BizBooks: Only a few more hours to submit your questions for Larina Kase! We'll start the discussion at 3 PM, Eastern.

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BizBooks: Welcome to all our readers, and a special welcome to Larina Kase! We really appreciate your joining us. We'll ask you a few questions of our own at first, and then at the end we'll let you answer some questions from readers.

Larina Kase: Thanks for having me, I'm looking forward to this discussion.

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BizBooks: What exactly do you mean by "confident"? And what are the practical virtues of this personality feature?

Larina Kase: I see confidence as our ability to face challenging situations with a sense of optimism and feeling that we can handle them. Confidence also includes how we respond to failures or obstacles. Someone who is confident has a realistic appraisal of the risk in a situation but feels that even if it didn't go the way he would like, he could handle the outcome and perhaps even turn it around in his favor.

Confidence is not so much a personality trait as a mindset that develops over time. The most important practical virtue of confidence is being able to challenge ourselves to confront difficult situations. When we do so, we not only feel great, but we are more likely to experience greater rewards in life and work, and our confidence grows.

As a leader (in your business, work, family, etc.) confidence is so important because it is contagious. It will lead to an inspiring attitude and actions which serves as a powerful role model, helping others take such actions and be more successful.

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BizBooks: Can a leader be too confident, or overconfident?

Larina Kase: Yes, absolutely. Overconfidence, as we all know, is arrogance and is off-putting.

Many people are afraid of appearing too confident and they actually undermine the perception of their confidence as a result. This is also a problem.

Here are a few ways to know if you or a leader are too confident:
- The ratio of you speaking to listening is off. You speak more than you listen.
- You disregard other's ideas because you immediately assume that yours is correct.
- You find that people are intimidated by you or don't stand up to you or challenge you.
- Your body language is not open and you are quick to judge other people.

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BizBooks: Your last book was called The Confident Speaker. How does speaking play into leading?

Larina Kase: In The Confident Speaker my coauthor and I discuss the fear of public speaking and how to overcome it. Speaking (or, more accurately, communication, including nonverbal behaviors) is so important in leadership because it is how you'll convey your ideas and influence other people.

I wrote The Confident Leader because often what has to happen before we can gain confidence in speaking or any specific area is a more general mindset shift. When we are able to develop confidence in general, in our abilities to make a difference and positively influence people, and in our ability to push ourselves outside of our comfort zones, then it becomes much more easy to develop confidence in specific areas, such as speaking. We can also apply the ideas (in The Confident Leader) to other intimidating areas, such as marketing ourselves and our business, handling conflicts, and leading innovation and change (these are the topics in the second half of The Confident Leader; the first half lays out the general 6-step GROWTH forumula).

So, The Confident Leader probably should have come first, but they go hand in hand.

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BizBooks: And for our readers, you can purchase The Confident Speaker here: http://www.amazon.com/Confident-Speaker-Harrison-Monarth/dp/0071481494 .

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BizBooks: What prominent CEOs or leaders of another kind best exemplify your idea of confident leadership?

Larina Kase: Well, the most obvious one right now is Barack Obama. He comes across as a confident, charismatic leader because he has an authenticity about him and while he is an exceptional speaker, he does not appear to be trying too hard or overcompensating. He displays both passion and enthusiasm along with the flipside: appropriate seriousness.

President Obama conveys a level of passion that is contagious. This is part of emotional intelligence. When someone has a strength in the characteristic of emotional intelligence (which is learned rather than inborn) and they are charismatic (also primarily learned rather than inborn), their emotions are contagious to others. This is what makes these people so influential.

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BizBooks: How has running your own business informed your view of wise leadership?

Larina Kase: I love this question.

Running my own business is what gave me the idea of The Confident Leader. I noticed that there were some marketing activities that I was avoiding.

Given my background in anxiety and stress research, I knew that when there's avoidance, there's typically anxiety.

So I took a look at what I was worried about. Our anxieties are often driven by what we value. One of my values is time. Another is relationships. I noticed that, for example, when meeting potential business partners or clients I would sometimes not say very much or promote my business because I didn't want to take up their time or come across as overly self-promotional.

I undermined my confidence in myself and my projection of confidence to others. It occurred to me that as a business owner, I needed to feel in charge. I needed to convey that I was the leader in my business. So, the most important aspect of leadership as I saw it is to recognize what makes us uncomfortable, gain comfort in those areas, and gain greater confidence. We can then set out to do anything that will bring us greater success: in my case, better promote my business.

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BizBooks: How has your academic research into anxiety informed your view of leadership?

Larina Kase: There are two ways. First, the content of the research informs my view of leadership: That one of the most important goals of leading ourselves and others is going after those things that we're tempted to avoid, because that is where we have the most opportunity to develop and succeed, and that is where we can best inspire others.

In working with dozens of clients in helping them overcome their fears (and in doing so myself) I learned that there is no feeling better than this. When we achieve something we thought we couldn't, we feel on top of the world. And when we feel like this, we are in the best place to create positive difference and change for others.

Second, in my background with research I learned of the importance for a scientifically validated process. Telling someone to take on a key challenge is not enough. Instead, what we need is a process, and one that has been proven to work, not just for ourselves or our friends, but for the masses (as shown in research). When faced with something difficult, we will encounter a lot of resistance from ourselves and others. So, we need to be able to walk ourselves (or them) through a simple process of how to go about approaching that change. This is why I created the 6-step GROWTH process in The Confident Leader. Each step is based on scientifically validated evidence of how we change and improve.

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BizBooks: Speaking from both your expertise and your personal experience, is it especially difficult or complicated for women who are leaders to project confidence?

Larina Kase: Well, it can depend on the situation. It is easiest to gain credibility with audiences who are like us. People can best relate to leaders who they have similarities to and who they feel understand where they are coming from. Women leaders in male-dominated fields have a particular challenge because they do not have this instant credibility and connection with those they lead since they are obviously different in a major way.

Women also tend to be relationship-driven, which helps us empathize with and have concern for others. As I mentioned earlier in the example about myself, the downside can be that we become too concerned about how we're coming across or how others are feeling and then become self-critical or self-conscious.

There is evidence that women have a strength in their ability to be attuned to and read facial expressions. If she is nervous or uncomfortable, she is likely to read that expression as being consistent with her discomfort (i.e., that the person is viewing her negatively) which can make her feel more uncomfortable.

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BizBooks: One chapter in The Confident Leader deals with a subject near and dear to the hearts of many: procrastination. Could you please briefly tell us what you have to say about that?

Larina Kase: Yes, absolutely. Most of us experience procrastination on some level. The first half of The Confident Leader lays out the 6-step GROWTH formula to use in areas of key change and challenge. The second half applies the formula to different areas that many of us struggle with, such as procrastination.

One of the primary drivers of procrastination is a lack of confidence in a certain area. We worry about how well we'd be able to do something, whether we have what it takes, how long it will take us. These worries may not be obvious to us unless we sit down and say, "What concerns me about doing this now?"

But they float around in our heads and make us put things off. The thoughts are often completely irrational. For example, I recently procrastinated learning how to sync my PDA with my Outlook because I have a fear of technology. When I stopped and said, "What am I worried about?" I realized that there was nothing serious. So, I gave myself 30 minutes and said, "Try it out and see what happens," and of course I was able to do it.

The things that hold us back often reflect what we value. We think the activity will deplete or go against one of these resources, so we avoid the activity. These are things like:
- Time
- Energy
- Money
- Status
- Esteem
- Integrity
- Relationships
- Achievement or competence (this is what held me back from syncing the PDA: I didn't want to feel like an idiot, even to myself)

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BizBooks: Great. Now let's open up the floor to our readers' questions.

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New Paltz, NY: to quote machiavelli: is it better to be feared or loved?

Larina Kase: That's an interesting question...

It is definitely best to be loved. There is a great deal of research that people who are likeable achieve more. They are more influential. People are attracted to them and see them as charismatic. People go out of their way to help them. People who are likeable show empathy, care and concern for others, genuine interest in others, and are willing to share their resources and look for ways to help others out.

The only way to influence others is for them to feel that you care about them. So, definitely love.

On the other hand, a *little* bit of fear is okay. This means that people don't see you as a pushover. People see you as someone who is confident and has power. People see you as someone who has standards for what is okay and what isn't and is not afraid to act on them if there is a transgression. These things make others respect you and not take advantage of you, because they know there will be an unfavorable consequence.

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Boston: How do I know if I have the psychological makeup, or something, that is best for starting and running a business? Are there any tests anywhere I can take--anything I should be looking for?

Larina Kase: What we know of excellent leaders across all fields (entrepreneurs, CEOs, etc.) is that there is not a profile for what makes an excellent leader. Some are introverted, some are extroverted. Some are passionate, some are more reserved...

In the beginning of The Confident Leader, there is a link for an online assessment to help you determine if now is the right time to make a change. As you know, timing is everything, so that is an important factor to consider.

In my experience working with business owners, some of the psychological characteristics that I've seen linked with successful outcome are:
- Ability to challenge yourself and take on strategic risks
- Curiosity
- Interest in continuous growth and development
- Not being perfectionistic
- Being willing to delegate and bring the right people on board

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New York City: I appreciate what you have to say about anxiety, but frankly I FEEL really anxious right now with the way business is going. Are you saying I should just ignore that, or is there a way to acknowledge it and still follow your steps.

Larina Kase: What a great question. The idea with anxiety is not to ignore it, but to listen to it and use it to your advantage by converting it into positive energy (physically anxiety and energy are the same thing).

The anxiety may be there because you are doubting yourself, it may be that it is your intuition, it may be in response to a difficult external situation (such as the economy), it may be that it's simply because you're trying something new and anxiety is a necessary part of change.

In The Confident Leader I discuss how to ascertain what type of anxiety it is because the response would be very different, depending on what's driving it.

For example, if you're anxious because you're doing something new but are well prepared and the timing is right, then the best action is to go for it in spite of the anxiety and know that you will feel more comfortable and confident as you go along.

If it's there because of a response to an external event, it may mean revamping your course of action to best suit the current circumstances.

If it's there because of your intuition, it means that the change is not the best one and it's better to not take that route.

When we develop confidence in our ability to recognize discomfort and use it to inform our decisions, we become true leaders or ourselves and others.

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