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Self Confidence: An Emotional Competency that Leads to Success. “If you believe in yourself, you can achieve anything” is a message most people have heard at least once in their lifetime. This quote emphasizes the importance of having self-confidence to be successful in a career and in life. Self-confidence is one of the 21 emotional competencies that are important to achieve Emotional Intelligence. Emotional Intelligence is the ability to recognize our own feelings and those of others’ and to be able to manage those emotions effectively (Kouzes & Posner, 2002). Emotional Intelligence was studied and created by Daniel Goleman, and the framework of Emotional Intelligence (EI) reflects how an individual's potential for mastering the skills of Self-Awareness, Self-Management, Social Awareness, and Relationship Management translates into on-the-job success (Bar-On, 2001). This model is based on EI competencies that have been identified in internal research at hundreds of corporations and organizations who were distinguishing their outstanding performers from the lessees. Now compelling research indicates that Emotional Intelligence is twice as important as IQ plus technical skills for outstanding job performance (Edmunds, 2001). EI is a group of learned capabilities that contributes to effective performance of an individual in an organization. Emotional Intelligence has as much to do with knowing when and how to express emotion as it does with controlling it. It is very relevant to executive success and has proven so time and time again in many studies performed on top level executives. Self-confidence falls under the self-awareness category in competencies of Emotional Intelligence, which also includes accurate self-assessment and emotional self-awareness (Hay Group, 2001). The definition of self-confidence is important to understand, as well as what a high level of self-confidence in a person should look like, whether human resource professionals have this competency, and how self-confidence can be developed in future leaders are all important topics that need addressed in today’s business world. By being self confident, a person is able to have clear goals, values, and dreams; they will be realistic and have strong intuitive skills. Feeling confident that one can adequately cope with events, situations, and people puts one in a position to exercise leadership (Edmunds, 2001). This is very important if a person wishes to be a successful leader in today’s world. Self-confidence is defined in Webster’s Dictionary as “a freedom from doubt; belief in yourself and your abilities”. Dictionary.com defines it as “a feeling of emotional security resulting from faith in oneself; a firm belief in one's powers, abilities, or capacities.” It is a central issue of personal growth, which in turn is an issue for the growth of a company. By achieving self-confidence, one can reach their career goals more effectively because they believe in themselves and their abilities to accomplish anything. Without this belief, a pessimistic attitude can cause a person to fail, and keep following this vicious cycle over and over again. Self-confidence is a state of mind, developed and perfected by the most successful people in the world. Every successful person, from Bill Gates to Ted Turner, will say they only accomplished their goals because they believed in themselves. Self -confident people are not always the most successful, but they do not focus on their failures and mistakes, which helps them create the self-confidence that propels them to greater success (Edmunds, 2001). An associate that lacks self-confidence and shoulders the blame for failures gets stressed more easily when they receive greater job responsibilities. Research showed that associates who had more self-confidence suffered from the least amount of stress, even in demanding jobs in which they controlled working conditions and supervised others. They had higher levels of antibodies in their saliva and fewer respiratory symptoms, so they were prone to get ill more often (Bar-On, 2001).
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