Credibility
Making people believe
in us is a challenge we, leaders, face of the contemporary changing world. Managing
credibility is essential for leaders to achieve their goal. (Whalen, 2007), as
trust is a crucial aspect in the corporative environment. Dealing with strangers,
force people to create their truth about others, based on a story they build
with fragments of observed facts. The issues of this effect are that the facts
do not reveal who the other person really is, and that stories based just on observations
possibly neglect the essence and the motivators of others’ actions. (Denning,
2011).
There are four pillars of
credibility (Whalen, 2007) which lay directly on the leader perspective, and
another pillar that lays on the audience point of view. The four first pillars
are trustworthiness, expertise, goodwill and dynamism, and the fifth one is
attribution.
Trustworthiness involves abstract
aspects as values, ethic, authenticity, integrity and so forth (Whalen, 2007; Hurley,
2006). It takes time to build and it is the main aspect of credibility, as all
the others becomes worthless if this pillar is not present in a leader. Non-verbal
communication (McKay, 2009) is highly important on this pillar, as it needs to
be coherent with leader’s speech.
Expertise lays on the capability
aspect presented by Hurley (2011). It is the leader’s technical skill, revealed
by ideas, speed, accuracy, the facility terminologies are used and translated
into commonly understood vocabulary, and the leader’s job title, which affects the
image of credibility. (Whalen, 2007)
Goodwill relays on Hurley’s (2006)
factors of benevolent concerns and alignment of interest. Ulukaya (2019), through
his storytelling, shows clearly the goodwill pillar of credibility and its
impact. A leader cannot fake goodwill, as people are sophisticated at detecting
insincerity (Whalen, 2007). To project goodwill a leader must have a respect
and real admiration for the audience. This connection is crucial for a
communicator.
Dynamism, in the subject of
communicating credibility, involves enthusiasm and is also linked with goodwill.
Leaders shows dynamism when they make it obvious they care about the audience.
Negativity gets people attention, but positivity sparks change (Denning, 2011).
The attribution pillar is related
with the attribution-theory: an information-processing model. The listeners are
constantly trying to understand the depth of a leader’s speech, which has an
intrinsically relation with the trustworthiness pillar. Brown (2018) talks
about the anatomy of trust, which supports both pillars.
I believe that expertise is the component
of credibility in which I need more development. I am a type of person that
focus on the big picture and neglect the superficial details. For followers, knowledge
is power, and I have experienced my subordinates taking advantage of my lack of
expertise. Procedures, in my company, changes so often that is hardly
impossible to cope with them, not just by the speed of changes, but by the fact
they are communicated in different channels. As employees (leader or followers),
we do not receive all the changes by email, so we need to search for it in the
employee portal. Apart from this communication issue, some changes do not
affect me directly, however when employees under my responsibility needs clarification,
they turn to me.
Although I have never been strongly affected
by my lack of expertise (as I have online access to all manuals while on duty, the
final job is always completed, and all my office meetings are previously booked
allowing me time to refresh my knowledge), I know it is an attribute I need
development.
For that I developed the following
action plan to be implemented constantly, with immediate effect an no deadline,
as the actions stated are necessary to be put in place permanently.
EXPERTISE PILLAR –
Action Plan for Development
1.
Establish a time of the week for looking
into changes in all communication channels of the company.
2.
Write down the found changes.
3.
Share it with my team member to assist
on building credibility.
4.
Involve the team on possible changes to
suggest to the company.
5.
Communicate with departments any
possible doubts.
6.
Send monthly suggestions to departments
which affects directly the job of my team, or any pertinent changes I observe
in any are of the company.
7.
Copy my manager in all communication, to
maintain the trust I have built along the years.
References
Brown, B. (2010). The
power of vulnerability. Retrieved from https://www.ted.com/talks/brene_brown_on_vulnerability,
on June 2019.
Brown, B. (2018). The
anatomy of trust. Retrieved from https://vimeo.com/263043433,
on March 2018.
Denning, S.
(2011). The Leader's Guide to Storytelling. San Francisco, CA:
Jossey-Bass.
Hurley, R.
F. (2006). The Decision to Trust. Harvard Business Review. 84:9, 55-62.
McKay, M., Davis, M., Fanning, P. (2009). Messages:
the communication skills book. (3rd edition). Oakland, CA: New
Harbinger.
Whalen, D. J.
(2007). The Professional Communications Toolkit. Thousand
Oaks, Ca: Sage.
No comments:
Post a Comment