Credibility Is the Foundation Of Leadership

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If you ask me to say one word which is indispensable to a leader’s success, then without any hesitation, I would choose the word credibility. Let me put some spotlight on this ward and help you understand better. When a person is credible, we call him trustworthy. Like any other skill, credibility is a practicable and learnable skill. You can’t achieve long-term success if you are not credible.

Imagine that you have a medical issue and you want to see your doctor. You asked a friend of yours to recommend a good urologist or a nephrologist in the city. Your friend recommends you a highly skilled doctor. At the same time, your friend tells you that the doctor is not an honest person. He has a private practice, and sometimes to make money, he will recommend you to go for surgery even when it is not required. In addition to this, there are some rumors that sometimes he has stolen the other kidney. Will you go to that doctor highly skilled but not honest? The answer is obvious “No.”

Then your friend went on to recommend you to you another doctor who is a very honest man. He may not charge you any money, but there’s only one issue, and the issue is that the doctor is not so competent. He doesn’t know his job well. The success rate is less than 50 percent, and a few people have died after the surgery. Do you go to the doctor who’s very honest but not competent? The obvious answer is “No.”

So the question is, what is missing? Why are you not comfortable going to the highly skilled doctor but not honest and the one who is honest but not highly skilled? The answer is simple, they both are not credible. Let’s look at this mathematical equation to understand it better.

Character X Competence = Credibility

It means you need to have both character and competence to become credible. In the first doctor’s case, he was competent but did not have integrity or character (0x1=0). The other doctor had character and integrity but lacked competence (1×0=0); therefore, he was not a credible doctor. The only viable way to earn credibility is to build both your character and your competence. Do as I say, not as I do attitude won’t take you any longer in our leadership journey. You should be a worthy example so that people will say someday; I would like to be just like my leader.

Why hesitation? Start working on your character and competence to grow better in your career. 

— Kishore Borra

 

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