A wise man once said that you should always hire staff smarter than you. You also want to hire staff that will be confident enough to handle life’s challenges. Yet some of even the best, most talented, and smartest employees may have issues with confidence. Some of them may be painfully shy. Others may mask their lack of confidence with jokes. Still others may think that the way to come across as confidence is to exude arrogance.

Career coach expert Brian Tracy says that building this confidence is key. “The most important factor in motivating employees is the way you treat people,” the author and career coach says. “Building self-esteem and self-confidence in others is more important in bringing the best out of people than all the education, intelligence or experience you might have at doing your job.”

So how do you increase that confidence in your employees? Here are some suggestions that career coach experts advise:

Have faith in your staff

Just the act of showing your faith in them may help your staff start to feel more confident. While it may not be completely unconditional, the way a parent can half unconditional love for their newborn child, the very act of showing faith in your employees may help them to believe in themselves.

Be sincerely appreciative

Mindless flattery and vague praise will not really come across well. Be specific in your positive comments, to show that you are paying attention. For example, if your employee is writing standard operating procedures for you, point out the clarity of their writing, or the way that they made a complicated procedure sound simple.

Give your employees opportunities to face their fears

Eleanor Roosevelt once said that “you gain strength, courage, and confidence by every experience in which you stop to look fear in the face. You are able to say to yourself, `I lived through this horror. I can take the next thing that comes along.’” She also said that “the danger lies in refusing to face the fear, in not daring to come to grips with it,” and that “you must do the thing you think you cannot do.”

What are you doing to help your employees to face their fears and grow? Maybe you can hire a career coach to work with them. Maybe extra education can help. Maybe on the job training will make a difference. Whatever you need to do, do it. Once your staff has self-confidence, they can take on the world.