You have delivered results. You have the expertise and have put in the years. And yet, somehow, the feedback keeps circling back to the same three words: “Be more confident.”
It is one of the most common, and least useful, piecesof advice given to women in STEM leadership. Not because confidence does not matter, but because it tells you nothing about what to actually do differently.
In Episode 035 of the Lunch with Leaders podcast, Adaeze Iloeje-Udeogalanya breaks down exactly why this advice fails and what to do instead. Here is your practical how-to guide.
Step 1: Understand Why “Be More Confident” Is Not Actually Feedback
Before you can fix anything, you need to understand what is really happening when someone delivers this line.
When a manager tells you to “be more confident,” they are acknowledging that something felt off, but they lack the precision to tell you what. The word confidence is vague enough to mean everything and nothing at the same time. It leaves you trying to fix a feeling rather than a behaviour.
What this means for you: Do not take the feedback at face value. The real message buried inside it is: “There is a gap between what this situation needed from you and what you gave it.” Your job is to find out what that gap actually is, not to chase a feeling.
Step 2: Reject the Myth That Confidence Is Something You Either Have or You Don’t
This is one of the most damaging beliefs in leadership development, and it runs deep.
Confidence is not a fixed personality trait. You were not born with it or without it. It is not something that some women naturally carry and others missed out on. That framing puts all the pressure on who you are internally — and leaves you with no clear path forward.
As Adaeze puts it in the episode: “Confidence, real confidence, the kind that changes how a room receives you, is a byproduct of some kind of activity, of taking action on something.”
What this means for you: Stop treating confidence as the starting point. It is the result — what happens after your preparation, your skill, and your ability to read a situation all come together. You do not wait to feel confident and then act. You act, and confidence follows.
Step 3: Diagnose the Real Skill Gap Behind the Moment
Think of a specific situation where you received that feedback or felt like you did not show up the way you wanted to. Now ask a better question: What exactly happened? What did the situation need from me that I did not deliver?
Here are the most common skill gaps that get mislabelled as “low confidence”:
Reading the room. You walked in without a clear sense of your audience, what they needed to hear, or how to position your message. This is a situational awareness and communication strategy gap, not a confidence gap.
Handling silence: The conversation paused and you filled it immediately, often with hedging language or qualifiers that weakened your point. Sitting with silence in high-stakes moments is a learnable skill.
Managing pace: When nerves kick in, the instinct is to speed up. But speaking quickly in leadership settings often communicates the opposite of authority. Learning to slow down when everything in you wants to rush is a specific, practicable skill.
Handling pushback: Someone challenges your idea in a room full of people. Do you concede too quickly? Go quiet? Over-defend? Each response points to a specific gap around managing disagreement and holding your position under pressure.
Over-explaining: The habit of justifying every decision before anyone has asked a question is one of the most common patterns among high-achieving women in STEM — and it consistently undercuts leadership presence. This is explored in depth in Episode 032 — Stop Over-Explaining & Start Leading with Conviction.
What this means for you: Each of these is specific. Each is identifiable. Each is solvable. Name the actual skill that was missing, not the feeling.
Step 4: Change the Question You Are Asking Yourself
This is the pivot that changes everything.
Most women who receive the “be more confident” feedback go home asking: How do I become more confident? That question sends you toward mindset work, affirmations, and positive thinking, none of which will close a skill gap.
The better question is: What specifically do I need to work on to build my confidence?
That question gives you something you can actually act on. It shifts your energy from managing your internal state to developing a concrete capability. And it puts you back in control of your own growth, rather than waiting for a feeling to arrive on its own.
Step 5: Build the Skill Deliberately, Action Over Affirmations
Mindset matters. But action matters more. You cannot positive-think your way into knowing how to handle pushback in a boardroom. You cannot affirm your way into reading a room accurately. Skills are built through repeated, intentional practice — full stop.
Here is how to apply this practically:
- Identify one specific skill gap: from the list in Step 3 — just one to start.
- Find lower-stakes environments to practise: team meetings, internal presentations, peer conversations where the pressure is lower and feedback is accessible.
- Ask for specific feedback: on that specific skill, not general impressions, but targeted observations about the behaviour you are working on.
- Track your development over time: not by how confident you feel, but by how effectively you executed the skill in a given situation.
For a masterclass in applying this to personal branding and high-stakes communication, listen to Episode 033 — Ginikanwa Frank-Durugbor: A Crisis Communication & Personal Branding Masterclass. It is a powerful companion to this episode.
Step 6: Push Back on Vague Feedback
The next time someone tells you to “be more confident,” you do not have to simply nod and walk away more confused than when you arrived.
You are allowed — and it is in your best interest — to ask for specificity. Some language that works:
- “That’s helpful to know. Can you help me get more specific? What exactly did you notice in that moment?”
- “What would it have looked like if I had shown up more effectively there?”
- “Is there a particular behaviour you’d like to see me work on?”
These questions do two things at once: they signal that you are serious about your development, and they force the feedback to become actionable. Not every manager will be able to give you a precise answer — but asking the question still moves the conversation in a more useful direction.
Step 7: Start With Awareness, It Is the Most Important First Step
None of this work is possible without honest self-awareness. You have to be willing to look clearly at your own patterns — the moments you rush, the moments you shrink, the moments you over-explain — without judgment, but with precision.
As Adaeze says in the episode: “Awareness is the first and most important step to incredible transformation.”
This is not about being hard on yourself. It is about seeing yourself clearly enough to know exactly what to work on next. That clarity is what separates leaders who grow from leaders who stay stuck in the same feedback loop for years.
Conclusion
The phrase “be more confident” has had its run. It is time to retire it.
If you are a mid-career or senior woman in STEM who has been circling the same vague feedback for too long, this is your permission to stop. Stop trying to feel your way into leadership presence. Start identifying exactly what the situation needed from you and exactly what skill will help you deliver it next time.
The path forward is not a mindset shift alone. It is a skills shift, backed by honest self-awareness, deliberate practice, and a refusal to accept feedback that leaves you with nothing to walk with.
You already have the expertise. You already have the track record. Now it is time to close the specific gaps that are standing between where you are and the leader you are becoming.
Start there. Everything else follows.
Ready to stop chasing a feeling and start building real skills? Listen to Episode 035 now: The Confidence Myth: Rethinking Leadership Mindset and Influence for Women in STEM
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