Credibility
I just passed the one-year mark on Substack: 67 posts in 52 weeks. I've learned a lot through the writing, and I'll reflect on that next week. For now, thank you to the early subscribers who stuck around, and welcome to those who joined midstream. Hopefully, something I wrote helped you get unstuck, or at least gave you a useful push.
Here were the top five posts this past year:
The Hardest Battle: Changing Yourself
This week's post comes from a book I pulled off my office bookshelf at UT. The shelves are filled with leftovers from professors before me: leadership books, consulting manuals, management texts, and entrepreneurship guides. One caught my eye, Credibility by Barry Posner and James Kouzes.
If you've followed my writing, you know my definition of professional success: impactful change. To create that kind of change, I believe you need three things: initiative, credibility, and resources. I've written a lot about initiative. I teach frameworks for gathering and deploying resources. But credibility? I've mostly defined it as "delivering what you say you will, consistently." Turns out that's the tip of the iceberg.
The authors break credibility down into six disciplines, not rules, principles, or traits. Disciplines come from the Latin discere, to learn. That framing matters. Credibility isn't something you inherit or fake. It's something you earn through deliberate practice and learning. Here's their breakdown, with a few of my own takeaways mixed in.
1. Discover Yourself
You can't lead others if you can't lead yourself. This starts with getting clear on your own beliefs and values. If you don't live by your own credo, no one else will take you seriously. People can tell when your principles are flimsy or borrowed. Self-awareness is a foundation to credibility.
2. Appreciate Constituents
This one's about growing the people around you. Not just knowing your values, but investing in others so they grow too. It reminded me of Kim Scott's Radical Candor. If you challenge without caring, you're just obnoxious. If you care but don't challenge, you're stuck in "ruinous empathy." But when you care deeply and push people to grow, they trust you enough to follow you, and they'll thank you later.
3. Affirm Shared Values
You can't assume alignment. You have to talk about it. Get clear on what matters to the team, the community, or the family. When people see you stand for something they believe in, trust grows. If you're trying to build influence, start by finding common ground.
4. Develop Capacity
This one's often overlooked. Your credibility depends on others becoming more capable. Equip them. Teach them. Coach them. If your team's not growing, neither is your leadership.
5. Serve Purpose
People trust you more when it's not just about you. Credibility increases when your "why" points to something bigger than personal ambition. If your work serves a broader mission, others will lend you their time, trust, and effort. Nobody rallies behind someone else's self-interest.
6. Sustain Hope
The final one surprised me. Being a credible leader means helping others believe in a better future, even when the present is hard. Optimism, when it's grounded in reality, becomes contagious. Be the fuel for others' motivation by sharing your vision.
After reading the book, I realized credibility goes way beyond hitting deadlines. It starts with knowing yourself, caring about others, and staying true to shared values over time. The better you get at this, the more doors open to make real change. Maybe even changing the world.
Great Read.