Why credibility is the foundation of leadership | Barry Posner | TEDxUniversityofNevada

so let me start by asking you a question why would anybody follow you why would anybody pay attention to you why would anybody do what you asked them to do why would anybody buy a product from you why would anybody follow you well that's a question I want to try and look at for the next few moments with you it's fundamentally a leadership issue why would anybody follow you if you look at the academic literature leadership can be defined in hundreds of different ways but I think a very simple way of kind of answering the question what is leadership would be to ask yourself another question how would you answer this one I would know that somebody is a leader because I would know that somebody is Le because what because what well again there might be hundreds of things that you might say but I think the easiest way to answer that question is to Simply say well I would know that somebody's a leader because he or she has followers there are people that are willing to do what it is that she asked them to do to buy the product to go in that direction to work on overtime on this particular program in fact I would suggest to you that what defines leaders is that they have followers in fact it's hard to imagine that you can be a leader without a follower if you look around and there's nobody there then I suspect you're just out for a walk in the park you know if if leadership is defined by followers by having followers then the question is why would anybody follow you what is it then that we look for what is it that you and I look for in people that we'd be willing to follow people that would want to follow us what are the personal values traits characteristics you would look for in someone that you would willingly follow now that's an empirical question more than 30 years ago we asked that question to 6,000 managers across the United States open-ended question what are the personal values traits or characteristics you would look for in somebody that you would be willing to follow and people told us hundreds of different things you think about what's on your list we follow that study up the next year by asking several thousand people in the federal government that same question because well maybe people in the federal government look for things differently than they do in the private sector and over these last three decades we've continued to study that question by asking tall people and short people thick people and thin people blue people and green people Americans Europeans African Asians young people old people people in engineering or health care or the legal profession all those things haven't made a fundamental difference in what people say they're looking for in the people that they'd be willing to follow it's not about who you are it's not about where you are it's not about what you're doing there seem to be some Universal fundamental things that we look for if we're going to follow somebody four seem to dominate the list everybody's list think about your own list we want to follow people who fundamentally we experience as being honest they tell the truth now don't get me wrong not everybody tells the truth but you know what happens to your level of motivation when you find out that you've been lied to it deteriorates pretty quickly what else do we look for in people we'd be willing to follow we look for people who are competent a lot of different words you could use competent smart capable experienced have good judgment how many of you want to follow somebody it's stupid now you know some of you have some personal candidates in mind here but you can think about what happens when you don't believe that somehow you're working for somebody that really knows what they're talking about and again you're you're not as motivated to do what they ask you to do you don't follow through perhaps with as much energy as you might otherwise we also want to follow people who are inspirational who are energetic who are enthusiastic who are optimistic who are passionate about whatever it is that they're pursuing and that they want us to pursue I mean how'd you like to follow somebody that was dull tired boring unenergetic yeah you know this this just not what we want to do and the fourth characteristic that we look for and people that we willing to follow is we look for people who are forward-looking again you can say it in a variet of different ways we look for people who have a point of view people have a vision have a purpose have a sense of direction again how many of you like to follow somebody that was lost I have no idea where I'm going would you like to go with me well you know not willingly uh honest competent forward-looking and inspiring I supect they're on all of our lists there may be some other things that are also important to us but these four seem to be on everybody's lists they're the things we look for and people that we' be willing to follow and so we got to ask ourselves what they mean taking together social scientists call this credibility we believe some people more than others social scientists say conceptually we believe some people more than others they're credible when we believe that they're trustworthy when they have a sense of expertise in their domain and when they're Dynamic and now that's just the other side of the coin honest trustworthy competent knows what you're talking about dynamic in enthusiastic and if you will what's the difference between a credible individual and a leader a credible leader is a leader has a point of view wants to do so has a meaning and a purpose behind all of that and so credibility is the foundation of leadership if you want to lead others they've got to believe that you're credible they've got to believe that you're honest confident forward looking and inspiring and you can ask yourself how would people describe me and you can ask yourself in my behavior and in my actions do I demonstrate to people my honesty do I demonstrate to them my competency do I demonstrate to them my enthusiasm my passion do I demonstrate for them what it is that I care about see what you and I need to be able to do is we you and I need to be able to well tell the truth we need to be clear about what's important and why it's important and we need to be able to make sure that we act in the ways that we say we say this is important we follow through with that we need to continue to develop ourselves our competency you know competency is is a is a is is an asset that that depreciates over time you got to keep filling it up and leaders are great Learners they're always open to wonderment and always open to trying to learn more thinking that they can get better good enough never is you've got to you've got to be willing to show your enthusi iasm to show your passion it's hard to imagine you can sustain love for very long in a impassionate way not taking things for granted Show Your Enthusiasm be willing to say this I'm excited about this this is important this is significant and you've got to be willing to take a stand you got to be willing to express an opinion a credible person a credible leader take a stand ites doesn't necessarily mean that that everybody's going to vote for you but the truth of the matter is you don't need all the votes you need to believe in this you need to believe in this in such a way that other people will believe that you believe and will in fact be infected by Your Enthusiasm so here's the simple truth the simple truth is this people will not believe the message if they don't believe in the messenger thank you

Channel: TEDx Talks

Views: 223,350

Keywords: TEDxTalks, Workplace, United States, ted talks, tedx talks, tedx talk, Change, ted x, tedx, Business, Leadership, ted, ted talk, English

Id: QmMcSBQvQLQ

Length: 8min 43sec (523 seconds)

Published: Thu Feb 05 2015