The Quiet Skill Behind Magnetic Leadership
What’s the quiet skill that makes some leaders effortlessly magnetic? It’s not about being the loudest voice in the room—or downplaying your strengths to seem humble. In this video, I share a story from a recent surgery that revealed just how powerful (and rare) it is to strike the right balance between humility and confidence.
Whether you're leading a team, mentoring others, or just trying to show up with more grounded strength, this one subtle shift could change the way people experience you and your leadership presence.
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Today I want to talk about the tricky balance between humility and confidence.
This last week I had to go in for surgery. And when I was in there and they needed to get an IV in before putting me under, the nurse looked at my veins and kind of started to panic because I do not have good veins for IVs and I know this about myself. And thankfully I'm not afraid of needles. So I do okay. But she is now sharing all of her thoughts out loud with me, and I'm finding that I'm trying to encourage her and calm her down while she's trying to get a vein. And finally she called another nurse back who is their, you know, expert at finding those hard to find veins. And she was able to get it in.
But it was, it was such an interesting experience. It was one of those situations where, and I'm sure you've worked with folks like this, or maybe you are this person where either we really lack confidence completely and are putting ourselves down aloud for others to hear, or we are putting ourselves down aloud for others to hear because we're hoping that they affirm us and kind of contradict our negative statements. "Oh no, you're actually, you're actually okay at that." Right?
Either way, this is an unhealthy extreme of humility and it is not attractive as a leader and it does not help others build trust in us. And so that is the one extreme this way.
The other extreme this way is the overconfident end, also known as arrogant, right? Where we have individuals who are not willing to own when maybe they aren't as good at something or they are unwilling to apologize even when it is warranted. So that other extreme, also unattractive, also does not help others build trust in us.
And so what I see in leaders really as just the healthiest mode is this balance between humility and confidence. So humble confidence where where it really is just this beautiful blend.
In this situation, what it could have looked like is her maybe not sharing as many thoughts aloud about how she was feeling about her skills at finding the veins, but instead giving it a shot. And when she couldn't get it to just own it and say, “I'm so sorry I wasn't able to get that. I have a colleague who is just the best at this. I'm gonna go get her to take the next shot at it.” Right? And that would've built my respect and trust in her so much more.
So if you are at one extreme or the other, I want to encourage you to think about how to better blend both - how to exhibit healthy, humble confidence.