“I believe in you!” This is for sure on of the most beautiful, meaningful and satisfying sentences on can hear from others. It’s often linked to “I trust you.” and “I stand by you.” Both are crucial commitments when it comes to successful cooperation and employees’ willingness to follow a manager or leader. And for the leaders themselves a certain responsibility comes along with it. As an impulse for the upcoming week we gathered the four main pillars of credible leaderhip.

 

Lateral leaders by definition but also more and more leaders with hierarchical power go for a leadership approach based on partnership. This means it’s less about “I say – you obey” but more about “We do in common.” In order that this special kind of cooperation works strong commitment to each other, mutual trust and credibility are necessary.

 

4 main pillars of credible leadership

1) Upright appearance

Honesty and authentic appearance are the base for the first pillar. Congruence of words and actions is also essential: In a meeting, when a credible leaders agrees to take care of a certain task he really makes sure that he does – promptly. And if it should be impossible to do so – due to missing time or other priorities – he does not hesitate to admit it. Absolute honesty about the own contribution to a cooperation strengthens the co-workers confidence. Empty words may do much more harm to a leader’s credibility than admitting that something goes wrong. After all, people want to follow people and not abstract authorities.

 

 

2) Honest intentions

If a new cooperation begins – for example a new project or a new role as a leader – credible leaders are led by the strong will to gain benefits for all persons involved. It’s kind of a mantra which may be repeated before any meeting, negotiation or conversation. Furthermore, authentic leaders always communicate with WE and therewith represent the intentions and values of their organisations and teams.

Also important: No talk behind the back – loyalty demands loyalty!

 

 

3) Skills & competencies

As a matter of fact, personal and professional skills, know-how and competencies have a huge impact on a leader’s credibility. If leaders really know what they talk about people tend to believe and follow them. Credible leaders therefore reflect their own abilities from time to time and ask themselves: What are my strengths? What are my personal challenges? Has my position changed in a way which demands new competencies or skills? Where and how can I get these skills?

 

4) Results

As is general known, results are self-explanatory. But what’s also a fact is that a bigger part of corporate actions does not fail due to lack of planning or strategy but due to deficient execution. This leads to bad results or no results at all. Credible leaders walk the talk and are a strong force when it comes to results and successful execution. Therefore, their trustworthiness rests on achieved results from the past to show for themselves and current results they achieve in common with their teams.

 

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