| How do I build my team’s confidence and protect people from burnout? | Follow this confidence checklist: have a purpose, share the map, ensure cohesion, act with integrity, and learn constantly. |
People who believe two things become a powerful force: first, they believe that change is possible; second, they believe that they have the resources and direction to act. In other words, they know what to do next and they believe it’s worth doing. Academics call this state “efficacy”, but you can call it what it is – confidence.
The opposite of confidence is what academics call inefficacy, which is one of the three hallmarks of burnout. Inefficacy is when we feel like our efforts don’t matter, that nothing will change or get better no matter how hard they try. When we feel this way, we lack confidence and stop trying.
In the social impact world, lack of action is the death-knell of a movement or a program. Change doesn’t happen by accident – it requires effort. And effort, as it turns out, comes from people who are willing to act.
People’s willingness to act is influenced by the things leaders say, do, and decide. If you’re wondering what “leadership” is, that’s really it: your ability to foster confidence in people’s abilities to create change; and to then sustain that effort over an extended period of time.
There are specific moments in organizational life when leaders’ words, actions, and decisions have profound impacts on fostering team confidence. This is when leaders have an opportunity to foster confidence and inspire effective action — or to throw another log on the fire of burnout.
Call it your vision or your mission or your North Star, a leader articulates a purpose — this is the reason an organization or program exists. You don’t have to invent a new one. Your North Star doesn’t have to be obscenely grand. It just needs to describe what will be different in the world once the organization, team, or program achieves its goal. Just describe what the land on the other side of your ocean of work looks like.
A clear vision, repeated often, reminds people what they are working towards and answers the existential question, “What we are doing here?”.
Saying you want to be in the nice land on the other side of the ocean without any plan to get there is a bit … entitled. As they say, a vision without a plan is a hallucination.
How you do your work is as important as what you set out to do. It’s also the secret to building trust and teamwork. When you tell people how they will get from here to there, they start to see the path, too.
You don’t need to write a lengthy strategic plan or tell people how to execute every little task; just map out the main steps to take on the journey. If the North Star tells people where you are going, these details tell them where to start, what to do next, and how to help. Your map shows people where to focus their attention and talents today, in service of that far-off goal.
A map, consulted frequently, answers the questions, “What am I doing here?”
Once you have a map, it’s easy to think “well that’s done, now onto the next thing.” Not so fast. Leaders protect their teams from distractions and doubts and the omnipresent feeling that we are never doing enough to help this world in crisis. They continually reinforce trust in the path and help to ensure that people are spending the most time on the highest priorities.
We have this cultural notion of the leader as an “ideas person”, someone who is always coming up with new ideas and new opportunities, always adding to the list of things we could, should, or might be doing.
In truth, those who are distracted by all the other blinking lights in the sky, don’t lead well. Their non-stop excitement for shiny new things is a kind of vision-greed, driven by a belief that more is always better. This mindset undermines the team’s core purpose and reinforces some people’s biggest fear: we aren’t doing enough.
Cohesive action means that time and resources are spent on the things most likely to move you along the path from here to there, from present to vision. It means having the courage to say “no” or “not now” from time to time. It’s recognizing that there can only be one North Star, and trusting in your potential to succeed.
When leaders ensure actions are cohesive and keep the plan simple, they foster a confident response to the pesky voices of doubt questioning “Am I (doing) enough?” or “Is this the right path?”
Integrity means that the organization pursues its goals in ways that are consistent with its mission and values. This is, sadly, an area where many social impact organizations fall flat. The forces of our culture, the economic pressures of our work, and our sheer workloads make it easy to justify (or fail to see) the ways our organization’s internal practices don’t mirror our external goals.
Acting with integrity proves to people day in and day out that your goals can come to life. It answers the questions, “Who am I to even try?” and “Who are we to even be doing this work?”
No leader is perfect. Even people who lead effectively most of the time will have low days, days when they can’t do it all or be all to everyone.
There is no one, single “perfect” team, either. Different people thrive in different environments and under different types of leaders.
We can all handle bad days. We can handle conflict and mistakes and poor choices from time to time. Suffering happens not when something was difficult or painful, but when we believe this is never going to end.
When leaders learn and grow in front of their teams, when they explicitly acknowledge the need to change course and follow through, teams learn that growth is possible. Change is possible. That is what we need to believe during tough times, both inside an organization and out in the community.
Learning and growing answers the question, “Will things always be this way?”
After all, that is the ultimate purpose of our work. Whether you do environmental, health, youth development, or economic justice work, you’re showing people that change is possible so they will act.
Call it confidence, call it efficacy, call it trust — taken together, this feeling is one of the greatest gifts a leader can give. It’s not the words in your mission statement or the steps in your plan that give people confidence, it’s the feeling they get when they think they know where they’re going and what step to try next. Giving people a chance to experience change changes them.
When leaders act with purpose, clear communication, cohesive action, integrity, and wisdom, they make the unfamiliar feel familiar. They make uncertainty feel like freedom, like power.
The confidence that comes from purposeful action is the greatest gift leaders can give — to their organizations and their communities.
To lead with confidence, see Entremission’s Confidence Checklist.
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