Like good health, you cannot have too much credibility as a leader.

Too many leaders swim through their corporate and organizational lives oblivious to the reality that their actions, utterances, decisions and even the most casual of their interactions are all monitored, evaluated and voted upon every day.

The people that work for us cast mental votes assigning a positive or negative credibility rating (CR) that ultimately determines our ability to influence others. And while your CR can move over time, it tends to move quickly and irreversibly towards the negative and only very slowly towards the positive.

You build credibility as a leader one interaction and one decision at a time over a long period of time, and you destroy credibility in great and dramatic fashion almost instantaneously through what I characterize as Dumb Ass Maneuvers (DAMs).  While we’re all capable of mistakes, DAMs tend to reflect a series of mistakes or actions that cause people to question your intentions, wonder about your qualifications and speculate on your ethics. To optimize your credibility building and to minimize the probability of creating too many DAMs, consider my suggestions below.

How to Grow Your Leadership Credibility in 15 Easy Lessons:

1. Say what you mean and do what you say. Your do must match your tell.

2. Treat everyone with respect all of the time. Constantly. Always!

3. It’s never about you. Strike “I” from your vocabulary.

4. Make and communicate decisions. And then work hard to teach others to make and communicate decisions.

5. Stop! Pay attention and listen. You show respect by paying attention.

6. Ask questions. Questions show that you care. Questions also teach others how to think.

7. Create and reinforce accountability. People actually prefer to be accountable versus the alternative. People respect accountability. Wield it liberally and consistently.

8. Develop your people. Your willingness to support the development of others speaks volumes about you as a leader.

9. Master feedback. Use it daily to support growth and promote accountability.

10. Teach. Leaders teach…practice this role more often than the role of a critic.

11. Create context for others. Communicate strategies and goals and help everyone connect their priorities to the firm’s priorities.

12. Dispense all of the glory. Keep none of it for yourself. See number 3 above if this one doesn’t make sense.

13. Admit your mistakes. Quickly. Highlight the lessons learned and move on. Never, ever hide mistakes or attempt to transfer responsibility.

14. Hire smart people that share your firm’s values. Then respect the intelligence that you’ve hired by working to create an atmosphere where your smart people can focus on doing great things.

15. Be authentic. Be yourself and don’t be afraid to let people see you for who and what you are…a fallible human interested in doing your best for your team members and for your organization.

The Bottom-Line for Now:

Credibility is the leader’s best friend. It’s also the leader’s source of motive power.  Grow it, guard it and use it in good health to build great teams, great businesses and great professionals.