The one skill women lack that undermines our success. What it is and how to get it!

The next time you’ve got a huge goal you want to achieve, aim for an A- effort, rather than A+. This, according to Colorado State University talent management expert Alexis Kanda-Olmstead, will get you farther faster than aiming for perfection. She also advises taking brave baby steps, rather than courageous leaps, especially if you’re a woman.

Why? It turns out that in a national study conducted by CSU, women outshine men in every category for leadership effectiveness except one, and that weakness frequently undermines our successes.  Our Achilles heel is confidence, and the lack of it plays out on a global scale, where only 20 of the world’s 142 countries are run by women. Within Fortune 500 companies, only 4% are female led. It’s an endemic problem that decades of self-help books and personal growth seminars have done little to change.

Kanda-Olmstead has studied this issue, and offers these strategies to outsmart insecurity and make progress despite a lack of confidence:

• Men have a greater sense of innate confidence, whereas women need to prove to themselves that they’re worthy of the challenge, whatever it may be. This is where the A- versus A+ standard comes in. Because we’re raised to be “good girls” and to do everything flawlessly, we often deem ourselves as failures unless we can hit perfection. In reality, good enough is nearly always…good enough.
• Traditional language frequently doesn’t align with female values, so change it. Swap power with authenticity, failure with learning, and the thought of leadership—a masculine concept—with the simple act of smiling to gain a following.

Don’t expect the next generation of females to right the imbalance. We as women today need to model the progress we want to see our girls achieve. We can make this a reality by thinking through what we want to attain, and taking steady brave baby steps toward it. When you fail—and you likely will—view those botches as preparation for the next round of attempts, when you’ll be smarter, wiser, and yes, a bit more confident.