The Underrated Leadership Skill: Confidence, According to Justin Wright

In a recent LinkedIn post, Justin Wright explores what he identifies as the most underrated leadership skill: confidence. Wright challenges the conventional understanding of confidence, differentiating it from the notion of having all the answers. Instead, he emphasizes a deeper, more nuanced form of confidence that enables leaders to navigate uncertainty and foster trust within their teams.

According to Wright, true leadership confidence isn’t about infallibility. It’s about the capacity to make critical decisions even when the path forward is unclear. He highlights this through several key scenarios:

“The kind where you can make a tough call when nothing is certain… and still sleep at night.”

This suggests a leader who can accept the inherent risks of decision-making without being paralyzed by them. Wright further elaborates on this, pointing out that confidence also manifests in how leaders handle feedback and delegate tasks.

Beyond the Surface: The Layers of Leadership Confidence

Wright breaks down leadership confidence into seven distinct types, suggesting that many leaders may overlook crucial aspects of developing this essential trait. These types include decision confidence, feedback confidence, vulnerability confidence, delegation confidence, emotional confidence, boundary confidence, and humble confidence.

A significant portion of his post is dedicated to what he terms “vulnerability confidence,” which he identifies as the most commonly skipped yet vital component. He argues that leaders often shy away from admitting what they don’t know, mistaking it for weakness.

“Because admitting what you don’t know feels like weakness. (But it’s actually what makes your team trust you more.)”

This perspective reframes vulnerability not as a deficit, but as a foundational element for building trust and psychological safety within a team. Wright implies that by demonstrating openness about limitations, leaders can actually enhance their team’s respect and reliance on them.

The Power of Delegation and Feedback Confidence

Delving deeper into his framework, Wright points to delegation confidence as another critical, often neglected, area. He notes the temptation for leaders to perform tasks themselves, especially if they can do it faster.

“The kind where you hand off important work to someone on your team… even though you could do it faster yourself.”

This act of letting go, according to Wright, is a testament to a leader’s confidence in their team’s capabilities and their commitment to developing talent, rather than solely prioritizing immediate efficiency. Similarly, feedback confidence, as described by Wright, involves receiving constructive criticism without defensiveness, a trait crucial for continuous improvement and fostering an environment where honest dialogue is encouraged.

In essence, Justin Wright’s LinkedIn post presents a compelling argument for a more evolved understanding of leadership confidence, one that embraces uncertainty, vulnerability, and trust as core components of effective leadership.