When my daughter was in sixth grade, the dad of one of her classmates asked what we had done as parents to give our daughter so much confidence. He said he wished his daughter had more confidence because it aids in everything from exercising good judgment, to performing well in school, to creating opportunities later in life. This was a comment I remembered well over the years — and it came to mind while reading about the 14th annual TMA Monitoring Center Excellence Award recipients, featured on page 47.

Among adults, confidence in the workplace is a leadership quality. It tends to affect those who come in contact with the confident person — including customers. One of the connections among this year’s Monitoring Center Excellence Award winners is confidence — all of the winners seem to operate on a high level and are big achievers on many levels. Even in the Monitoring Center of the Year, Guardian Protection, confidence is something the company aims to instill in its operators, in this case through its training.

“One transformational change management made thanks to low employee attrition is implementing individual training. Having done away with traditional classroom environments, new-hire training is conducted in a one-on-one setting, allowing the company’s dedicated trainer the ability to pace the learning for the individual’s needs,” writes Maggie McFadden Shein, author of “The 14th Annual Monitoring Center Excellence Awards.”

According to Jason Bradley, vice president of care and monitoring operations at Guardian Protection, “We have found that the process is exceptionally accelerated because we can identify the learning styles of our new family members right away and tailor that accordingly. This allows us to train employees to provide the right level of service for our customers, but it also allows that employee to feel confident and when they feel confident about what they do it is a powerful thing.”

Dr. Katharine Brooks in the Forbes article, “How To Be More Confident At Work,” written by Jacquelyn Smith, said, “A healthy level of confidence ... will make you more likely to engage in challenging but manageable projects, will help you get outside your comfort zone, and allow you to achieve new goals — all of which are valued characteristics of successful workers. Employers will know that they can trust you with a project and that you are likely going to be good at motivating others as well.”

In the Psychology Today article, “Business: Confidence Matters in the Corporate World,” Jim Taylor, Ph.D., writes, “… confidence impacts every other psychological contributor to performance in business. If you're confident, you're going to be motivated, relaxed, focused, and have mostly positive emotions.” 

Some “confidence experts” say that the worst inhibitor of confidence in the workplace is a strained or poor relationship with your boss, especially when the boss lacks confidence in your ability to do your job well. Sarah Murphy, winner of the Monitoring Center Manager of the Year Excellence Award, seems to instinctively understand the positive effect a manager can have on the performance of those who report to her. Murphy, who has been working for Sonitrol of Fresno for 12 years, “makes it her job to keep the pulse on employees and their individual skill sets and she focuses on encouraging and supporting the central station team anyway she can,” according to Marcos Reyes, vice president and general manager – central station operations. “Murphy tries to make every co-worker and employee feel valued and important.”

Murphy and the others who took home Monitoring Center Excellence Awards are confident professionals who further the success of the companies they work for. Wouldn’t you like to have such confident people working for you? Surprise — you already do. You just need to cultivate your own employees so their confidence shines through.