The Confidence Curve: How New Leaders Can Thrive Through Empathy, Openness, and Realistic Goals
Stepping into a leadership role for the first time is both exciting and daunting. You’ve earned the position, yet the shift from being part of a team to leading one brings a complex mix of emotions — pride, uncertainty, and often, self-doubt. The question that echoes in many new leaders’ minds is: Am I ready for this?
In a recent conversation between leadership coaches Lauren and Chris Leonard, a former audio engineer turned agile coach, the discussion centred on how new leaders can navigate this transition with authenticity and confidence. Leonard’s insights, drawn from years of working across industries — from entertainment to healthcare and technology — offer a roadmap for building trust, maintaining authenticity, and developing the mindset required to lead effectively.
From Collaboration to Leadership: Lessons from the Stage
Leonard’s career began in the music industry, a world that thrives on collaboration, adaptability, and daily delivery. As he explains, “The show went on every day, whether you felt ready or not.” That discipline of execution — delivering regardless of uncertainty — became the foundation of his coaching philosophy.
When the economic downturn shifted his career into technology, Leonard transitioned from managing performances to managing people. As a project manager and scrum master, he discovered that leadership, like live performance, demands clarity, empathy, and trust. These principles now shape his guidance to new leaders learning to balance authority with approachability.
The Three Pillars of Effective Leadership
According to Leonard, great leaders share three defining attributes: empathy, openness, and confidence.
1. Empathy — The Foundation of Trust
Empathy enables leaders to step outside their own perspective and see the world through their team’s eyes. Without it, leadership easily becomes adversarial rather than cooperative.
An empathetic leader listens without judgement, understands obstacles from the employee’s point of view, and provides support that feels human rather than hierarchical. This shift transforms leadership from managing compliance to facilitating growth.
Leonard notes that leaders who actively practise empathy “help their teams get out of their own way.” Instead of focusing on mistakes, they look for opportunities to remove barriers and empower performance.
2. Openness and Curiosity — The Watchtower Perspective
Great leaders maintain what Leonard calls a “watchtower perspective.” While the team works in the details, leaders must stay alert to new information, external threats, and emerging opportunities.
This requires curiosity — an eagerness to keep learning and adapting. Leadership is not about having all the answers; it’s about asking the right questions. Openness creates an environment where ideas can flow freely, and where feedback becomes a tool for progress rather than criticism.
3. Confidence — Standing Firm in Decisions
Confidence, Leonard stresses, is not arrogance. It’s the quiet conviction to stand by decisions once they are made. A leader who constantly revises choices under pressure erodes trust within the team.
“When every decision feels negotiable,” he explains, “it creates an environment of uncertainty.” The best leaders project stability — they communicate decisions clearly, own their outcomes, and provide assurance that direction has been set.
Building Confidence as a New Leader
For new leaders, confidence rarely comes immediately. It must be built gradually through reflection, experience, and acceptance of imperfection. Leonard compares it to parenting: no one feels fully prepared for the responsibility, yet the role itself compels growth.
His first piece of advice: remember why you were chosen.
“You’re where you are in your organisation for a reason,” he says. “You’re not easily replaceable — your perspective, your values, your totality of experience are what brought you here.”
Secondly, confidence grows from curiosity and openness, not from pretending to have all the answers. Many new leaders mistakenly believe authority means infallibility. In truth, acknowledging uncertainty strengthens trust. Teams respect leaders who can admit, “I don’t know, but let’s find out together.”
This collaborative confidence fosters ownership. When teams contribute to problem-solving, they align behind the final decision, even when it involves risk or ambiguity.
The Power of Lifelong Learning
Leonard points to figures such as Bill Gates and Barack Obama as examples of leaders who model intellectual curiosity. Their reading lists attract attention not because of fame, but because of what they symbolise: a commitment to continuous learning.
Curiosity doesn’t just apply to books; it extends to conversations. Talking to colleagues, peers, and mentors can provide insight that formal training never offers. For new leaders, cultivating collaborative curiosity—a genuine interest in others’ experiences and ideas—strengthens empathy, sharpens judgement, and deepens self-awareness.
Navigating the Transition from Peer to Leader
One of the toughest adjustments for new leaders is managing former teammates. Suddenly, relationships that once felt equal are layered with accountability, evaluation, and authority. Many fear that enforcing standards will damage friendships.
Leonard argues that, handled correctly, this existing rapport can be a strength rather than a liability. “The trust and goodwill you’ve built as a peer,” he says, “is a huge asset. They already know your integrity, your humour, your work ethic — that familiarity becomes the foundation of your leadership credibility.”
Instead of distancing yourself, maintain authenticity. Your colleagues will respect consistency — the same person they worked alongside should now be the person leading them. Over-formality or a forced “manager persona” only creates emotional distance and undermines trust.
When it comes to accountability, those personal relationships can make tough conversations easier, not harder. Because mutual respect already exists, discussions about performance can remain collaborative: “How can we solve this together?” rather than “You’ve fallen short.”
Leonard observes that this approach reinforces confidence on both sides — the leader’s confidence in guiding the conversation, and the team’s confidence that decisions are fair, informed, and empathetic.
Goal-Setting: The Core of Effective Leadership
Leonard’s final piece of advice for new leaders is simple but essential: set realistic, purposeful goals for both yourself and your team.
He warns against two extremes — having no goals at all or setting ambitions so high they become demotivating. “Many leaders,” he explains, “fall on either side of that line. Few manage to stay in the middle, where goals inspire rather than overwhelm.”
Effective goals provide clarity and direction without suffocating creativity. They allow progress to be measured, celebrated, and refined. For new leaders, personal goals might focus on improving communication, delegating effectively, or building team trust.
Team goals, meanwhile, should align with the organisation’s strategy while acknowledging current capabilities and constraints. Setting achievable milestones not only boosts motivation but also reinforces credibility. When leaders set and achieve balanced goals, they model accountability — the cornerstone of sustainable confidence.
Authenticity Over Authority
Leonard’s recurring message is one of authentic leadership. Confidence does not require acting differently; it requires being consistently yourself.
Trying to appear overly authoritative or “professional” at the expense of authenticity can backfire. Teams quickly detect insincerity, and once that connection is lost, influence weakens.
Instead, he encourages leaders to “continue being you” — maintain the humour, interests, and humanity that built your reputation in the first place. It is precisely these traits that make leadership relatable and approachable.
Authentic leaders build environments where people feel psychologically safe to share ideas, admit mistakes, and take initiative — all of which are essential ingredients for innovation and performance.
The Takeaway: Leadership Is a Continuous Journey
Becoming a confident leader is not about perfection; it’s about progress. True leadership blends self-awareness with humility — the understanding that learning never ends.
As Leonard concludes, confidence is not granted by title or position. It is earned daily through empathy, curiosity, decisiveness, and the willingness to grow.
For new leaders, the message is clear:
- Lead with empathy to build trust.
- Stay curious to keep evolving.
- Be confident enough to decide, and humble enough to adapt.
- Set realistic goals that inspire, not intimidate.
- And above all, remain authentic — the leader your team already believes in.
Because leadership is not about replacing who you were as a teammate. It’s about expanding who you are to include the growth of everyone around you.
