Based on this student's repsonse would you disagree with their points or agree? Were they valid or did you find loopholes in their arguments?

I agree that in many, if not most cases, women do tend to be very hypercritical of themselves while men tend to display more self-confidence. I believe however, that the underlying cause for the behavior of both genders is the same- insecurities. While there are some males in the workplace who are overly confident and egocentric, I believe that much of this is a facade. A display of false bravado intended to hide one's insecurities and self-doubts due to society's expectations that men are to be strong, independent, capable, and successful. As a result of these expectations I feel that many men will conduct themselves in an overly confident manner in the workplace in order to hide the fact that they do not feel that they are living up to these standards. Women in the workplace, on the other hand, tend to be overly critical due to the fact that society, despite great strides, still views them as being the weaker sex and being inferior to men. As a result I believe women tend to exaggerate and over analyze every characteristic of themselves in an effort to meet the standards that they feel society has placed on them.

As the leader plans out their coaching opportunities with each employee, the components of goal setting, honest feedback on performance, and positive reinforcement must be present in order to achieve the behavior modifications necessary to right-size a person’s self-image (Manning & Curtis, 2012). It is important to demonstrate to employees in front of their peers, their importance to the company and recognize their accomplishments often. Positive reinforcement is essential to team building and for the morale of employees. A leader’s expressed confidence is likely to enhance team members’ confidence in their abilities to communicate effectively with each other, cheer each other up following failure, and react enthusiastically following successful activities (i.e., enhance process-oriented collective efficacy (Fransen, Kleinert, Dithurbide, Vanbeselaere & Boen, 2014).

A good leader seeks to increase the women's confidence, yet reduce the man’s perception of himself. I want all members to feel that they can accomplish whatever it is they set out to do. I believe the issue for men comes down to attitude. Some men will exude an attitude of pomposity or arrogance because they are over confident. This can be dealt with by task delegation and their involvement with team members. Eventually, they will demonstrate a lack of ability during a task and if they are alone in that task they can conceal that failure, in a team environment however, they cannot. I have experienced the humbling effects of team membership and the feeling of accomplishment when the team is appreciative.

Understanding each member's motivation and abilities is important as a leader. Just like when you are training a child to walk, baby steps are sometimes necessary to build the confidence in a member. If members do not have managerial/leadership experience, giving them tasks that are ever increasing in difficulty and coaching them, can build their self-confidence. Leaders in fields ranging from sports, politics, to business, acknowledge that in order to succeed they have to strengthen team members’ confidence in the capabilities of their team (Fransen, Haslam, Steffens, Vanbeselaere, De Cuyper & Boen, 2015).

Works Cited:

Fransen, K., Haslam, S. A., Steffens, N. K., Vanbeselaere, N., De Cuyper, B., & Boen, F. (2015). Believing in 'us': Exploring leaders’ capacity to enhance team confidence and performance by building a sense of shared social identity. Journal Of Experimental Psychology: Applied, 21(1), 89-100. doi:10.1037/xap0000033

Fransen, K., Kleinert, J., Dithurbide, L., Vanbeselaere, N., & Boen, F. (2014). Collective efficacy or team outcome confidence? Development and validation of the Observational Collective Efficacy Scale for Sports (OCESS). International Journal of Sport Psychology, 45, 121–137. 10.7352/IJSP2014.45.121

Manning, G., & Curtis, K. (2012). The Art of Leadership (4th ed.). Boston, MA: McGraw-Hill/Irwin.