Training Journal – Can you teach self-belief?

Article summary

Can you teach self-belief? Penny Haslam’s answer is a firm yes, but not by handing people a motivational mug and hoping for the best.

In this article for Training Journal, Penny challenges the idea that confidence is something you either have or you don’t. Confidence moves. It rises and falls depending on the meeting, the audience, the feedback and whether your inner critic has decided to do a full PowerPoint presentation in your head.

Penny opens with a personal story from her BBC days, when a senior manager’s brutal comment knocked her self-belief sideways. It sparked a long-standing interest in how confidence works at work, why it disappears and how people can rebuild it when it takes a hit.

The article then shares research carried out with Northumbria University’s Organisational Psychology Department into Penny’s 90-minute *Building Workplace Confidence* session. The results showed measurable gains, including a 12% increase in confidence, a 14% rise in job satisfaction and a major shift in people’s ability to challenge limiting self-beliefs. Before the session, only 16.4% of delegates felt able to question negative beliefs about themselves. Afterwards, that figure rose to 89.4%.

But Penny is clear that confidence training only sticks when the right conditions are in place. People need a personal commitment to practise, support from managers and colleagues and regular reminders that keep the learning alive in real work situations.

The piece also shares three practical tools: ICE, which helps people challenge negative self-talk; “yet”, which turns limiting beliefs into possibilities and Val-Yous, a way of using personal values to guide action under pressure.

The big message is simple: confidence is not a fixed personality trait. It is a workplace capability. With the right tools, support and practice, people can build it, use it and pass it on.

Read the full article by Penny Haslam, Bit Famous in Training Journal