Need Self-confidence at Work?

​As Rose grabbed her coffee and settled down to face her day at work she noticed an email from Trevor which caught her interest. He was the HR Director at her organisation and he was announcing a Board initiative that was scheduled to begin the following month. HR was about to embark on a culture alignment program for the organisation.


Initially filled with trepidation she wondered how this would flow through to her. As she read through what the initiative would entail she began to see possibilities of how some aspects would have great relevance to her role as a Senior Manager in Finance.

As Rose grabbed her coffee and settled down to face her day at work she noticed an email from Trevor which caught her interest. He was the HR Director at her organisation and he was announcing a Board initiative that was scheduled to begin the following month. HR was about to embark on a culture alignment program for the organisation.


Initially filled with trepidation she wondered how this would flow through to her. As she read through what the initiative would entail she began to see possibilities of how some aspects would have great relevance to her role as a Senior Manager in Finance.


She saw the term NLP – Neuro Linguistic Programming and wondered what that was. It seemed the main methodology that she would be trained in, as the senior management team were enrolled first in a top-down approach. Everyone in the organisation would eventually use NLP tools to build a culture of purpose. Rose was relieved that they would all be doing this together.


Her worry was the organisation’s expectations. Having never attended any NLP courses in the past she was sure others were in the same boat, facing the same predicament. There was a feedback form. HR felt it important to gauge where each employee was, as they embarked on this. She was asked to clear her diary.


As she looked at the list of benefits for the organisation, she understood that her life as a senior manager would be made far easier;

• Driven leadership and management teams
• Rapport within and between teams
• High performance organically driven by self-managed employees
• Purpose-driven employees

On the personal front she wondered if she could up her self-confidence. Known as a bean counter, she lived in a numbers world. She was not a people person. Over the years she had acknowledged this fact. If she wanted to join the C-suite which was the next level up, she had to build resources in this area. Food for thought!


This is what she would write in the feedback to HR. It would be a great opportunity to see how effective this NLP culture alignment project proved. If each employee could clear negativity and improve their performance as a result of this, that would be a win-win for individual and organisation. Pretty neat she thought.


That was six months ago, Rose reminisced as she held her head high feeling like a new person. She had learnt so much from the modular sessions. Sylvia’s corporate experience was central to her learning. She knew she was in good hands and this allowed her to relax.


She knew she had escalated her level of self-confidence. Sylvia made sure she stressed the need for evidence. “How do you know?” was the question. Rose knew because her tummy stopped  rumbling. As she walked up to the lectern to make a presentation, she would also notice butterflies in her tummy. That was gone.


In fact now she had a different feeling in her tummy. She called it a quiet confidence. She observed a solid feeling in her tummy that grounded her. It gave her strength to walk on stage and start the presentation. Unbeknownst to her audience of course, she had made this huge shift internally which had such an impactful external result.

And the best part of all this? Making the change was so easy. She had always thought it would be a long drawn affair of courses and trainers giving advice that did not work. But the reality turned out quite different. Rose learnt the following tenets to heighten confidence;

1. Competence then confidence

Be sure of your content. Often people rock up un-prepared and wonder why they are unable to feel confident. Spend time to master content at your level of authority. As you move through life and get promoted, you will build self-confidence at work naturally.

1. Structure your presentation
   Learn the process that underlies every great delivery whether it be a mere conversation or a formal presentation to a large audience.
2. Silence your internal dialogue
   As your meeting is about to begin or your name is announced on stage, you start to feel that old familiar flutter.  Your internal voice is probably saying a myriad of things;

• what should I say first
• what if I say something silly
• what if they laugh at me

Remember the reason you are the person nominated to speak is because you have the right credentials. So step into that space that could elicit thoughts like:

• I am the one who knows most about this subject that is why I am here to present
• If I don’t know how to answer a question I can always get back to the person later
• So what if I make a mistake? I can be humble, apologise and take the learning.

1. Create a confident state of mind
   Teach your neurology how to access confidence, how to step into that state of confidence anytime you need. This concept of state management sat at the core of NLP and yielded immediate results.
2. Rapport with self
   This was a big question for Rose. “Are you in rapport with yourself?” Sylvia asked. She had parts operating inside her, all of which displayed different behaviours and needed integration:

• a nervous part – feel jittery, find it hard for words to come out of your mouth
• a self-assured part – feel in control, know what to say as you are quite well versed with your subject matter

The phenomenal thing about NLP was that Sylvia never gave her any advice. She merely shared change tools and processes. Plus the impact and result was immediate. Her mindset shifted so fast, she saw new ways of thinking and feeling. Now she understood why so many corporate people attended NLP for work courses and read books on the subject.
There were direct work applications - leadership, coaching, communication, team work, presentations, that people improved after attending an NLP program.  Rose was excited as her social life too started to see shifts.
It was all in her mind!


Sylvia Fernandes is the Founder & CEO of VIA Frontiers. She is a Master Trainer of NLP who is specialised in corporate applications.
She started her business in Sydney in 2002 and has been operating in the Asia Pacific Region ever since. She is currently based in Singapore.
She is also the author of Bye Bye Black Cat -- Turn Your Luck Around and Realise Opportunities. Visit VIA Frontiers for more information.