A leader earns credibility. As Professor Bacharach argues in Inc. magazine a leader can demonstrate credibility in four ways:
- Position
- Integrity
- Knowledge & Experience
- Time & Opportunity
While building credibility in all of these arenas is crucial for any leader an article in today’s Harvard Business Review speaks to establishing credibility via knowledge and experience.
Barbara Wallraff, an editor at The Atlantic, suggests a leaders should increase and protect their credibility by making sure their emails, documents, and messages are well written and edited. After all,
“People jump to all kinds of conclusions about you when they read documents you have written. They decide, for instance, how smart, how creative, how well organized, how trustworthy, and how considerate you are. And once they have made up their minds, it is hard to get them to see you differently.”
Building leadership credibility isn’t always about grand gestures. Sometimes it’s about small, micro-behavioral actions you can do on a daily basis.
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