confidence grows from self-worth

Perhaps the most important distinction is this:

Self-confidence and self-worth are not the same thing.

Confidence is often linked to what we can do, but self-worth is about who we believe we are. If our worth depends entirely on succeeding, impressing others or never making mistakes, confidence will always feel fragile. One setback can undo months of progress.

Healthy confidence grows from a deeper foundation of self-worth and ultimately the acceptance that our value isn't dependent on perfect performance.

As Gareth Southgate famously said:

"Whatever happens on Sunday night might define me for others, but won't define me for myself."

That's the difference between performing confidently and believing you're worthy regardless of the outcome.

Final Thought

As managers, we can't eliminate self-doubt for ourselves or for our teams, but we can change how people respond to it.

• Instead of rescuing, we can coach

• Instead of reassuring, we can ask

• Instead of focusing only on what's missing, we can help people build a compelling wall of evidence for what is already true

Confidence isn't the absence of doubt, but the willingness to keep taking thoughtful action despite it and helping others discover they can do the same.