Have you ever caught a smile from someone else? Perhaps your mood was lifted by a friend who brought enthusiasm and laughter when you met them for a chat at the end of a testing day. You arrived feeling low and left with a smile.

It's not only smiles that are catching. You might recognize the experience of gradually slumping in your seat as a despairing colleague lists all the issues with the current project.

These are everyday instances of emotional contagion.

We are particularly attuned to the signals that come from those in authority, so as a leader, your emotions are highly contagious. Your team is instinctively watching you, reading your signals, and catching your emotional state. When you approach challenges with quiet confidence - I've got this - your team picks up on that belief. When you're consumed by doubt, they catch that too.

Confidence ebbs and flows for all of us. Our confidence saboteurs often sit behind the dips - sparking doubt in ourselves and, if left unexamined, spreading doubt in our team. I invite you to explore all six confidence saboteurs - which do you need to watch out for?

1: Inner critic

The inner critic is that voice of doubt in our heads telling us that what we just said makes no sense, or that we’re not good enough to apply for that promotion.

How it spreads: If you narrate the commentary of your inner critic out loud - "strategy is my weak point," "I'm not great at building support" - you invite team members to doubt you. And if team members begin to doubt their leader, where does that leave their sense of confidence about the team and what can be achieved together?

Something to try: It’s when we absorb what our inner critic tells us that our confidence is undermined, so gaining some distance from what it has to say lessens its power. Naming your inner critic is a simple way to underline the separation between your inner critic and who you are. Mine is called Nigel (with no offence intended towards any Nigels reading this!)

2: Comparisonitis

It’s normal to compare yourself to others, but when you constantly make comparisons in which you come off as second best, that’s the confidence-sapping habit of comparisonitis.

How it spreads: "We don't seem to be as aligned as the Technology team." "The Ops team is much more productive than us." When a leader has a habit of making ‘they are better than us' comparisons, it saps the confidence of the team because it focuses on gaps and deficits.

Something to try: Reframe the comparison so that it becomes an inspiring opportunity to learn rather than a dispiriting and confidence-sapping deficit. “We don’t seem to be aligned as the technology team” becomes, “I admire the strength of alignment in the technology team. Would someone be willing to have a chat to see what we can learn from them?”

3: FOPO

FOPO (a.k.a. fear of people’s opinions) is a fear of being judged that leads us to step back from opportunities, avoid disagreement, and shun the spotlight.

How it spreads: If we invest too much energy in a concern for what others think, particularly those more senior to us, there’s a risk that we scale down the opportunities we give to our people. "Will isn't ready to present in the Exec forum." Does Will actually need more knowledge/practice/time before he joins the exec meeting? Or is your decision being influenced by a concern about how you will be seen if you take Will with you and he stumbles?

Something to try: One antidote to FOPO is CAPO (a.k.a. Care About People’s Opinions) - we can care what other people think without fearing their judgement. For example:

• FOPO would be: Pretending to agree with others even though I think differently
• Whereas CAPO would be: Speaking up when I have a different point of view, showing respect for all points of view, including my own.

4: Overthinking

Our self-trust can take a dip when our thoughts get stuck in a loop, worrying about the past or imagining all of the ways that a future event will go badly.

How it spreads: If we draw team members into our rumination about something that happened, we transmit our anxiety to them and inadvertently encourage a habit of overly critical evaluation. Future-focused overthinking can lead to a team norm of over-preparation (data-filled slides or decks with lengthy appendices covering every eventuality). This serves to diminish team members’ confidence in their ability to respond 'live' to what comes up.

Something to try: The most reliable antidote to overthinking is to notice that it’s happening and then gently bring your attention back to the here and now. A simple mindfulness activity helps - for example, choose a color and then look around you and carefully count up how many things of that color you can see.

5: Perfectionism

An unreasonable expectation of ourselves that sets up a confidence-crushing gap between what we deliver (however brilliant) and the impossible bar of perfection.

How it spreads: We can find ourselves projecting our expectation of perfection onto others. With such an impossibly high bar for our people, we are inevitably going to be disappointed by their performance, however much time, effort and skill they invest. Our team member will feel that disappointment even if we do our best to hide it.

Something to try: A tool to get clear on good enough:

1. Think about an upcoming piece of work.
2. What’s the goal for this piece of work? What does it need to do?
3. Note down what ‘good enough’ delivery looks like for this piece of work.
4. Read through your good enough spec and ask yourself: can I get comfortable with aiming for good enough (rather than perfect) on this particular deliverable?

6: Fear of failure

When we allow ourselves to be swayed by this fear, we seek to avoid the uncomfortable feeling of failure by not stretching ourselves - meaning that we don’t find out what we’re truly capable of.

How it spreads: We might shy away from committing to stretching team goals. The bigger the stretch, the bigger the risk of failure, so perhaps it's safer to play small? If we set out to prevent the possibility of failure, we deprive our people of the opportunity to grow their confidence as they learn more about what they are capable of.

Something to try: The Constructive Pessimism tool is designed to subdue the fear about an upcoming event going wrong.

1. Let your imagination run riot - what’s the worst that could happen?
2. Ask yourself, do you know that this worst-case scenario will happen? (Hint: no)
3. Ask yourself, if that disaster movie did happen, could you survive it? (Hint: yes)

It starts with you

Contagious confidence starts with you. If you leave your own confidence saboteurs unexamined, they will be free to create a contagion of self-doubt in your team. It’s part of your responsibility as a belief-building leader to be continually curious about your own confidence, and to experiment with ways to tackle your saboteurs.

This is an adapted extract article from Contagious Confidence (Practical Inspiration Publishing), by Julie Smith.