It’s all a question of credibility – but what is credibility?
Definition: “The quality of being trusted and believed in”
[source: Oxford English Dictionary]
Credibility is the critical competency in the new 21st century global economy. Each of us needs to ask ourselves the following four questions:
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Credibility is made up of these 4 cores
Let us examine each of these in turn.
Integrity
Integrity is critical and depends upon your ability to be honest, even when no-one is watching – and to act congruently – by this I mean to act and behave in line with your principles – say what you do and do what you say.
Integrity is critical and is built upon three pillars:
Intent
Intent is about the reasons for your actions. To gain credibility people around you need to understand your intent. It needs to be crystal clear what are you trying to achieve long term and short term, what your objectives are, and how you work.
It needs to be clear that:
This stops people trying to work out these things for themselves and occasionally getting them wrong. If intentions are unclear, humans tend to assign worse intentions to others than they themselves have.
Capability
This is about your experience, knowledge and skills in the required area. Have you ever experienced anything like this particular situation before?
Results
Do you have or can you demonstrate a track record of success in this particular field or in similar situations.
Technical capability is situational, but trust is vital to individuals and business success.
Results are the tangible outcomes of performance and technical capability. These are the things that give you ‘clout’ and a voice at the table, sometimes even the place at the table in the first place.
As your history of success/ results build, so does your credibility.
There is no place to hide - results matter.
But equally someone who gets results but does not live the company or their personal values should and will ultimately be shunned.
You need both character and competence to engender trust.
If you would like to understand your credibility, and how to build yours follow this link.