Confidence is not charisma, and it is not simply a matter of personality. It is a business skill, and Katty Kay argues that companies should treat it as something employees can learn and practice.

“Confidence is the stuff that turns thoughts into action.”

Kay writes that, after years of researching the subject, this remains the smartest and most useful definition she has heard. The description came from Dr. Richard Petty, a professor of psychology at Ohio State University, who defined confidence as the quality that helps people confront fear, take on new challenges and move from an idea to execution.

That distinction matters because thoughts alone do not carry people very far without action. In a workplace, the difference can show up in who volunteers for a difficult assignment, who asks for a promotion, who speaks in a meeting and who turns an idea into a finished project.

Kay also emphasizes that confidence is circular: people build it by doing. When someone steps outside a comfort zone, takes a risk, makes a mistake, overcomes an obstacle and continues forward, confidence grows. In that sense, confidence is not a vibe, a mannerism or a fixed personality trait. It is a tangible skill that can be earned, practiced and learned.

In Kay’s view, many workplaces make the mistake of rewarding people who already appear confident instead of helping more employees develop confidence in the first place. If confidence is built through action, then managers have a role in creating chances for employees to try, learn, recover and keep moving.

The confidence gap is a business failure, not only a women’s issue

Kay writes that women are living through a period in which they are not advancing at work and, in many cases, are losing ground. She points to workplace changes caused by COVID and the political backlash against DEI programs as factors that have resulted in fewer women being promoted into senior roles.

The Economist magazine, citing a study by S&P Global, reported this month that workplace changes caused by COVID and the dismantling of DEI policies have contributed to women “leaning out.” According to that report, women’s share of executive positions in listed American companies fell in 2023 for the first time after nearly 20 years of uninterrupted growth. Women also secured fewer new board seats at companies in the S&P 500, while the share of female partners and managing directors at Goldman Sachs declined.

Kay argues that these trends hurt women and companies alike.

Closing the workplace gap between men and women, she writes, is not a “PC” issue but a bottom-line issue. More than a dozen global studies, including research from the International Monetary Fund, the European Union, Goldman Sachs and Pepperdine University, now show that companies with more women in leadership outperform their competitors. Companies gain when they create environments in which talented women are encouraged to stay, grow and lead.

When women are held back, told they must fully master a role before they can even be considered for it, or penalized for showing ambition, Kay writes, it is unsurprising that they may feel they do not fit in as easily as male colleagues. The modern workplace was largely designed by and for men, and has operated that way for decades. As a result, she says, the well-documented confidence gap between men and women is not personal but structural.

That framing shifts the focus from telling individual women to be more confident to asking how workplaces define readiness, reward ambition and respond to mistakes. For Kay, confidence grows when people are allowed to act before they feel perfect, not when they are required to prove they already belong.

Retaining and promoting female talent, Kay argues, is not only the right thing to do but also the smart thing to do.

Strong leaders act despite fear

Kay writes that trying something new almost always involves some degree of fear. A person might make a mistake, fail or fall short of perfection. The central question is whether that fear is allowed to stop action.

The most impressive people Kay has interviewed, she says, still experience doubt, failure and uncertainty. What separates them is not fearlessness, but the ability to move forward anyway. They recognize their fears but do not let those fears make decisions for them.

Superstar Peloton instructor Ally Love told Kay in a podcast interview that she counters moments of fear by going first. That, Love said, is how she ensures that doubts and insecurities do not prevent her from acting.

Kay writes that such people may understand that doubt is normal, fear is normal and uncertainty is part of being human. They give themselves some grace, and then they act.

That, Kay concludes, is what real confidence looks like.

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This story was originally featured on Fortune.com.