Ep 69: How to Become a Confident and Effective Leader with Darren Reinke

Problem: How do you lead your team with confidence?

Authenticity and confidence go hand-in-hand. But how can we be more confident and authentic in our businesses, where these two characteristics are key to leading a team, bringing in clients, and bringing growth to your company?

Through my experience, I’ve learned that people who are their most authentic selves are going to be most confident. And on the flip side, people who are confident feel more comfortable being authentic.

Three Steps to Becoming a More Authentic, Confident Leader

As a coach and trainer to executives, Darren Reinke from Group Sixty, talks about how they are linked and three things we can do to let our more authentic, confident selves shine.

Step #1: Willingness to Change

When Darren and Group Sixty bring in new clients, there are three criteria that need to be filled: 

1. A desire to be great or, at least, better
2. Willingness to be introspective
3. Willingness to put in the work

If someone’s not willing to grow and get better, they’re just going to flat out not get better.

All three of these criteria stem from a willingness to change. If you’re not willing to change, there is less of a change that you will become great, be introspective, or put in work. The biggest resistance Darren has come across so far is fear.

Step #2: Self-Awareness

For Darren, fostering self-awareness can come from looking at your past and reflection. Journaling is an effective tool for this. Darren gets up at 5AM every morning in order to journal, write, and jot down ideas. One of his inspirations for this habit is, The Miracle Morning: The Not-So-Obvious Secret Guaranteed to Transform Your Life (Before 8AM) by Hal Elrod.

If you have trouble journaling, here are some questions you can start with:

• What challenges have you overcome?
• What challenges have you not yet overcome?
• What are the struggles you have in your personal life?
• What lessons have you learned from past failures?

Asking others for feedback is a great way to foster self-awareness as well. While most of us might dread getting critiques, it is an effective way to grow and heighten our awareness of things we might need to change or improve upon ourselves. Some questions you might ask are:

• What’s one thing I could have done better?
• What’s one area I can work on or improve upon?

Start to make it a part of your regular routine, in terms of asking for feedback.

You can also create a “why” statement or a mission statement, which is a technique that Simon Sinek popularized in his book, Start With Why.

Step #3: How Do You Express Yourself?

When it comes to expressing yourself, it’s important to let your values and your mission inspire you. There are two ways you can do this:

1. Try to start using a storytelling perspective. 
2. Start with a large set of values and start narrowing them down by half. Don’t choose words or values that you think other people want to hear. Instead, choose values that you value yourself. This is one of the ways you can show your true authentic self: by expressing and focusing on values that are important to you.

When you’re truly being authentic, you’re going to be confident in any situation. It’s like, ‘I’d rather win or lose on my merits, nothing else.’