by Shaheen Darr

Created on: August 10, 2011   Last Updated: February 03, 2012

An important quality to cultivate in the workplace is confidence in yourself and your abilities to do your job well. If this is lacking it can seriously hamper your chances of succeeding in your career due to a number of reasons:

Lack of assertiveness: Self confident people have a positive attitude and motivate others around them to do well and achieve their goals. They are team players who enjoy interaction with others and express their opinions without hesitation. People lacking self confidence cannot do this easily due to their shy disposition and lack of self belief and are more hesitant in letting others know how they really feel about situations that develop at work.  They can allow either a colleague or a boss to bully them without complaining openly about it or carry on working in an environment that is not conducive to their work. This can result in a situation where employees stay in the same position for years as they do not have the confidence to initiate changes in their working environment or in their work relationships.   

Poor communication skills: In the first stages of career development being confident and having good communication skills are invaluable especially during interviews when presenting yourself well can help to get the job that you want. For those already in a job cultivating a good relationship with your manager or supervisor can affect the direction your career takes. Based on your performance at work they will encourage and advice you on which route to follow which will be most beneficial for your career. A lack of effective communication can prevent the relationship between a manager and employee from progressing and when the time comes to choose someone for promotion an employee who is not assertive enough to sell himself as the most suitable candidate can find himself stagnating on the career ladder. This is especially true in sales and marketing jobs where a confident and outgoing personality rates amongst the most sought after qualities in a candidate.

Inability to network: Some jobs necessitate a lot of networking to gain clients and promote company products and services. A natural ability to cultivate new relationships and nurture existing ones can make networking both enjoyable and productive. A lack of self confidence can hamper this as there is a reluctance to meet new people or maintain relationships with clients who can prove to be important for the company. Depending upon the type of job that

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