Employee View of a Manager's Low Self-Esteem

A manager had a low self-esteem. In working towards increasing his self-esteem, he analyzed the impact of low self-esteem on himself as well as on his employees. He found that low self-esteem created a sense of self-doubt that limited his ability to make firm decisions on a timely basis. In turn, he believed that diminished his employee's confidence in him as well as their confidence in the work they were doing for him.

I agreed with his perspective on this, but asked him to consider this additional thought as well: "When you are down on yourself, when you lack self-confidence, you cause people to wonder if your successes are due to your professional and personal competence or, instead, if you accomplish things simply by having strokes of luck."

Or put a different way, when you lack self-confidence you limit people's ability to give you credit for your hard work because they lack confidence that you were truly capable of doing it.

About me: Dan Pelley is an educator specializing in management training and development programs for supervisors and other first-line managers in Connecticut (CT), Massachusetts (MA) and Rhode Island (RI). The issue recited above came from a participant in one of his supervisory management development programs.

Copyright © 2011 Daniel W. Pelley
All rights reserved.

Selling Your Opponents

Have you ever been in a situation where you truly believed your idea or position was the best way to go but faced people who had strong opposing views? Here's a thought that might help:

Getting others to buy-in to your ideas or to come around to your point-of-view doesn't mean that you have to diminish or downplay your strong beliefs to reach a watered down compromise (although there are times when a compromise may be the best choice). But if you need to stick to your position and convince those holding opposing views that your way is truly best, you must therefore work on broadening the appeal of your position so as to make it more attractive to others. You must start by making a special effort to convince others, an effort that starts with not alienating and proceeds to persuading.


About me: Dan Pelley teaches ways to effectively implement changes as part of his "Proactive Leadership" program, one of five programs leading to a Certificate in Supervisory Management. 146 companies in Connecticut (CT), Rhode Island (RI), Massachusetts (MA) and New York have one or more person(s) who earned this certificate.

Copyright © 2011 Daniel W. Pelley
All rights reserved.