Buying credibility: A look at the FTC’s transparency-in-blogging regulations (Photo credit: opensourceway)

You can read a dozen books on leadership and attend just as many leadership seminars, but your employees won’t follow your lead if you make any of these five common errors:

1. Trying to lead before establishing credibility.

People will only follow you if they believe that you know what you’re doing. Credibility doesn’t come from a job title or your position on the latest organization chart. Neither can it be “willed” into existence simply because you wish it were there.

Fix: Credibility, like trust, can only be earned over time. If you’ve got a track record of success, you’ll need to communicate clearly why that success is still relevant. If you’re new to the job, you’ll have to grow that credibility from scratch. Good luck!

2. Trying to lead before there’s a relationship.

Even if you’ve got a truckload of credibility, people won’t follow your lead if they don’t feel a personal connection. If you’re the manager, they may obey direct orders so as to keep their jobs, but they won’t go the proverbial “extra mile” that true leadership inspires.

Fix: The only way to build relationships is to truly care about them as individuals and frequently showing honest curiosity about them, their ideas and the work that they’re doing. This takes time, effort, and one-on-one attention.

Continue reading on Inc.com…

Related articles

• 5 Reasons Leadership Falls Flat(inc.com)

  ---

• Kathy Kurnyta: On Leadership Presence(vantageleadership.wordpress.com)

  ---

• The Conviction to Lead.(myfullcup.wordpress.com)

  ---