Claire Shipman on Authentic Confidence

ABC News correspondent Claire Shipman explains why it's important for women to maintain authenticity when communicating confidence in the workplace. To emulate male confidence is to subvert one's authenticity. Subverting one's authenticity means negating the effects of diversity in terms of leadership style. Shipman is co-author of the book "The Confidence Code."

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Transcript: One other critical component for women in terms of confidence is authenticity. And we found after a lot of interviews and especially some insightful guidance from Christine Lagarde, who’s the first female head of the IMF and a wonderful confidence role model, that confidence will not always look the same way in women as it does in men. It won’t always manifest itself the same way. So, we all think of confidence in this kind of Mad Men-style bravado — speaking up first, “I’m going to do this; I’ll handle that.” That’s not necessarily — that may just be male behavior. That might not be the way confidence will look in a confident woman. And understanding that there has to be an authenticity to our confidence, I think, is very important and very powerful because, again, in all of the data about diversity and why diversity works in the workplace and why it helps the bottom line of companies, it’s because it’s a diversity of style and management style. And again, diversity of confidence is also something that I think is very powerful for companies.