rowland manthorpe dot com

Leadership coach John Baldoni had some words on confidence in the Wall Street Journal last week. He defined it in terms of three key attributes:

Realism. Confident leaders are those who can look reality square in the face and deal with the consequences.
Reassurance. Leaders need to share their sense of confidence with their people.
Resolve. The strength to persevere is a form of confidence.

For Baldoni, like Mark Penn, Roosevelt is the epitome of a confident leader. The cover story of Newsweek sees in Obama the same strength of purpose. I was reminded, however, of a much less heroic sort of story. James Suriowiecki narrates:

In David Mamet’s movie “House of Games,” the grifter played by Joe Mantegna explains to a former mark, “It’s called a confidence game. Why? Because you give me your confidence? No. Because I give you mine.”