Leadership and Credibility

One of the most important attributes of a leader would be credibility.  This is what every aspiring employee who wishes to lead needs to remember. Credibility automatically comes about from being genuine and committed towards your work, colleagues, company and most of all yourselves. You will come across as being credible if your actions are in tune with your words.

Often times, we come across people who toe a standard line and expect others to toe that same line without having any buy-in from the team. To top that, they seldom do what they have been espousing. When this happens, people around who are observing you, be it co-workers/ supervisors, would loose all credibility and trust in you.  It’s not necessary that you have to do something nefarious to loose credibility. Here is a small example: Imagine a team leader or a supervisor admonishing subordinates for coming late to work or to a meeting. Now, if the team leader/supervisor himself is a habitual late comer, then what is the message being conveyed to subordinates. He has already lost his credibility in the eyes of his subordinates. The negative impact that one faces on lost credibility, far outweigh any laurels received from outstanding achievements at work.

What happens when you loose credibility at work place?  Your co-workers/peers will stop asking you for any help. Nobody would want to seek help from a source which is not trustworthy. Your boss will stop depending on you for critical assignments. He may give them to a slightly lesser performing chap but who is more dependable. The work needs to be done after all. You will thus end up loosing those challenging opportunities and also easily be overlooked for a promotion or a hike.  Worst of all, when you loose credibility, you loose a bit of respect as well.

How can you regain lost credibility? Read on about that in my next post !