Job / confidence issues

[HavingAConfidenceCrisis]

Have n/c for this.

I have recently been offered a post which is a significant 'step up' from anything I've done before. It's a part time public sector role. There is a lot of responsibility and strategic work involved. There will also be meetings with very senior local public figures.

I initially felt flattered to be offered the role and it was a big confidence boost.

However I'm now really worrying about working with these people.

I'm quite a down to earth person, reasonably well educated and am articulate but I don't have the confidence level to talk easily or with authority. I feel quite stupid and inferior a lot of the time.

If I don't understand anything I tend to assume it's because I'm not clever or sophisticated enough rather than the fact the information might not be clear.

I really want to make a success of this as I have been frustrated in the past at having good ideas and no platform from which to develop them.

Please come and share your tips and tricks for confidence- especially when working with people you perceive to be smarter/ better than you.

No one?

No suggestions I’m afraid . But I’m exactly the same . Completely understand the feeling that if I don’t understand something it’s my fault , not the situation or other person
I’ve been in my role for 16 years and still assume that others know more than me
Good luck with your new role and I’m sure you will be fab

If you’ve been offered this role then you must come across very differently from how you describe yourself!

I’ve sat in meetings with people in a more senior role than me and thought I was too stupid to understand what they were saying. However the older I get the more I think that in those types of situations, it’s the other person who is just spouting a load of irrelevant waffle and not offering anything much of any pertinence.

Some people are just good at making themselves sound clever. I’m sure we’ve all been in the situation where we’ve been chatting to a cleaner or someone in the corridor about an annoying work situation and no-one is coming up with a solution and they say “well, you’d think they’d do X/Y/Z, wouldn’t you?” And you think, blimey, it’s taken someone 4 grades lower to come up with an answer that no-one else has thought of.

Sometimes the articulate ones who appear much better-educated are not the ones who have the best ideas.

They wouldn’t have offered the role if they didn’t think you were capable! Go for it - and look up imposter syndrome. I struggle with it quite a bit, but don’t let it hold you back. Good luck 😊

And often, in an organisation-wide meeting, I think that something proposed will not work but no-one else puts their hand up to say the same so I assume I must have misunderstood or been on my own in being negative towards it. Then it turns out talking to people in smaller groups later that they had the same concerns but thought THEY were the only one.

It really is a confidence thing, you’re right.

I seem to have passed it on to one of my sons as teachers are always saying that they know he knows the answer to something, but he just won’t offer it.

I think if you can train yourself to be a bit less sensitive to what people think of you, you won’t care if you feel a bit foolish one time out of 10. The other 9 times I bet therr will be other people in the room relieved you are asking the question that they were dying to, or the person speaking is only too happy to elaborate because someone has shown a real interest in what they’re saying!

Could you not try and say “can u just clarify what you mean by X and Y”? Or “sorry, I’m not that familiar with A, B and C, would you be able to give me a bit of background? Either now or separately after the meeting?”

Then you may get someone else saying “well, actually, I’m not too sure I know a lot about that either, so I’d also like a run through of how it works.”