Self-confidence climbs the business school curriculum

George Wells made a strong start on the career ladder. He quickly rose to manage a team of more than 100 technicians and engineers, responsible for the installation, commissioning and handover of one of Amazon’s largest warehouse robotics systems, in his first job after graduating from the University of Southern California.

But, in March 2023, barely a year after starting work for the tech company, the American was one of hundreds of Amazon employees laid off in a swift purge of the Covid-era mass hiring. “It was crushing,” he recalls.

This summer, Wells graduated from the University of Edinburgh Business School’s Masters in Management (MiM) course. His main motivation for taking the programme was to gain a better understanding of artificial intelligence, which he sees as vital to getting back into management roles, especially at big tech companies.

But he was also attracted by the support the Scottish school offered to help repair his self-confidence. He saw this as a stepping stone to getting back into fast-track management positions, but now believes such character building is essential to good leadership.

“I was managing huge teams of people, many of whom were older than me, from all walks of life, and most of the job was having to tell them what to do, and if you don’t feel confident and you don’t feel self-assured, you cannot do that,” he says.

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This story is from the MiM report publishing on September 9

Wells is not alone in seeing business school as a place to build inner strength. This year’s Tomorrow’s Masters survey of prospective business school students, run by education consultancy CarringtonCrisp, found that self-confidence was second only to leadership in the ranking of skills and traits that aspiring postgraduate students wish to gain.

“It seems to be a Covid hangover, when students didn’t get to mix on campus during their undergraduate degrees or have opportunities for placements where they might have developed self-confidence,” says Andrew Crisp, CarringtonCrisp founder.

The University of Edinburgh Business School offers tailored coaching sessions to incoming masters students to develop core skills and, in many cases, aid their transition out of education into the workplace. “The key is the personalised approach,” says Rona Doig, Edinburgh’s MBA executive coach.

The challenge of building self-confidence has also become more obvious to the current generation of business school students because of the insecurities of the digital age, according to Franck Gavoille, associate professor, Grande École programme and masters of science director at Essca management school in France.

“This is a generation that is dealing with a lot of information, which makes the decision process [about what they do next] tougher,” he says. “The need for self-confidence is more and more important, because they feel the need to make the good choice.” Greater openness about mental health has helped self-confidence to become a talking point among students, Gavoille adds. “It is no longer taboo to talk about the need to be self-confident.”

Essca is experimenting with a range of alternative approaches to help students build their self confidence, including yoga meditation, music therapy and a pilot programme known as “equi-coaching”, in which participants interact with horses in a process that can help them read changes in their own emotions. Students are encouraged to bond with a horse, learning traits from the animals, such as being grounded and content with oneself.

Essca MiM graduate Maxence Jouannet, a 24-year-old amateur fencing competitor, is among those to try equi-coaching. He came third in the French fencing championships in 2021, having had to train on the street and in parks during the Covid pandemic, but had struggled with his failure to win more tournaments.

Jouannet says he realised he needed to “deal with myself” as a student, facing up to the disappointments of not succeeding as much as he would have liked in his sport, as well as the insecurities caused by the pressure of postgraduate study.

“My results were down a lot because it was very hard to deal with things,” he recalls. “I couldn’t talk to anybody to deal with my mental illness. I didn’t know who to talk to.”

Jouannet was keen to take part in the equi-coaching programme, meditation and yoga at Essca. “The most difficult part was opening up to talk about my fears, about my weaknesses, but during these sessions I found the strength to discuss these things.”

Jouannet started daily meditation, focused on appreciating the positive impact of his accomplishments to replace the negativity he felt about not achieving the highest results in sport or his studies. “It has proved invaluable,” he says.

Other business schools have tried a range of methods of building self-confidence. Iéseg, in France, organises two types of experiential training to work on self-confidence: seminars and drama classes.

“These seminars aim to help students develop their relational intelligence, particularly their ability to assert themselves while respecting both themselves and others,” says Ingrid Bierla, professor of intercultural communication and track co-ordinator of personal development at Iéseg.

Bierla says this approach enhances self-awareness and team performance by making students aware of their own perceptions, understanding the role of emotions and underlying needs, and learning how to give and receive feedback. “Students learn to express themselves and listen to others in a group setting with mutual respect,” she says.

London Business School uses professional actors to teach its MiM students about the importance of presence when communicating with others, being aware of their body language as well as what they say. This is supported with one-to-one coaching and interview preparation using an AI-powered training tool called Attensi.

Oliver Ashby, LBS programme director for masters courses, says: “Most of our students on the surface exude confidence, but self-reflection and perseverance is something you should continue to work on because you never know what happens to you in life.”