CREDIBILITY IS THE FOUNDATION OF LEADERSHIP

Leadership is a relationship between those who aspire to lead and those who chose to follow. Sometimes the relationship is one-to-one; sometimes it’s one-to-many. But regardless of whether the followers number one or one thousand, leadership is a relationship.

                              Barry Posner and I have been conducting research on this relationship for more than two decades. What is most striking and most evident from our research is that over time and across continents, the single most important quality people admire is personal credibility. Credibility is the foundation of leadership. We want to believe in our leaders. We want to have faith and confidence in them as people. We want to believe that their word can be trusted, that they are personally excited and enthusiastic about the direction in which we are headed, and that they have the knowledge and skill to lead. If people don’t believe in the messenger, they won’t believe the message. Values and beliefs are at the core of personal credibility. To be credible, leaders must know who they are and what they stand for.

                              Our colleagues Ciulla, O’Toole, Badaracco, and Bolman and Deal share our view that ethics, morality, honesty, character, and personal discipline matter. Somewhere along the way during the irrationally exuberant, soaring-stock-market days of the 1990s, these notions came to be viewed by some observers, at Least as quaint and unfit for the “brand me” school of leadership. No longer. Once we learned that the books had been cooked and we watched the air get sucked out of our retirement accounts, we emerged from a fantasy world to realize just how much character and courage count. Many people around the globe, though, have been made more cynical by all the illegalities and immoralities.

                              Many are fed up, angry, disgusted, and pessimistic about their future. Trust is so low among some groups that they’d rather keep their money under a mattress than invest it in equities. One of the most critical lessons from all this is that our entire capitalist system is really based on faith. If people don’t believe in those who handle their money, their livelihoods, and their lives, they’ll just refuse to participate. We can all expect many more massive and wrenching changes in the years to come. The efficacy of any change initiative is inextricably linked to the credibility of the individuals leading the efforts. Constituents will become willingly involved to the extent that they believe in the people sponsoring the change. It is wise, therefore, for leaders to begin every significant change with a “credit check.” It’s not just “Do they believe that the new CRM system will improve our performance?” It’s also “Do they believe in me and my ability to lead this change effort?”