[MUSIC] Hello everyone. Welcome to our course. Women and Leadership Inspiring Positive Change. Today we focus on women's leadership presence, particularly referencing self confidence. In this course so far, we have discussed women's strengths and opportunities, your leadership strengths and vision as well as issues of the glass ceiling and advancement barriers for women. You've had the opportunity for self-reflection and also for connecting with others around women’s experiences as leaders. Our agenda for today is to address what has come to be known as the gender confidence gap, where women are attributed to have lower self-confidence than men, particularly for positions of leadership. We will re-frame self confidence as consisting of four pillars. Authenticity, self-efficacy, adaptability and resourcefulness, and persistence and grit. We'll focus also on how demonstrating self confidence through voice and effective non-verbal communication benefits women and men in organizations. Drawing on what you have learned by relating to other woman. We're going to take a more relational approach to today's topic of self confidence. I've asked one of my own mentee's Keimei Sugaoma to join us today. She will cover what the research suggests about self confidence as it perceived today. And then I will discuss a more inclusive re-framing of self confidence. And finally Keimei will share her own self confidence story to start a conversation around how we collectively experience self confidence. Although there is research that suggests there is a gender confidence gap I do not want you to come away from this video thinking that women are less self-confident than men. What we are calling for, is an understanding that women have different sources of self-confidence. And a reframing that can help women to value and to draw out their innate self-confidence. I'll now ask Keimei to start by reviewing some of the existing studies on gender and self confidence. Please welcome Keimei Sugiyama. >> Thank you Diana for the opportunity to connect with this amazing group of women and men participating in this course. As Diana mentioned, I am Keimei Sugiyama, and I am currently a PhD student in the organizational behavior department at Case Western Reserve University. I previously worked in human resources and human capital consulting for ten years, and I am studying gender diversity and inclusion under Diana's guidance. One of our more recent projects is to develop a more inclusive reframing of self confidence. As part of this project we reviewed the research that is contributing to the perception that there is a gender confidence gap. These studies suggest that women are more modest in their estimates of their own intelligence, while men over estimate. Women also tend to internally attribute performance challenges. And when they do perform ascribe their achievements to others luck or timing. They may even underestimate their level of performance all together depending on the type of task that's involved. One interpretation of these studies is that women have lower self confidence. That what we'd like to do now is take each one of these findings and turn them into opportunities. To start, let's reframe the first two studies. Humility is perhaps what allows women to act with more integrity and authenticity. Overestimating creates inaccuracy and misrepresentation that could inhibit performance. Internal attribution may provide the incentive to persist in overcoming challenges. Whereas external attribution does not take ownership for continued growth that may be needed. The next two studies indicate that there is opportunity to improve the relational context for women's self confidence. Imposter syndrome tended to be found in women who had internalized family or general societal expectations that were invalidating of their intelligence. In the next study that the sex typing of task effected performance estimation also suggest that socialization influenced the self perception of ability. What is needed is the redefining of self confidence that allows woman to undue the harmful effects of suicidal expectations and invalidation. McKinsey's study of women leaders found self confidence to be, the level of self-assuredness arising from an appreciation of ones own abilities or qualities. This appreciation may come from the accumulation of experience and success, but also through relational context. For example, women's confidence in who they are and in their own self-image increased when they were first primed by writing descriptions of their first close friendships. Mentors have also been found to increase confidence. And when provided expert advice, women were more likely to overcome any under estimation of performance and increase the overall collective performance and simulations of competitive tournaments. Negative internalizations and the way that self confidence is perceived by other has lead to biased conclusions that women are less confident than men. What we propose is that women can overcome these misperceptions by engaging with the four pillars of self-confidence, drawing on women's strengths, authenticity, self-efficacy, adaptability, and persistence. And supporting the foundation of these pillars are the effective use of voice and non verbal communication. Diana will now discuss each of these aspects of internalizing and demonstrating positive self confidence. >> As we have discussed there are four pillars to self confidence. Let me go through each one of these by highlighting some key learnings for all of us. The first one is authenticity which is defined as actions that are consistent with deeply held values and beliefs. There are many times when authenticity is challenged, called to question. Sometimes that happens when we reconnect with goals and dreams that have not yet been achieved. Sometimes that happens when the context changes and puts our values and behaviors at odds, sometimes authenticity is challenged by major life events. Sometimes authenticity is challenged when women try to fit into male dominated environments. And sometimes it is a major life events that occur in women's lives, that might call into question the consistency between values and actions. A second pillar of self-confidence is self-efficacy. Self-efficacy is the belief I can achieve my goals and succeed in a role. It's a belief in one's more agentive leadership capabilities. Which refers to taking more initiative, more action, and more risk, and leading and directing your future. Self-efficacy results from qualifications, experiences, credibility, and reputation. Leaders with high self-efficacy are typically more effective. The challenge of course for women is that in male dominated environments, women can sometimes have lower self-efficacy expectations than men. A third pillar of self confidence is adaptability. So adaptability enhances confidence by providing the belief that one can be resourceful to find solutions to any challenge or barrier and use the strengths of interpersonal skills and connection to build networks of resources. Now, women have an advantage many times with regard to adaptability because they've had to adapt to multiple work and family roles throughout their lives. Providing opportunities for developing this particular scale of leadership. Adaptability includes the ability to take on new leadership behaviors that are required at the next level of advancement. So, again, adaptability is a key pillar that helps us to develop and demonstrate self-confidence. And the final pillar that we'd like to refer to is what we call persistence of grit. Which is the ability to persevere for the long term, rather than allowing short term challenges to supersede accomplishments for the future. Resilience is an important part of persistence. And responding with resilience enables people to overcome failure and disappointment. Another element of persistence is grit which we can define as resolve and character or the passion and the perseverance for very long term goals. Grit is about having stamina and endurance. It is about sticking with the future day after day. Not just today, and not just now, but over the long run. Year after year, month after month and week after week. With grit, people can persist and overcome any challenges and barriers that may hold them back from achieving their vision and fulfilling their values. Another element of self confidence is demonstrating voice as well as effective non-verbal communication. Voice is about having the courage to say what needs to be said to improve the outcome, but in a way that can be heard. I encourage everyone here, to focus on what are the things that must be said, so that their able to raise their voice for the key leadership issues that need to be addressed and dealt with. A second element is non-verbal communication which research shows is the bulk of the impact that a person can have in communication. It consists of our facial expressions, our body movements and posture. Gestures, eye contact, and tone of voice. And these speak the loudest, enabling us to be trusted by sending signals that match our words. Effective leaders respond non-verbally in ways that show that they understand notice and care. These four pillars consisting of authenticity, self efficacy, adaptability and persistence. Under girded by effective voice and non-verbal communication. Women and men can start to respond much more self confidently in the face of challenges and barriers and leadership positions that require courage and risk. Next as a way to illustrate this re-framing of self confidence, I'd like to ask Keimei to share her own self confidence story. And as Keimei shares her story, I invite you to think about your own self confidence stories as well. >> Thank you, Diana. As I thought about my story, I realized that it really illustrates all four pillars of self-confidence. And it's about the time that I applied to and interviewed for the PhD program in organizational behavior here at Case Western Reserve University. Before I applied to Case, I had been working on a book with my mentor for my master's program. during this time I met my now husband Jessie. They say the life is what happens when you're making other plans and that was certainly the case for me. With the attitude that life is an adaptation, I knew that I have to figure out a way to work out a new vision of my future. That included the partner that I chose to live my life with. Between a wedding, a book and a demanding consulting schedule, I had my hands full, but never gave up on my dream to go to case and become a scholar. With the support of my husband and with a strong belief in my ability to pursue research, two years later than I originally intended. I persisted in applying to Case and luckily got an interview. The best way that I can describe my experience interviewing with the Case organization behavior department, was that I had found my intellectual home. I was energized and inspired, and truly felt that I was living my best self. It may be strange to think that I felt the most authentic during an interview, but that was a sign to me that I had found the right program. And it's been confirmed ever since, particularly through the mentoring that I have received through Diana. My self confidence story includes the four pillars. But also the positive social validation and support that exists in a more inclusive and relational reframing of self confidence. Thank you so much for the opportunity to share my self confidence story. >> Thank you Keimei for sharing your most moving story about self confidence and your journey to extraordinary leadership. I would now like to invite all of you to join us in this next exercise about your self-confidence journey. Think of a time when you felt self-confident, what lead to this feeling? What were the outcomes? Now think of a time when you did not feel self-confident. What lead to this feeling and what were the outcomes. As you begin to reflect on these two different sets of experiences make note of the insights about yourself that emerge from these reflections. So in conclusion, women are sometimes attributed to have lower self-confidence especially for challenging leadership situations. By redefining self-confidence as a a combination of authenticity, self-efficacy, adaptability and persistence and by demonstrating effective voice and non verbal communications, women can feel and demonstrate greater self-confidence, especially in challenging leadership situations. Our homework assignment, is a self-confidence assessment, which we invite you to complete at the website mentioned in the syllabus. Once you've taken that assessment, write a 300 word reflection, about the insights you gained about your own self-confidence, from the exercises today, as well as the self-assessment. Thank you very much. [MUSIC]
