Everyone has something valuable to contribute to the overall success of a group, team, and organization. Success comes from having confidence as an individual, among the members, and within the organization. The underlying truth in Confidence is that when people have confidence in their ability to contribute they are able and willing to rise to the occasion. Rosabeth Moss Kanter, a Harvard Business School Professor, does a remarkable job in reaching her goal of empowering people, especially leaders, with the tools and cycles of confidence, an important yet elusive aspect of success and failure.

Kanter believes that confidence is the key to achieving and maintaining success as well as the difference between winning and losing. She defines it as “a sweet spot between arrogance and despair. Arrogance involves the failure to see any flaws or weaknesses, despair the failure to acknowledge any strengths (p.8).” Anyone that has performed competitively or led others in a performance setting knows that confidence is the link between clear expectations, quality performances, continued commitment, and positive outcomes.

Confidence is organized into three sections and the important principles are reinforced throughout the book. The first part, Winners and Losers: How Confidence Grows or Erodes, focuses on how winning streaks end, losing streaks develop, and downward losing spirals change. People get stuck in losing streaks when they lose confidence in their leaders and the group, experience disruptions, lack continuity and trust, and expect defeat. Winning streaks, on the other hand, are characterized by confidence in each person’s ability, positive expectations, effective leadership, trust, and persistent effort.

Part II, Turnarounds: the Art of Building Confidence focuses on the impact people’s responses have after setbacks. Responses are a choice and, therefore, are within each person’s control. When choices are made from a positive, optimistic mindset setbacks are handled effectively. People avoid retreating in the face of defeat when they are confident. They are able to rebuild, make positive choices, recover quicker after losing, and move towards winning streaks.

Based on interviews with CEOs, coaches, athletes, national leaders, and others, insights are provided from successes and failures of many men’s and women’s sport teams, well-known corporations, and other organizations. None of these groups consistently succeeded until they understood the cycles of confidence and maintained a posture to win under pressure. Using this unique approach, three foundations or stones that must be in place for people of all abilities to move in a positive direction emerged. When leaders and group members can depend on each other to be accountable, collaborate, and take initiative, great things can happen. The first stone, accountability, is based on the fact that people need to be upfront about their expectations, actions, and mistakes; be willing to take ownership and responsibility for their fair share; be in a system that allows open two-way communication; and, receive performance feedback from a perspective of clear expectations and trust. The second stone, collaboration, is evident when people want to work together to reach a common goal. Respect among group members is obvious. The size and complexity of the group is not a significant factor because in any group confident people exert positive, collaborative efforts to reach their goals while facing each future challenge in a unified manner. The third stone, personal initiative, is in place when people feel as though they are personally making a difference within the group. They will take initiative, persist, and stay on track. Initiative builds momentum and creates winning streaks. Even though some people resist change, with positive momentum and support for each initiative, everyone usually gets on board as they begin to experience confidence and a sense of satisfaction in their efforts and contributions.

In Part III, Implications and Life Lessons, the impact leadership has on winning and losing streaks is described. When leaders build confidence in others, develop leaders within the group, and create a positive environment everyone benefits. The culture that leaders create must include the cornerstones of confidence within the structure and embrace the value of the human dimension in today’s climate. Whether people are leaders or not, Kanter’s purpose is to identify the tools for confidence that will help everyone face successes, failures, and turnarounds as they learn from life’s lessons.

Confidence has many extensive examples, interviews, and surveys, which at times, are a distraction. At the risk of repetition, many stories are included and the reader must keep each chapter’s focus in mind to follow its main points. Even with this shortcoming, chapters are well-organized so that the main topics and subtopics are clear. The dialogues, however, about Kanter’s home in Martha’s Vineyard or conversations with old friends seem meaningless. The key points and important findings could have been written in a more concise manner. Summary points at the end of each chapter would have been valuable.

Confidence is helpful for leaders in creating successful groups and addressing problems before losing streaks develop. The secret to preventing these streaks is simply not to lose two times in a row. Although simplistic in nature, Kanter acknowledges that this secret is “exactly what confidence brings: the resilience to bounce back from defeat to victory” (p.350) in any performance arena. Her practical approach and valuable insights are refreshing and stimulate ideas for ways to effectively lead people in accepting the challenge to make confidence a way of life.