In business, your greatest value is your credibility. With it, you will have a chance to tell your story, lead, develop, positively impact your clients and grow your business. Without it, you have nothing.

Based on talking with hundreds of business people over the years, we have reached one inescapable conclusion – everyone believes they are credible. In fact, many believe it is their strongest asset. But we are often the worst judges of our credibility.

Here’s how it manifests. We talked with people (who were bosses, peers, prospects or clients) and one thing the “un-credible” had in common was their strong (and often inappropriate, inconsiderate or unrealistic) expectations of the performance of others. And their bad behavior looks like:

-       Wordsmithing your work to death because they believe their grammar and approach is better. Yet they add little to no value and waste time

-       Demand adherence to tight deadlines, yet do not meet their own deadlines (which are required if you are to meet yours).

-       Expect perfection in what you do (we’ve all heard that a project must be perfectly executed, that we all must give 110%), but fail to deliver it

-       And, continually expect others to give more to them then they reciprocate – they continually ask for help but don’t offer it

Business is not war – contrary to the absurd belief that it is. We are not running through the hallways to attack and take control of the conference room. We are not about taking prisoners. We are about running a business; we are about thoughtfully using our available resources (employees, vendors, advisors) to improve our client and customer’s condition and our own. We can’t do that if everyone around us is ducking for cover or silently shaking their head in disbelief and frustration

While we’ve approached this with some cynical humor, it is far from funny. When you lose credibility, and you will if you demonstrate the above behaviors, you lose the leverage you have to get work done.  Businesses can’t afford people like that, and are becoming less tolerant and more conscientious in raising their standards.

Copyright 2010 Kubica and LaForest

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