Management

 

Leadership: Communicating Credibility

 

While there’s no single approach to leading people, effective leaders have three things in common: the ability to set direction, the ability to align people, and the ability to motivate people.

 

The organising and staffing processes critical to effective management illustrate the complex problem of designing a well-functioning system. However, its leadership counterpart, aligning people, is not a design issue, but rather a communications challenge.

 

To align people to a vision, a leader must:

• Get input from a wide range of people.
• Help people understand a vision of an alternative future.
• Get them to believe in and become energised by this vision.

 

While organising people to fulfil a short-term plan is difficult, getting a large number of people from inside and outside the company first to believe in an alternative future, and then to take initiatives based on this shared vision, is often even more challenging.

 

As a leader, you need to be able to communicate your vision to a wide audience in a way they can understand, relate to, and ultimately believe in.

 

Your audience is anyone who’ll be affected by the outcome of your vision. These people may be your team, your suppliers, and business partners — even your customers. While they each may react differently to your vision, everyone needs to be properly aligned and focused on achieving the common goal.

 

The best way to achieve this? Effective communication.

 

Begin by looking at your visions from the other person’s point of view. Try to identify what would most energise and inspire them to achieve your desired end-state. Remember to clearly spell out the benefits of your vision in terms of its impact on them. Be sure to use terminology and concepts that they’ll easily understand.

 

One prerequisite for communicating your vision effectively is the credibility you establish with your audience. Credibility derives from two factors: expertise and trust.

 

When you exercise sound judgment that proves you’re knowledgeable about your ideas, and accumulate a history of successes, people perceive you as an expert. If you’re candid and sincere and put others’ interests ahead of your own, you’ll earn people’s trust. Only by establishing your trustworthiness and your expertise will you build the credibility you need to get your audience to believe in — and follow — your vision.