Everyone, regardless of age, gender, experience or background, experiences a lack of confidence in at least one area of their lives.

While managers have a responsibility to support, empower and develop their employees, they face a limitation when it comes to building up employee’s confidence. More often than not, a lack of confidence and self-worth are deeply rooted issues that stem from non-work related things.

However, a lack of confidence negatively impacts all areas of an employees life including their work. As such, while managers may face a limitation in getting to the root of an employee’s depleted confidence, they can work on the work related areas to strengthen it.

Here are a few examples of how employees struggle with confidence in the workplace:

• Baby boomers fear new technology and the new landscape of the workplace causing a decline in self-esteem
• Those bullied in previous positions may suffer from PTSD that’s carrying over into their new position
• New hires or recent graduates base their worth on being able to prove themselves to their more tenured colleagues
• An employee who has been micromanaged or poorly managed struggles to see the value in their work

Adam Chase, cofounder and CEO of Music Minds, said, “it can be really hard to support employees who have a low sense of self-worth.” He explained, “many times, they've been beaten down in previous jobs due to mismanagement or hostile co-workers. These types of employees need to be handled with care.”

It’s crucial for management to form a strong partnership with human resources so they can learn more about how to support the employee with support and resources.

Additionally, they can confidently share the company’s Employee Assistance Program as well as insurance offerings such as mental health programs that can best assist the employee.

Here are three ways managers can build up an employee’s self confidence.

Celebrate Milestones, Recognize Good Work And Acknowledge Strengths

Employees who lack self-confidence fail to see how valuable their abilities and contributions are to the company.

This is due to them being overly self-critical and underestimating their own value. By acknowledging strengths, managers can bring more awareness to things employees might not have recognized about themselves.

Andrew Pires, owner of The Maskie, explained, “if you create a work environment that emphasizes praise, then you will find a lot of employees are more confident and wanting to do a better job on all of their projects.”

The goal isn’t to coddle employees rather make them feel appreciated and valued. Research shows that employees who feel valued and appreciated perform better which leads to improved job satisfaction and loyalty.

Jase Rodley, technical SEO expert, asserted, “the more you thank people for what they are doing, the more things they will do for which they deserve to be thanked.”

It’s vital for managers to take the time to understand how their employees want to be recognized. While many appreciate public recognition, some prefer theirs to be private.

In addition to recognition, Robyn Hatcher, communication and confidence coach, recommended managers to “take the time to assess what their employee’s needs and triggers are.”

She explained, “some employee’s need to feel connected to small talk thus asking about their family will make them feel seen. Others need to feel autonomous therefore micromanaging will feed into their lack of confidence.”

Make Goals Challenging Yet Achievable

Managers can build employee confidence by assigning employees tasks or projects that challenge them. It’s vitally important that these projects are challenging yet achievable, otherwise, managers are setting their employee up for failure.

To prevent overwhelm, managers should work with the employee to break down the larger task into smaller, actionable steps.

Managers need to then give the employee the opportunity to figure out how to complete the tasks and create a safe space where they can make mistakes while still giving them the support they need.

Harry Morton, founder of LowerStreet, provided an example that he uses in such situations, “Ben, you’re the most detail-oriented person on our team, so I’d like you to develop next year’s budget.

Please set it up in Excel, and follow last year’s budget for how you should word the headers, columns and line items.

Be sure to check with Sheryl in purchasing about what price increases we can expect from our vendors.” Greg Gillman, Chief Revenue Officer at MuteSix, added, “once they have successfully finished the project, they can revel in that feeling of satisfaction and exhilaration that comes from expanding their skill set and reaching a positive outcome.”

Managers should also be diligent in recognizing and developing an employee’s leadership skills. This can be done by putting them into a mentorship role where they mentor another employee.

Jon Hill, chairman and CEO at The Energists said, “employee’s who aren’t able to recognize their own strengths may be able to see them more clearly reflected back through a mentee or trainee.

These positions can be a good middle step on a path to leadership positions, so it’s also a great way to groom potential future managers along with helping them to see their value.”

Not only does this give them a sense of purpose but by teaching someone else how to do a job and watching them excel but it helps build their confidence.

Reshape Setbacks Into Growth Opportunities

More often than not, employees resist trying new things because they fear making mistakes. This is because the workplace has created an environment where employees lose their jobs for making mistakes.

This fear creates a lack of confidence in the employee as they’re not pushing outside of their comfort zone, taking risks, thinking creatively and achieving their potential.

Hill asserted, “even the strongest employee is going to make mistakes from time to time.” He said, “these can cause major setbacks for those who already doubt their own ability, serving to reinforce their fears that they’re not good enough.

Managers can prevent this by putting the mistakes in perspective and treating them like opportunities for growth rather than failures.”

By reshaping setbacks and providing constructive feedback along with open-ended, questions to challenge their limiting thoughts, managers can help employee’s find the learning opportunity in their mistake.

Continuous coaching will help employees recognize their own strengths, sharpen their skills and have the confidence to find solutions rather than let their mistakes cripple them.

The more equipped they are to handle more challenging tasks as well as setbacks, the more confident they’ll feel about themselves.