Credibility and Reputation: A Brief

Credibility is a concept that most of us instinctually understand yet there is a little more that we can and should learn to benefit our understanding and subsequently, our lives.

Let’s briefly take a look at a definition:

“The fact that someone or something can be believed or trusted,” the Cambridge Dictionary communicates.

Or as Data Rapt insists, “Credibility is a very complicated quality that influences your willingness to believe in what a person says or does.

“It is a term that applies to businesses and individuals.”

What makes up credibility, Data Rapt says, are 3 pillars and 3 types.

Here are the pillars: Expertness, trustworthiness and goodwill.

Expertness is “when a person or company shows a deep understanding and knowledge of a subject, product, process” or, maybe surprisingly, when someone recognizes “… customer needs and wants...”

Yes, that too at the end is “expertness.” Not all experts think about it or they may assume they know customer needs and wants without really knowing. That’s a problem and a ding on someone’s perceived expertise.

Trustworthiness is honesty and clearly exhibiting “respect for others and their values.”

Trust is human-interaction connection and a door opener to credibility.

Goodwill is “displaying an effort to truly have the best interests of others in mind..” because “People feel a sense of (yet fully developed) ‘friendship’ towards those with goodwill and are more willing to trust them and perceive goodness and ethics in them.”

Do we as individuals and organizations “truly have the best interests of others in mind?” For too many, the facts and evidence say “no.” That hurts them more than they realize.

For those that are judged as having the best interests of others in mind, trust can develop and grow, making interactions with less friction and resistance or rejection.

This is critically important and it is clear that not every individual, team or organization understands this in the slightest or practices it.

This, I contend, is where so many people get low marks or a failing grade.

They don’t show in words and especially behavior that they care about or are practicing goodwill. It is an extremely costly error and creates severe damage to, if not breaks, trust.

Now that we have talked about the structure of credibility, let’s converse about the 3 types.

Initial credibility is what people “may have heard or their first impressions and their seeming trustworthiness, goodwill and expertness.”

What we are doing right now is creating an experience with someone with whom we may need to influence or persuade for some meaningful reason. How we interacted with others are experiences that may very well get shared with people we later meet.

Transactional credibility is what occurs during a human interaction, when we “form a perception about the party that may differ significantly to the first impression.” This can impact the willingness to believe.

This too is where individuals, groups and organizations fall woefully short because their communication and behavior is showing a lack of manners, professionalism, ethics and morality.

This is such an expensive, foolish, emotional choice.

Then there is End credibility, “which is the perception after an interaction that you will associate with them in the future.”

Simple to understand. We develop judgments and strong conclusions about whether we can or can’t trust someone or some company based on what just transpired.

Something to remember: “The recency effect is very important in establishing a positive, end credibility as it is (the last interaction or) the last few interactions that leave the longest-lasting impression and has the strongest effect on how you perceive that person or company.”

We don’t realize what we are doing sometimes in our personal lives that is damaging trust and reputation and neither do the people in some organizations.

What is going to happen today or is happening or has just happened is vital to how you are being experienced and judged and how it will affect trust, respect and desired outcomes.

Credibility determines reputation and your reputation tells people, rightly or wrongly, whether they can and should trust you.

Not everything is in our control, this we know, yet what we do have in our authority is the ability and power to ethically and morally present ourselves to others, attitude wise, communication wise and all behavior wise.

Think of the costs you, personally, could pay if you don’t think of the pillars and types and focus on what should and needs to be accomplished.

If you are a leader, think about how you are modeling for your people, what you are teaching them, how they are acting and whether you want an ethical, moral standard to thrive to put forward your best selves as individuals and as a collective — or whether it’s ok in your mind and theirs for you all to operate with a lower-class of conduct and be content becoming known for poor judgment, bad behavior and earning distrust.

Thank you for reading the Reputation Intelligence newsletter…

Michael Toebe is a reputation consultant, advisor and communications specialist at Reputation Intelligence: Reputation Quality, assisting individuals and organizations with further building reputation as an asset or ethically and responsibly protecting, restoring or reconstructing it.

Professional Opinion, Consulting (about a particular situation),
Ongoing Advisory, Public Speaking and Communications.