Have you ever worked with someone whose personality turned you into a yes-man? Whether they meant to or not, they came on so strong that you felt bowled over, your boundaries evaporating?

I once found myself with a client like that—a visionary, high on confidence but low on time. He would swoop in to hand over a vision and then peace out. His employees struggled; I’d watch them do backwards flip-flops to stay true to his vision—one that needed to adjust to the realities of implementation.

A few weeks into my contract, I felt a sense of unease deep in my gut. The 50,000-foot view I’d been handed didn’t suit the reality on the ground. Even more troubling, I left every meeting with him feeling like I’d been run over.

Taking a Calm, Confident Stand

At our next call, I took a deep breath and told myself: “You may have more years of experience than me, and be an expert in your field. I may not know as much as you, but I am your intellectual equal.”

I knew if we didn’t adjust the project’s big aim, we wouldn’t achieve our goals. So I steeled myself and confidently proposed how I thought we should do it differently, laying out my argument clearly and calmly. There was no trepidation, no pleading—just a rational explanation of why his organization should allocate resources differently to achieve the stated goal.

And you know what? It was a game-changing moment. The client considered—and then agreed with—my suggestions. Even more importantly, from that day forward, our relationship changed. Gone was the nervous, people-pleaser energy I’d brought into our interactions. In its place was mutual respect.

As I’ve written previously, we’re often in situations where we may not have the status, experience, or prestige of those we interact with. Yet it’s essential that we enter these interactions with confidence and grace.

The Middle Path of Confidence

A lot of women struggle both with answering to authority—and with owning their own authority. We flip-flop between submissiveness and defensiveness, as if waiting for someone to unmask us and prove that we shouldn’t have been invited to the table.

The thing is—whether we’re in a powerful position or not, whether we’re insiders or outsiders—we can remind ourselves that what we do have is our sense of intelligence and inquiry. We enter the conversation as full intellectual “citizens.”

In that way, we come to every conversation and subtle negotiation in emotional neutral. We come not to defend our position or to people-please, but curious and ready to solve problems.

We may not know everything, we may not have the years of experience or specialized insight, but we come ready to participate and to grow by showing up fully.