How to Build Confidence in Your Procurement Strategy (When You've Just Been Promoted)

You're staring at your strategic plan. It looks good on paper. The business case is solid. The data supports it. But there's that nagging voice: "Am I really seeing this clearly? What if I'm wrong?"

Maybe there was an assumption that once you had made it through the rounds of interviews, secured the promotion, the rest would fall into place. 

But that voice never fully goes away. Not when you're a Procurement Director. Even a CEO can experience self-doubt.

You don't get rid of it. You learn to work with it.

When Leadership Changes the Game

The discomfort often appears the moment you move into a leadership role. Yesterday, you were brilliant at delivering Procurement results with your head in the operations. Today, you're expected to set the strategic direction. And suddenly, that voice of doubt gets louder.

It's a predictable and logical transition, but it can feel like a personal failing.

As an individual contributor or specialist, you built confidence through expertise. You knew your categories, your suppliers, your processes. But leadership – let alone strategic leadership – demands a different kind of thinking. You're no longer just executing well-defined objectives. You're now the one who is deciding what the objectives should be in the first place.

And there’s no manual.

Nobody teaches you how to be confident when faced with uncertainty.

In a coaching session last week, my client said something powerful “surely the CFO doesn’t know exactly what is going to happen - they don’t have a crystal ball either”.

And that was enough for my client to remind themselves that there’s still space to be human even when you’re at the head of the team.

All of a sudden they felt more confident in what their gut (and their data) was telling them.

Listening To Doubt So That You Can Let It Go Again

I've worked with Procurement leaders at every level, and the most transformative results experienced by clients do not come from the actual strategy.

The confidence shift comes from their investment in their self-belief and their conviction when it comes to setting their direction, selling their vision and bringing others along the journey with them.

These results come from having a confidential space to air out those thoughts and feelings, internal debates about which direction to go, “hangover” thoughts from past career setbacks. 

Being able to do that with a coach as a sounding board leads them to greater clarity in the action that they need to take.

Self-doubt in leaders is a normal experience to have. At this level, they understand the complexity. They see the variables. They know what they don't know.

What Self-Doubt Actually Tells You

Before we talk about managing it, let's be clear about what self-doubt is really saying.

Sometimes it's your intuition flagging a genuine gap. You haven't got all the stakeholder input you need. Your data is incomplete. You're missing a perspective from Operations or Finance that would change your approach.

But often, it's just the weight of responsibility. 

You're not doubting yourself because your strategy is wrong. 

You're doubting yourself because you care about getting it right, and the stakes feel high.

Building Your Confidence Muscle

The intentional step in becoming more confident in your strategic capabilities is to treat strategic confidence as something you build through action, not something you wait to feel before you act.

Document your thinking. Write down the assumptions you're making and why. Articulate what success looks like and what would cause you to change direction.

Don’t just focus on creating a perfect strategy document.

This step is more about externalising your thinking so you can see it clearly, interrogate it, align it with reality rather than fear. When doubt arrives later - and it will - you've got something concrete to return to. A thinking space to reassure yourself and ease your mind.

Courage to take a step like this will pave the way to confidence.

And in working with a coach as you do this, it’s the sounding board that helps you to remain courageous as you push through to the next level of confidence that you need.

The Gift of Doubt

One of the biggest shifts you can make in those early days of leadership is to remind yourself that self-doubt appears in every leadership position.

You can doubt yourself AND be a great leader.

You can question yourself AND deliver strategic value.

These concepts are not mutually exclusive.

The key is learning to work with doubt rather than against it.

Use it as a checkpoint rather than a stop sign.

Listen to it when you need to bring some critical thinking to what you’re doing, but know where the line is between using it as fuel for moving forward rather than a fire that burns your strategy ideas to the ground.

Doubt handled well makes you a better strategist, not a weaker one.

Embrace the doubt, interrogate it, and let go of what isn't relevant, 

Ultimately, if you're setting strategy for Procurement in a complex organisation, and you're not feeling any doubt, you're probably not thinking deeply enough.

The doubt means you're taking it seriously. Now the question is simply: what will you do with it?

How Coaching For Procurement Ltd Can Help

2 new free resources and an invitation to start 2026 well.

Influence Calendar: Build your momentum in your influence using small consistent steps. Download January's calendar here.

This January on the Procurement Pivots® podcast with my co-host Donna Bowden we are giving you a 4-part series of how to set up your 2026 for success in a sustainable way. Parts 1 2 and 3 are already available on YouTube, Apple a Spotify. Part 4 coming up next Monday!

And finally, if you'd like strategic coaching support for you or your Procurement team this year, get in touch now here for a confidential chat to see how I can help.