Credibility can never be achieved by suppressing weaknesses. Credibility is conferred on others by individuals.
Look at your around and your organization. You can detect poor productivity, poor collaboration, inner circles, clans and clubs. Some people feel helpless. Many bosses leads to integrity gaps that can contribute to the risk of failure. Image manipulation is common. Their image and reality is different.
The reality is that we wish to enhance our credibility in the eyes of others by appearing important, knowledgeable and successful and continue to keep the chair and income to survive. Acknowledging our imperfections and mistakes appears to diminish our importance, our knowledge, our contributions and our achievements. But it doesn’t, that is the paradox.
Humility is the key factor and essential in achieving high credibility in the organizations.
Today’s complex business conditions, high competition , increasing automation and digitization, poor profit margins and decreasing employment opportunities, create advantages and disadvantages to the people in the societies.
People fear being discredited in the eyes of others and they suppress their weaknesses. They hide them from their leaders and/or managers knowing they will penalize them with poor increases in compensation and benefits and no promotion in their career if they appear weak.
In general, what I see that many leaders and managers don’t regard the issues and solutions that their people face. They always criticize and don’t listen and understand their people. On the other side, people do the same.
I believe that learning is essential and it should be continuous in our life. We have to be flexible and adaptable. We learn from our weaknesses if we know and understand. Clearly, continuous promotion and exhibition of our strengths will reduce our credibility rather than enhance it. There might be short-term positive impressions.
I believe that companies should help, provide counsel and positive support the people to grow strong from identifying and eliminating weaknesses. If they suppress the weaknesses, this weakens the person and the organization.
According to my experience, leaders should be tolerant and understanding the weaknesses and help people improve. When people see and know this, they will be volunteer to improve their weaknesses in an honest way. Of course, if the improvement is impossible, this person would be better suited to another job.
The suppressing the weaknesses creates disagreements and confrontations. Credible leaders and managers have the courage to confront the resulting conflict. If the weakness is so damaging and so suppressed that the person won’t own up to it, then this person will have to be dismissed to protect the organizational alignment and positive culture.
A culture of candor and organizational alignment are the essential priorities for today’s leaders.
Relationship is the mirror in which we see ourselves as we are. If you want to create a high-performance, agile organization, you have to look carefully weaknesses at your own before acting upon the weaknesses of others. Don’t forget this: “ If they cannot trust you, why would they ever follow you”?