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.
Hi Art,
Great post – my observation would be that humility is woven into the fabric of credibility. I think it is a requirement for most, if not all, of your list of 15.
I hope you had a great Thanksgiving!
Steve
Great Post,
It takes a high degree of emotional intelligence to lead. You did a great job of capturing how to lead in this post.
I like to remind leaders; “none of us are as smart as al of us” so make sure and tap into the collective intelligence of your team.
As I shared in a recent You tube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kL03rvRxnys , Leaders do not have to “ go it alone”.
Mark Allen Roberts
Great point about building credibility slowly and losing it extremely quickly. It takes a long time to build up a view of someone as credible, but it’s so easy to lose that view of someone in only a moment. It is unfortunate that it’s so easily lost, as it does make people much more willing to follow a person when they do have solid credibility.
Steve, I completely agree! Humility is a key ingredient…although I might offer that it’s a “confident humility” that works well in my experience. Mark, thanks for sharing the resource! Nate, when it comes to credibility, people are placing a bet on you, and we only place bets on leaders when there’s some trust. If that trust has been damaged, we play heck earning it back. Thanks to all for reading and commenting! -Art
Another great post I really like tip 1 and 2, your word means nothing if you don’t follow through and you can not bully your employees. I am going to forward this to my boss I hope he gets the hint and I will start looking for new jobs just in case.
We can’t all be leaders and these 15 steps are sometimes hard to stick too which is why it is so easy to seperate a good leader from one who wants to be a good leader but can’t quite get there. Great suggestions in this post Art, 15 strong steps I must say, if many managers did what they could to stick to them I believe it could change an entire work place. We must remember as you have said many times, as managers and leaders you are always being watched by others and peoples reaction to you is based off what they see so building your credibility is very important. Great post!!!!
Phillip, they are indeed hard to stick to, but worth striving for. Thanks for your readership and for sharing your thoughts! -Art
This is really true. I can’t agree more with your list of qualities. Think of any good sports player, ie Peyton Manning. During his interviews he alludes to all of this. I have made mistakes, have called people out, but have tried to fix and become a better leader by subconsciously doing this things. They truly do work and I was amazed how accurately you portrayed. Work, and business in general is very political and supervisors and management have everyone under a microscope to reach the bottom line. The fact is, be conscious and follow these points and it will work out well.
Thanks for your thoughts here Alexander. I’m glad the post resonated with you. -Art
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