Quiet Confidence: How Introverts Can Thrive in the Workplace Without Shouting

Ever felt like more extroverted colleagues are steaming ahead without trying, while you’re left working your butt off without recognition? You aren’t alone.

If you’re concerned that you’re going to have to change your personality to move forward, don’t worry - here’s how you can thrive at be visible at work without shouting.

What is quiet confidence?

Quiet confidence is the ability to be visible at work and exude confidence without being a loudmouth. You let your work do the talking for you, with a few handy strategic moves thrown in.

Quietly confident people don’t feel the need to brag, nor do they shy away from taking accountability and credit for their work. They show up, smash their projects and ensure that the people in charge of making company decisions know all about their contribution.

Furthermore, when you feel confident in yourself, others will too.

Audit your current confidence reputation

Do you feel like you come across as confident at work at the moment? If not, think about why that may be, and how you could change it.

Here are some potential issues and solutions:

• People think you’re shy or aloof because you never talk in meetings - make sure you say at least one thing in each meeting you attend.

• People think you lack confidence because you ramble - try to be concise and to the point.

• People think you’re unassertive because you always go with other peoples’ ideas - advocate for your own ideas more often.

Talk less

Yes, even introverts can be guilty of talking too much! If you aren’t confident in yourself or your decisions, you might find yourself rambling, justifying your reasoning and getting defensive when someone challenges you.

Instead, try to communicate clearly and confidently. If you find yourself rambling, stop. If someone challenges you, handle it with grace and calmly reiterate your reasoning.

A truly confident person handles challenges with poise because they back themselves, but are humble enough to be flexible when needed.

Talk more

Yes I know, complete opposite advice to my last point!

However, some people appear to lack confidence (or go completely unnoticed) because they simply never speak in public.

If this is you, make sure you start speaking in meetings - a helpful tip if you find this difficult is to take notes on the discussion so you have your own input to share - and making an effort to say hello and chat to colleagues when you see them.

This can be really difficult if you’re shy or just not a chatty person, but it gets easier the more you do it, and I promise it will make a huge difference to how you appear to others and your own confidence.

Get curious

You know how we talked about being challenged earlier? It’s time to become one of the challengers.

Not in an aggressive way, but the ability to ask intelligent questions and get clarity shows inner confidence (and also gives you something to say in the aforementioned meetings).

Set your mindset to growth mode

You’ve probably heard of fixed and growth mindsets before.

Fixed mindset: the belief that you have natural talent and if you’re bad at something, you’ll always be bad at it.

Growth mindset: the belief that abilities can be developed through practice and hard work.

So when you adopt a growth mindset, you’ll become more confident.

Why?

Because instead of placing your worth in whether you succeed or fail, you put your energy into learning - you see yourself improving, and you start to gain confidence in yourself.

And make no mistake, others will notice. Your energy will shift and you’ll exude confidence.

No more questioning yourself - you’ve got this.

How do you show up with quiet confidence? Let’s chat on Instagram.