Personality Traits – Confidence

The second personality trait of great meeting leaders is Confidence. Confidence is an obvious leadership trait in virtually any context. In a meeting leadership context, a confident leader creates an environment of assured attendees willing to follow the leader through the meeting process toward the objectives.

Think about it for a moment. How comfortable would you be climbing into a taxi with a seemingly nervous driver? Would you just sit back in your seat, or would you anxiously be looking over his shoulder with each passing turn? The same is true with meeting leaders. We need our attendees to know that we’ve got everything under control so they can focus on performing their role, not trying to drive the meeting.

Have Confidence with Powerfully Simple Meetings

A key component of the PSM system is the confidence that meeting leaders can enjoy by knowing they have a system that delivers consistently outstanding results.

Characteristics of a confident meeting leader include:

1. Optimizing Attendance
A confident meeting leader recognizes the importance of having the right people in the room to accomplish the meeting objectives. In many organizations it takes confidence to tell people they are not invited to a meeting that they would prefer to attend. It also takes confidence to tell higher-ranking executives that their attendance is required. A confident leader does what it takes to have the right people in attendance.

2. Keeping Attendees on Track
The meeting leader must be comfortable challenging and redirecting others in a professional manner to ensure they stay on track. He or she cannot be afraid (that is, lack the confidence) of ruffling feathers if attendees are heading off course, rambling, hijacking or otherwise deviating from the core meeting objectives.

3. Ensuring Clarity of Outcomes
Asking clarifying and or challenging questions to ensure clarity requires confidence. If an attendee is making a point that that is not clear, it becomes the meeting leader’s responsibility to ask for clarification. This requires a level of candor and honesty that must be supported with confidence.

4. Enforcing Accountability
The meeting leader must be a shepherd of accountability and have the confidence to ensure that it is enforced. For example, every action item must have a corresponding owner. A meeting leader must have the confidence needed to ensure that action items are appropriately assigned and that due dates are established and agreed upon.

Would more confidence improve the process and outcome of your meetings? Leave a comment below.

 

Continue this series Personality Trait #3 – Organization