You Can’t Fake Integrity (Credibility – Part 1)

Carolyn DicksonPosted by Carolyn Dickson on April 1st, 2010 | 1 Comment

On February 26, 2010, The Wall Street Journal did an excellent job of summarizing the problems currently facing the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). According to the WSJ, the panel’s scientists, in an attempt to placate impatient policymakers, have “tweaked” data and oversimplified complex issues surrounding the controversial subject of global warming. This in turn has led to concerns about the panel’s neutrality and to questions about its judgment. In short, it has been a blow to the organization’s international reputation and its ability to supply objective information to decision makers around the world.

Whether or not the panel’s actions have undermined basic theories of climate change is not the subject of my comments here. What struck me about the IPCC’s situation is how dependent we are on trust when we do business with each other. To put it bluntly, the questionable actions of some—not all—of the people at the IPCC has severely damaged the credibility of the organization and has given its opponents the opportunity to call for its demise.

When you meet someone for the first time, your first thoughts are likely to be: Can I believe this person? Can I believe in this person? The word credible comes from the Latin word credere, which means to believe. So if you are credible, you’re believable in every sense of the word.

The scary thing about credibility is that you can’t decide if you’re credible. That’s a judgment call made by other people. Public perception of the folks at IPCC is that individuals there either don’t know what they’re talking about or they’ve become advocates in a cause where they’re supposed to be unbiased and impartial. Either way, they’re no longer quite as believable as they once were.

While you can’t actually serve up your credibility to other people on a silver platter, you can influence their perceptions in a significant way. There are four components of credibility where you can make a difference. They are: Integrity, Expertise, Dynamism, and Openness.

Let’s examine Integrity here. This is the big one, and it’s where the problems of the IPCC show up. When you work with someone, that person must be able to trust you implicitly if the two of you are to have a good relationship. Your word must be as good as gold. Your handshake must be binding, even if you don’t have a written contract. Your work life must be an open book, with no hidden agendas or self-serving machinations going on behind closed doors.

Of course, this is easier said than done. It’s tempting, when you want to be seen as the good guy, to hedge the truth and tell people what they want to hear. Office politics may make it difficult to be totally honest, and whistle blowers often find themselves penalized for calling attention to design flaws or violations of procedure no one wants to acknowledge. At its worst, an atmosphere of deception can disintegrate into “group think”, where everyone knows there’s a problem, but no one will step up and tell the truth.

To be credible, you must have a reputation for being honest with other people – for telling the truth even when it hurts. You can be kind, caring and diplomatic and at the same time be forthright in the way you approach your work and your relationships.

The IPCC is in trouble because it didn’t stay true to its mission: Take sophisticated and sometimes inconclusive science, and boil it down to usable advice for lawmakers. Scientists made the mistake of forming conclusions from inconclusive evidence and inserting them into their reports. This is easy to do unless you’re always on guard against the temptation to fudge—even a little—when the truth matters.

In a future article, I’ll have more on how to stay credible in today’s workplace. Stay tuned.

Image by Don Moyer

1 comment

Three More Keys to Credibility (Part 2) : VoicePro® - Communication Skills – Leadership Skills - 04.08.10 at 12:34 pm

[...] take a look at my article, You Can’t Fake Integrity, for a discussion of Integrity. In the meantime, let’s look at the other three components in more [...]

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