So, You Want Your Team To Believe In You?
Posted on July 20, 2022 by Martha Hopewell, One of Thousands of Leadership Coaches on Noomii.
Introducing the "Essential C's" of Leadership Credibility
Imagine you’re a twenty-something-year old and OVERNIGHT you have to start managing over 100 people! Well, I’ll tell you…
I was 29 when I took on my first significant leadership role, and became responsible for a team of 125 employees in an international development field office.
It helped that I had the formal authority of my executive position, with the backing of a worldwide, well-established non-governmental organization…
But, even with all that support, stepping into a leadership role guarantees its share of surprises! And for me, learning how to effectively manage people was the biggest!
What changed for me?
Understanding that gaining credibility with my team was the most important factor to my success, I committed to learning about and building my competency in the areas I determined would bring about my desired result.
Today, I have distilled four areas that are the secret sauce of achieving credibility.
These are: Confidence, Courtesy, Clarity, and Courage.
-Confidence represents having self-awareness and assurance, a high quality of energy, and personal empowerment.
-Courtesy represents knowing and successfully practicing the arts of relationship and cultural intelligence.
-Clarity represents knowing and successfully practicing the science of organizational management.
-Courage represents having solid ethics, a high quality of discernment and commitment, and personal strength.
I call these the “Essential C’s” of Leadership Credibility.
I didn’t know it as clearly then as I do now, but my commitment to build my awareness and skills in these “Essential C’s,” helped me gain the kind of credibility that made it possible to:
1) create precedent-setting programs with my local team that gained national and international recognition, and
2) have my senior management team become the first in our region to take over the leadership of a field operation, without bringing in another international.
Mastering leadership credibility is a journey, not a destination! No matter how long one has been in a leadership position, or how many leadership positions one might have held, the opportunity to grow as a credible leader never ends.
Devoted investment in your credibility as a leader is the best collateral you can grow, and worth every ounce of effort to gain the enthusiasm, enrollment and excellence that can make miracles happen.
