If you only looked from the outside, you’d never guess how many senior leaders struggle with confidence.
They speak with authority. They’re polished, articulate, decisive. And yet – when the meetings are over and the masks come off – that confidence often crumbles.
Since launching my new book The Confidence Breakthrough, I’ve had several friends and colleagues – now in very senior positions – reach out privately about their own self-doubt:
- “I know I look confident on stage, but inside I’m terrified. I thought it would have gone by now.”
- “Still the same imposter syndrome here, now mixed in with some adult anxiety too.”
- “I can’t help thinking that I’ll be found out at any moment, and that will be my career over.”
A common theme?
They’re comfortable sharing it with me privately, but almost none would say it publicly.
And understandably so. Because by the time you’re senior, the stakes feel too high. After all:
- How can you admit to a confidence problem when everyone around you sees you as highly competent, capable, and strong?
- How can you raise your hand for help when you’re the one meant to model confidence for everyone else?
When Confidence Becomes Camouflage
That’s the real issue. By the time we’re “successful,” our self-doubt is so well disguised it becomes invisible – to others, and often to ourselves. We push through. We perfect. We perform.
All the while, we’re quietly carrying an inner tension that can bring with it other painful emotions – like shame (“How can I be the only senior leader who feels like this?”), guilt (“I don’t deserve to be in this role”), or self-blame (“There must be something wrong with me”).
Those emotions always find a way to leak out: through stress, burnout, over-control, addictions, or avoidance. Some senior leaders who are self-aware enough (and brave enough) to ask for help turn to coaches like me. And that works, but it can be costly for them and for their organisations.
Others, who don’t recognise or address the problem, can end up burnt out. Some lose their confidence entirely; others find their coping mechanisms take over. Either way, the organisation loses valuable people, and faces the even greater cost of replacing them.
Why I Stopped Focusing on Senior Leaders
This is exactly why – when I was deciding who The Confidence Breakthrough™ was for – I chose to focus not on the leaders who already feel this way, but on the people coming up behind them.
The early-career professionals who are still open enough, curious enough, and humble enough to work on the inside as well as the outside.
They also have the time and space to put their learning into practice, whereas many senior leaders are too busy firefighting to do that deeper work. Because confidence isn’t built by learning how to look confident. It’s built by understanding how your inner world shapes the way you show up in your outer world.
That’s the foundation of The Confidence Breakthrough – my book and online programme designed to help professionals rewire the inner patterns that quietly limit their potential long before those patterns harden into habits.
(For leaders who are ready to face the inner work head-on, I also deliver tailored face-to-face and virtual versions of The Confidence Breakthrough, including bespoke programmes for senior teams. If they’re brave enough!)
Why Not Graduates?
A question I’m often asked is whether my course is suitable for people with little or no professional experience. My honest answer is no.
From experience, most graduates are what’s known as unconsciously incompetent: they don’t yet know what they don’t know. And that brings an air of false confidence.
When I first learned to ski, I arrived for my lesson full of optimism: How hard can this be?
Five minutes later, I’d learned the truth – very.
It was the same when I set out to write The Confidence Breakthrough book and design the online course. I thought, How hard can it be? – and then I found out.
When I’ve tried to teach graduates about confidence, I’ve seen that same bravado: “Why do I need to know this?” But confidence built on inexperience isn’t real confidence, it’s simply not yet been tested.
Once they’ve experienced a few real-world bumps and challenges, they move to conscious incompetence, the awareness that something deeper needs attention. That’s when my work truly makes a difference.
Why This Matters for Leadership Development
Every year, organisations spend millions developing leadership skills: communication, decision-making, influencing, resilience. But those skills sit on top of something much deeper.
- If someone doesn’t believe they deserve to be heard, all the presentation training in the world won’t help them speak up.
- If someone’s terrified of being judged, no amount of coaching on ‘executive presence’ will help them relax into authenticity.
- And if a team’s culture quietly rewards perfectionism and control, it breeds leaders who look composed on the outside, but feel exhausted and brittle on the inside.
You can’t change the outer world until you address the inner one.
What Happens When You Do
When people start working on their inner confidence, everything changes. They don’t just sound more confident, they are more confident. They delegate better. They communicate more clearly. They take feedback without collapse or defensiveness. They stop over-managing and start trusting. They feel comfortable in their own skin.
And here’s the irony: those are the very behaviours we associate with great leadership. Which means cultivating inner confidence isn’t a ‘soft skill.’ It’s a performance advantage.
A Question for You
When you think about your own team – or even yourself – where might self-doubt be showing up in disguise?
▪️ Over-preparation?
▪️ People-pleasing?
▪️ Needing to control every outcome?
The first step in any Confidence Breakthrough is awareness. Because what you can’t see, you can’t change.
Next Week
Most people don’t even realise they have a confidence problem, until it quietly starts running their lives. That’s where we’ll go next.
👇 Call to Action
If you’re responsible for developing others and want to equip your early-career professionals with inner and outer confidence before those hidden patterns set in:
👉 Get in touch for further information on The Confidence Breakthrough Online Programme before the official launch.