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The Secret of Effective Leadership

by James Coakes

I was about to read my Sunday paper and began the ritual cull. This involves taking the bundle of newspapers and extracting the supplements that I do not read along with countless leaflets and throwing them to one side, before making another pile of the bits that I do not read but someone else in the house will. I would imagine that this ritual is played out in households across the country on a Sunday morning.

I was about to cast the appointments section to one side when an advert caught my eye. It contained a list of the attributes that a company was seeking in the senior manager they were looking to employ. Suddenly I realised that there is probably no better place to understand what leadership in business is all about than in one of these supplements. They tell you what leadership is about from the perspective of the companies who are actually recruiting leaders.

Sure enough, as I read through the supplement, I discovered an abundance of ideas. If you are interested in leadership and management I recommend that you read the appointments section, it's fascinating. I found myself writing copious notes and I have enough material to form the basis of several articles.

However, what was really interesting was to seek out the common themes.

The adverts listed a variety of desirable qualities. Some wanted candidates to be well respected and have a track record of achievement; in other words proof of previous accomplishments.

Others were looking for excellent communication skills and demonstrable leadership qualities. Some candidates were required to be charismatic, engaging and influential.

Ultimately I found one very interesting word which was repeated in a large number of adverts. It is a word that also links with and in some cases accounts for some of the other qualities that were listed. That word is credibility.

Nothing is more important for a leader of a team of any size than credibility. I believe that the most important quality to work towards in a team is trust. Teams thrive when they have good leadership, and credibility is at the core of this.

Credible leaders are engaging and influential. Credibility is more important than the ethereal status of charisma. Even if you are not a good communicator, and not all great leaders are, if you have credibility you will have respect. In recent years we have seen good communicators who have lost their credibility through spinning the truth or outright lies and it undermines the character in question, sometimes terminally.

Credibility is the condition of being convincing or worthy of belief, reputation, status; it is acceptability among one's peers. A credibility gap is an apparent difference between what is said and what is true.

It is actually not so hard to be credible in business. You must know your subject inside out and have covered what you should know in your position. Do not be afraid to say when you're outside your area of expertise, never try to bluff but instead use your networking to gain access to the people who know things on the periphery of your knowledge.

Be someone whose opinion, when given, is trusted without question.

About the Author

James Coakes is Managing Director of UK based Progressive Resources, The Teambuilding Company. .