In the 2002 movie Spiderman, there's a well-known scene that any true Spidey fan can recite from memory. If you aren't familiar with the story, here's a quick refresher: Peter Parker is a high school senior from Queens with an inferiority complex. He's an orphan, being raised by his Aunt May and Uncle Ben. While on a field trip to a genetics lab at Columbia University, he's bitten by a radioactive genetically engineered spider.

The next morning, Peter awakes to find he has new skills. Incredibly strong and quick, he can now stick to walls and ceilings and spin webs from his wrists.

Though he now has superpowers, Peter's not yet a superhero. He's still the same angst-ridden teenager who doesn't know what to do with his life. He has yet to commit to working toward a mission of justice, service, and the greater good. Amid this confusion, Peter has a conversation with his Uncle Ben. In what tragically turns out to be their last conversation, Ben wisely counsels Peter, “With great power comes great responsibility.”

Uncle Ben's words aren't just for his nephew. They apply to all of us who wish to wear the mantle of leadership.

This may seem like a stretch to you. What could you and Spider Man have in common? Right now, you might feel that you don't have much power at all. You might think you're “just” a supervisor. That you're “just” doing your job. That you're “stuck” as mid-level manager in a large hierarchical organization.

Many leaders take on the challenge of leadership without knowing what they're really signing up for. They think, “I just got a raise,” or “I've got a new title.” They don't reflect on the gravity of their role. They don't consider the power they wield and the impact that power will have on those they lead. They don't recognize their responsibility. They enter their leadership contract half-asleep.

I know this from firsthand experience. I was one of those slumbering leaders. Thankfully, I received a tremendous wake-up call from a mentor of mine right after the new millennium. It was a gift—both figuratively and literally.

THE GIFT OF LEADERSHIP

It was a blustery October day in 2002 in midtown Manhattan. The wind outside was blowing so hard that umbrellas were turning inside out. Thankfully, I was inside, in a dry, warm, bustling coffeeshop. Seated across the red-cushioned booth from me was Jeff, my leadership mentor. Every month, Jeff and I would meet here and talk shop about leadership and life.

Our waitress had just dropped the check on the sparkling Formica tabletop. “Oh, I almost forgot,” said Jeff. He pulled out a small box with red and silver–striped wrapping paper around it. “Congratulations on last weekend.”

The weekend before, I'd gotten certified to lead a very complex training that I'd spent years preparing for. The gift was Jeff's way of recognizing my achievement.

Jeff said, “This isn't for later. Go ahead.”

I ripped open the paper and the box. There was some red crepe paper on the inside. My fingers rummaged around and hit soft cotton.

I pulled out my find. It was a t-shirt. A white, extra-large t-shirt with big block capital letters on the front (see Figure 6.1).

A wave of blood rushed to my cheeks. As I smiled, I felt that awkward mix of embarrassment and pride. In that moment, it was hard to fully take in Jeff's acknowledgment and praise. The last four years had been quite a challenging journey. Jeff knew exactly what I'd been through: he'd been certified to lead this same exact training years earlier. Since our mentor–mentee relationship had begun, we'd become very close. Jeff was like a father figure to me.

I managed to blurt out, “Thanks so much, Jeff!”

Then, with his bald head shining under the fluorescent lighting, Jeff flashed a mischievous grin and looked me dead in the eye. Coolly, he said, “Why don't you go ahead and turn the shirt around?”

I flipped the shirt over.

The first thing I saw was the large black circle. Then, the smaller rings of white, blue, and red, with the tiny yellow circle in the middle came into focus (see Figure 6.2).

It took a moment to register.

Bull's-eye.

I'll never forget what Jeff said next.

Alain, welcome to leadership.

As a leader, you'll always be a target.

If you're a great leader, you'll be the target of people's hopes, dreams, even their envy.

If you're a lousy leader, you'll be the target of people's disappointment, apathy, and blame.

You can't not be a target. You'll always be a target.

Now what type of target will you be? That's your job to figure out.

Jeff's words have stuck with me since that day. His metaphor of a leader as a target wonderfully captures the interplay between self-awareness and social awareness. You need to know how what you say and do influences the hearts and minds of those you lead. Because every business is a people business, every business is also a perceptions business. Does what you say and do connect you to others? Or does it create a rift?

Establishing credibility starts with understanding the connection between your actions and their impact on others. And here's where it gets tricky: that impact isn't the same for everyone. You need to tailor your credibility, one person at a time.

LEADERSHIP IS A ONE-ON-ONE RELATIONSHIP

Gallup is the world's oldest and most prestigious research and polling company. In 1974, Gallup decided they wanted to find out the answer to a fundamental question: “What creates the world's most successful employees?”

Gallup embarked on a gigantic research project that lasted more than 20 years. They surveyed more than one million employees around the world in over 100 countries. They questioned more than 80,000 managers, ranging from frontline supervisors to senior executives.

Gallup asked each person a series of specific questions about his or her work experience. The sum of the responses yielded a tremendous amount of data. Gallup researchers then took that data and analyzed it to see what they could find.

After their detailed analysis, Gallup discovered that there was one single factor above all others that determined what made an employee successful and effective, as defined by these characteristics:

• Customer satisfaction/loyalty
• Profitability
• Productivity
• Turnover¹

The answer had nothing to do with employees' salary, benefits, or if they worked for one of the “Fortune Top 100 Companies to Work For.”

What success ultimately boiled down to was this: the employee's relationship with his or her immediate supervisor.

Leading isn't an abstract idea that exists between you and somebody else or a group of people. It's a connection that's built through a genuine relationship. The workplace isn't an address on an office building. It's an experience that depends largely on whom one works for.

As a leader, through words and actions, you create a culture where your people succeed or flounder. You have the biggest effect. In fact, Gallup has found that 70% of the variance among lousy, good, and great cultures can be found in the knowledge, skills, and talent of the team leader. Not the players, but the team leader.²

Because of the disproportionate influence that immediate supervisors have, they shape the reality of the workplace. Think back on your own career. While working at one organization, have you had the experience of reporting to two (or more) different people? Depending on whom you reported to, did it feel as though you were working for two (or more) completely different companies? (Or maybe it felt like you were living on two different planets!) The power of the immediate supervisor–employee relationship is why Gallup, when publishing its findings, wrote that “it is her relationship with her immediate manager that will determine how long she stays and how productive she is while she is there.”³ People don't leave companies; they leave their direct leaders.

If you want to be a great leader and have those you lead perform at their best, the onus is on you to create an effective leader–follower relationship. You set the tone. You lay the groundwork of connection for what that relationship will become. The first step on that journey is establishing your credibility.

Credibility comes from the Latin credibilis, meaning, “worthy to be believed.” It shares the same etymological root as the word credit—a loan, a thing entrusted to another. Employees don't give you their intellect, skills, and efforts; they loan them to you and your organization on a day-to-day basis.

For people to truly follow you, they must believe you're worth following. It doesn't matter how passionate, visionary, or articulate you are. The principle is so important that Jim Kouzes and Barry Posner, authors of the seminal leadership book The Leadership Challenge, refer to this as their first law of leadership: “If you don't believe the messenger, you won't believe the message.”⁴

Belief in someone isn't an abstract idea. It's a visceral feeling. In fact, leadership is strongest when it lives close to home. It's individual and extremely personal.

When people are asked to identify their most significant leadership role models, most people choose someone from their family. The next most significant role models chosen are teachers, coaches, or work supervisors, depending on the age of the person being asked.⁵ This makes sense: teachers, coaches, and bosses play such an important role because they're the people you spend the most time with on a regular basis. Their unique role comes built-in with a window of opportunity.

The people you lead would like nothing more than for you to be the leader that they've been waiting for. As they wait, they're paying attention. They want to see how you will show up. They want to see what you will do.

The fact is, no matter where you live or what your level of leadership, you're being watched. Right now. If you lead people, those you lead are studying your words and actions for signs and signals. They're seeking clues of connection. They want to know if they belong, are approved of, and if their future place in the tribe is secure.

Don't take all this scrutiny too personally. It's not just you. This happens to all leaders. It's a natural biological result of evolution. As social animals, this what all higher-order primates do. Harvard University Press editor and author Julia Kirby noted that when apes and monkeys are “threatened, subordinates glance obsessively toward the group leader, looking for indications of how to respond.”⁶ In fact, even when they're not in danger, baboons continue to conduct “a visual check on their alpha male two or three times per minute.”⁷

However, this constant scrutiny does not work both ways. A defining feature of the alpha is how little attention he pays to his subordinates. Citing biologist Michael R. A. Chance's work, Kirby writes that “the whole key to a social group's hierarchy is its ‘attention structure.’”⁸

Realistically, your people may not be glancing at you every twenty seconds, like baboons do. However, this doesn't negate the principle that people lower in a hierarchy watch the higher-ups far more closely and frequently than those above look down.

Come to grips with the fact that you live in a fishbowl. You're not going to change this phenomenon. You're constantly under a microscope. And although you shouldn't take the scrutiny personally, you should take the consequences of it very personally. Because people see every move you make, you'll want to make sure you're making the right moves.

Pablo, the CFO of a large financial services firm, recently brought this lesson to life. Pablo recounted to a group of newly promoted managers:

This was during the 2008 financial crisis. I was a managing director at the time, and I was sitting at a conference table with a team of six executives in Stanley (the COO)'s office.

The team was trying to salvage a massive deal. This was our fourth day of working 16–18 hours/day. It was now 9:00 p.m. As we're working, Stanley's sitting at his desk, keeled over with his head in his hands resting on the desk. He looks like he's collapsed on the table in front of him.

Like all the rest of us on the team, Stanley is flat-out exhausted. Yet, from this prone position, he tells us all how proud he is of us and our work, and that we're making great progress on this deal. We're all excited about the work we've done.

The next morning, I'm approached by two of my team members. They've already been told the “bad news” from some other employees, and want to know:

“When are the layoffs going to start?”

I'm thinking: “What are they talking about? What layoffs?”

It took me some time and some detective work to figure out what had happened. It turns out that Stanley's office had large windows. All the meetings were completely visible from the outside.

Some other employees had seen Stanley crumpled over and with his head down on his desk the night before. They'd created a whole scenario about what was going down. Seeing his head down on the desk, they'd convinced themselves that the firm was going under. Panicked, they started spreading their own fears and “bad news” around.

Pablo finished by saying, “What I learned that day is that as a leader, your game face is always showing. So know which game face you have on. Everything you do and say sends a message.”

Being perpetually alert to what you do and say is one of the most important habits for leaders to cultivate. Self-awareness takes work. Moreover, it's not enough just to be mindful of all that you do and say. It's also important to be attentive to what you don't do and don't say. After all, non-behavior also sends a message, and it also gets put under a microscope and picked apart.

For instance, a few years ago, I was in Chicago, leading a customer service conference with a group of 300 senior flight attendants from a major airline.

During a break, one of the participants pulled me aside. Her name was Francine, and, with her blue dress and red scarf, she couldn't have been any more impeccably dressed. Francine said,

I appreciate all that you're trying to do to help us here today. But I need to tell you: it's not going to make any difference. You want to know what's wrong with this airline? They're a bunch of hypocrites!

As she was talking, Francine's face morphed from beige to pink to red. It was clear she was really upset.

Before I could even say, “Tell me more,” Francine jumped in again.

I'm based in Frankfurt, and I worked the first-class cabin on the way over here to Chicago. Those first-class passengers, they're our top-tier customers—those tickets cost a minimum of five figures, easy. And they ask us to give our all and make every customer in first class feel appreciated for [his or her] business and loyalty. I spend a lot of time upfront—prepping for the flight, reviewing the boarding list, looking at each passenger's flight history, memorizing their names, figuring out what they'll want to drink when they come on board…all of it. It's a lot of time and a lot of effort. And I'm proud of what I do.

So on this flight over here, one of our senior executives is coming over too. He's pretty high up—you'd see his picture in our in-flight magazine every once in a while. He pre-boards and sits in the first row by the window.

You'd think, at the least, he'd stand up, and shake hands with the other first-class cabin passengers. He could introduce himself as a part of the airline and thank them for their business and loyalty. That's what they tell us that we need to do every day. Wouldn't a real leader do that, too?

But what does he do? He plops himself in his seat, pulls out his laptop, puts his head down, and ignores everyone around him for the next eight hours.

To make it even worse? When he gets off the plane, he doesn't even say thank you to me.

And they wonder why this industry is going down the toilet.

As I listened to Francine lambasting the airline executive, I wondered what was going through the senior executive's mind, sitting there in first class. We don't get to hear his side of the story. Maybe he was working on an important project with an urgent deadline. Maybe he was having a personal or family crisis. Maybe he was feeling ill.

We can't know for sure. But frankly, when it comes to his credibility, it doesn't matter. Francine sees what she sees, and her perception is reality. Intentions don't cut it. Ultimately, that leader sitting in first class left a strong impression with one of his employees. He may have not have known he was doing it, but he'd left one nonetheless.

From Pablo's and Francine's stories, it's obvious how crucial credibility is to leadership. But how do you build it? Where do you start? Which quality is most important for leaders to demonstrate to build credibility?

Thankfully, there's a definitive (and well-researched) answer. Jim Kouzes and Barry Posner have spent nearly 30 years studying this very question. They've surveyed more than 100,000 people around the world. They've asked these people, based on their experiences of being led by others, “What are the top qualities that you look for, admire, and would willingly follow?”

The results are surprising, not for their content, but for their stability. It turns out that the top answer has held its peak position on the list every year since 1990. The world may have changed drastically since then, but what people want most from their leaders has remained shockingly constant.

You probably already know what the answer is. You only need to ask yourself, “What's the trait that I look for and admire most in leaders I would follow?”

The quality that's most needed to build credibility is honesty.⁹

It makes perfect sense. Honesty gives people confidence. It enables them to believe that a connection is worth having. It's the chief ingredient of trust. Given how essential honesty is to building connection, we're going to explore what it really means and what specific actions you can take to increase it.

HONESTY

When people first think about honesty, they begin with the basic definition: telling the truth. Although this is a good start, truth-telling is Honesty 101. For leaders, this should be a given. Great leaders tell the truth, but they don't stop there. They focus on living the truth. They do this through having clear values and then acting in accordance with those values. This alignment casts a halo of integrity, which shows up in actions both big and small.

For instance, I recently hired a new electrician, Joseph, to do some work in the basement of my house. The house's previous owner had dabbled in home-rigged wiring and had left a giant wiry, tangled, and unsafe mess that needed to be cleaned up. I'd put the work off for a few years, and it was time to do something about it.

Joseph came over to meet me, check out the basement, and give me an estimate on the job. After his review, he told me that it would probably take it the better part of the day to get it done, somewhere between six and eight hours. We agreed he'd show up the following Thursday at 8:00 a.m.

Thursday morning, Joseph rang the doorbell promptly at 8:00 am. I had to work off-site all day, so I led him into the basement and told him to let himself out when he was finished.

When I returned home at 5:30, the basement looked fantastic: the giant gnarled tangle of wires had magically disappeared. In addition, Joseph had replaced the old, rusting circuit breaker panel with a shiny new distribution board and had clearly labeled every breaker switch in the house. I called Joseph to check in and let him know how pleased I was with his work. During our talk, I asked him how long the job took.

He told me, “Really, it moved along. Faster than I'd expected. I also had to stop for a bit during the day. Let's call it four hours. I'll bill you for four hours.”

Four hours?

I was awestruck. I hadn't been home all day, and to me, it seemed like a lot of work. Joseph could've said, “Actually, it took nine hours,” and I would have believed him. “Eight,” and I would've been fine. “Six,” and I would have been very happy.

Four hours?! I could barely contain my excitement. Just from my one experience with Joseph, it became clear who would be my go-to electrician from now on. And you can probably guess how many friends I've raved to about Joseph and his work. I've already referred three new customers to him.

Joseph's story shows that to begin building credibility, you don't need to perform colossal feats. You can start small. In fact, in our exchanges, Joseph demonstrated several behaviors that you can use to build connection with the people you want to lead. These include showing up on time, doing what you say you will do, and being consistent.

SHOWING UP ON TIME

If I could only choose one practice to exercise growing my credibility, I'd choose this one: showing up on time. You should treat your performance in this arena as a big deal: it is. Think about it—timeliness is the easiest and most visible thing to measure. You're either here or you're not.

Lateness is about much more than just a few wasted minutes. There's a reason one of the key metrics that kids have throughout their schooling is “days tardy.” In life, being on time is the most basic social contract: that of presence. When you're late, your behavior sends the message that “I had other things going on that were a higher priority than being here with you.” When you're on time, you send a message that you value the other person.

In addition, the habit of showing up on time is a keystone habit. Although all habits affect us, certain ones are particularly significant. Keystone habits have the power to spawn other habits. This in turn creates small wins, boosts motivation, and builds momentum. As Charles Duhigg, the author of The Power of Habit, has written,

Keystone habits influence how we work, eat, play, live, spend, and communicate. Keystone habits can start a process that, over time, transforms everything.¹⁰

When you practice the keystone habit of showing up on time, you can also improve the following other connection-boosting behaviors.

DOING WHAT YOU SAY YOU WILL DO

When you open your mouth to promise to do something, you immediately create expectations for those who are listening to you. For them, that promise is now a psychological loop of tension that seeks resolution. That loop will quietly keep asking them, “Will she do what she said? Or won't she?”

People crave closure. That's why kids (and adults) hate it when you tell them they must go to bed before that TV show is over. When you follow up and follow through, you bring a satisfying resolution to that tension.

Every time you show up on time, you strengthen the connection between your words (“I'll see you at 8:00 a.m.”) and your deeds (“It's 8:00 a.m. I'm here.”)

This is what's meant by “walking your talk.” When you walk your talk, you're seen as congruent. When you don't, you're out of integrity. Something is off. This is what Ralph Waldo Emerson expressed so eloquently when he wrote, “Who you are speaks so loudly I cannot hear what you are saying.”

Doing what you say you will do is the perfect definition of accountability. After all, accountability comes from the world of accounting. In finance, the two sides of the balance sheet (assets and liabilities) need to equal each other to be “in account.” In leadership, the two sides of your balance sheet are “what you say you'll do” and “what you actually did.” When you do what you say you will do, your two sides balance out. You're in integrity. You're accountable.

Because showing up on time is the first step of relationship building, it's a great place to practice conscious commitment making. You can start with “I'll be there at 8:00 a.m.” As you master the basics, you can progress to more advanced commitments, such as, “I'll get you the report by noon Friday.”

As you strengthen your accountability muscle, you can stretch into greater and greater commitments. You might also try out promises in a different context: “I'll be home for dinner by 7:00 p.m.” or “I'll call you once a week, Mom.”

Following through is being accountable for your actions. The key thing to remember is that your word is your promise. This means you need to stay conscious of your agreements.

BEING CONSISTENT

Another connection builder is consistency. This is the practice of doing what you say you will do repeated multiple times over an extended period. When you show up on time, every time, you send the message that you are someone who can be counted on.

Now, no one is going to throw you a party for showing up on time. However, it's the little things—done consistently—that make a big difference. The repetition has a multiplier effect.

Consider the example of Doug Conant. For over 40 years, starting as a marketing assistant at General Mills and rising to the ranks of CEO of Campbell Soup Company and later as chairman at Avon Products, Conant has consistently made appreciating employees a priority.

When Conant came on board as the CEO of Campbell Soup Company in 2001, the business was suffering. Conant turned the company around by making the company's employees a priority. As Conant said in an interview, “Staying close to home will take you a long way. Then you take care of your business and smartly go to where consumers of the future are or will be.”¹¹

For Conant, appreciation is no mere idea—it's a daily practice. Conant deeply understands the power of connection. During his tenure as CEO of Campbell Soup Company, Conant and his executive assistants spent a good 30 to 60 minutes a day scanning his mail and the internal website looking for news of people who made a difference at Campbell's.¹²

Conant then practiced a form of leadership alchemy: he transformed all that employee data into connection gold. With explicit detail, Conant hand-wrote thank-you notes to Campbell employees around the world. How consistent was his habit? In his 10-year stint as CEO, Conant wrote 30,000 thank-you notes. That works out to more than eight cards a day, seven days a week, for ten years. (By the way, the company only had 20,000 employees at the time.)

This concept of consistency is simple to understand. However, the challenge in the real world—the too-much-to-do, not-enough-time-to-do-it real world—is that consistently doing the actions that strengthen your credibility gets pushed aside by other things. What's important makes way for what is urgent.

As an example, perhaps you've worked with a leader who (somehow) managed to perpetually reschedule your regular one-on-one meetings, only to never get around to having them. Or the leader who shows up to your meetings consistently late. Part of you understands (she's busy and important, after all), but part of you trusts her a little less. And the connection weakens.

Leading today is not easy. It's easier to be distracted from your top priorities than ever because there are more distractions than ever. The sense of overwhelm can prompt you to come up with a (seemingly valid) list of reasons as to why you “can't” spend the time doing those things that are most important.

Other projects can always take top billing. But where does that leave those around you? For example, how committed are you to helping your people to grow?

I once had a leadership mentor who told me the following:

If you want to know what a person values, look at their bank statement: see what they spend their money on. If you want to know what a leader values, look at their calendar: see where they spend their time.

COMMITMENT CREATES CREDIBILITY

Susan is the CEO of a retail organization. She's been CEO for more than 20 years. Susan's company owns and manages more than 700 stores, separated into 100 regions around the United States. Each region has between five and eight stores. Each store has its own manager, and every region has a regional manager.

During her tenure, Susan has created a regional manager (RM) ritual: the regional review.

Once a year, each RM (along with the RM's boss, the regional VP) meets with Susan. To prepare for the meeting (the regional review), the RM creates a report on the state of their business: how their stores have performed against all the company metrics, what things have gone well, future market opportunities, areas for improvement, and so on.

The reports are lengthy and comprehensive: a few RMs told me they spend close to 40 hours getting their reports ready for the regional review.

The RM, her VP, and Susan all meet to discuss that RM's business. Using the report as a guide to the conversation, every review looks different. Susan can stop the process at any moment. Depending on the issue on the table, Susan will then do one or more of the following:

• Inquire or probe deeper
• Coach
• Mentor
• Congratulate
• Give feedback

According to the RMs, the district review with Susan is both the most challenging and the most rewarding part of their year. Some of the RMs told me the following:

Nothing gets by Susan. If you don't know what's going on in your business, she'll find out you don't know.

You can't fake your way through the review. If you try, you'll crash and burn.

Susan's a genius. Her operational wisdom is so deep; every time I walk out of there, I know I'm a better leader.

Susan is this incredible combination of tough business savvy and warm supportive coach. She makes you feel like you're the most important person she's ever talked to. I don't know what this company would be like without her.

Each regional review with Susan lasts between two and three hours. Yes, you read that right: two and three hours per RM. Susan meets with every single one of them—all 100—every year. Do the math: if you average it out to 2.5 hours per RM, that's more than 250 hours in reviews. More than six weeks of Susan's year is spent on this ritual. That's quite an investment.

Susan's consistent actions create her credibility. Watching her work with her team, I saw a living, breathing model of trust in action. Susan's commitment to develop her team is reciprocated in their connection to her and their commitment to the company. More than half of the RMs have been with the company for more than 15 years, and the majority of them have been promoted from within. Susan is someone who knows her priorities.

Susan is in the leadership game for the long haul. She knows that by building capacity in her people, not only will they hit their numbers but also they'll bring the same commitment to coach and mentor the leaders they lead. She wants to do more than just run a retail business. She wants to leave a legacy that will outlast her. She understands the great responsibility that comes with her power.

One of the major faults leaders can make is to assume they get trust just because of their title. Your title might get you watched, but what will others see? The next move is yours. Your credibility exists only insofar as others believe in you: in your integrity, track record, and commitment.

Connection can't be built in an instant. It requires time, patience, and perseverance. You can't fake it: it takes sincerity and interest. It can take a long time to earn, and it can be destroyed in a moment. But thankfully, it's not some mystical innate quality. Great leaders are made, not born. They're made by practicing small habits over and over.

Be on time. Do what you say you'll do. Be consistent. These are the small things that become big things. Work at these diligently, and you may just discover your secret superpower.