6 simple ways to boost the productivity of team members with low self-esteem

Chika Ebuzor
Leadership Class
Published in
2 min readJan 22, 2018

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Image Credit: VComply

A team comprises of different people with diverse personalities, and it is your duty as a team leader to understand their uniqueness.

Some people on your team might be confident, and as a result, intimidate or outshine the quiet, yet effective ones.

How do you build confidence in the team members who are lagging in that area?

You can optimally utilise the potential in your team members if you carry everybody along, including those with low self-confidence.

Here are some tips on what to do, to boost your team members’ self-confidence:

1. Celebrate their successes: Most people who suffer from low self-confidence tend to ignore their achievements. They do not see anything good in themselves.

When you acknowledge their successes and celebrate them, you turn on a light that will set them on the path to building their confidence.

2. Teach them how to think positively: Most team members who suffer from low self-confidence, tend to harbor negative thoughts about themselves. They never believe they can achieve anything.

You can help by teaching them thought substitution methods that will make their confidence grow.

3. Delegate: Learn to delegate some tasks to team members who have low self-confidence. They might not believe they can achieve it, but you can show them the steps to take, while on the task.

This is not to say you should micro-manage. You can practise what is known in management circles as Management by Walking Around.

4. Identify fear triggers: Some tasks and situations can cause your team member to lose confidence.

As a leader, you can help identify and understand the triggers that make them lose confidence, and help them work towards dealing with it by using Fear-Trigger analysis techniques.

5. Celebrate their skills: If you can let the team member see his abilities, skills and expertise and how it has impacted the output of the team, it will boost their confidence.

6: Set small achievable goals: Most of the time, why people give up is because they cannot accomplish the tasks they set for themselves.

This might be as a result of their inability to set SMART goals.

Break targets into tiny achievable tasks, and see them bloom.

Thank you for finding time to read.

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