15 ways you’re undermining your credibility
Frankie Kemp
16 November 2020
I once had to tell my boss that he wasn’t being taken seriously by the client, a CEO of a massive power plant. Among the criticisms that I was charged me with reporting back to him was…wait for it…
He moved like Kermit the Frog. Not a serious chap, if you remember him from the ‘Muppets’.
This feedback was unusual because if you ask people why they’re not taken seriously or seen as credible, they’ll rarely come up with anything tangible.
Effective communication skills include many areas such as body language, what we say and how we behave. The subtle interplay of these strands creates an overall impression which can make specific feedback quite challenging.
But it’s important. Attention to what makes you credible affects whether people listen to you. And if you want people to act on your words, being taken seriously is essential. Whether you want to be included in a conversation or a promotion, it’s crediblility you want.
With my clients, the focus on one or two particular areas, such as cutting the waffle at meetings to get straight to the point, can seriously increase their credibility.
If you’re looking for reasons that you might be undermining your ability to be taken seriously, here are 15 of them.
Which ones are you guilty of?
1. Your point is unclear: people are left guessing why you’re talking or what you’re getting at. In business communication skills training, we look at undoing the waffle to cut to the point. Here’s how to go for clarity.
2. Your body language isn’t in line with your words: we naturally use gesture in tandem with vocal emphasis thus if you don’t, you’ll seem to lack conviction. Any communication course absolutely needs to include the way you carry yourself and move. In fact, research has shown that the combination of eye contact and gesture placement affects how listeners perceive speakers. If you want to know how to move without flapping your arms like Kermit the Frog? Go here.
3. Sloppy speech: I’m referring to sloppy speech that needs captions – not the odd dropped ‘t’. In influence skills training, I find that people often don’t open their mouths enough when they speak, causing mumbling and dropped projection. It undermines the speaker’s conviction in what they’re saying.
4. Talking in the pauses: filling silence with with ‘ums’ and ‘ahs’, can make your sound uncertain. Not having them means the gravity of a message or even the humour of it is lost. There’s no time for the impact to land and what you’re saying to resonate. People who sound confident are comfortable with pauses.
5. Oversharing: emboldened by the swirling pile of debris that pops out of social media, others can reveal a little too much of themselves. Even when your personal revelation or that piece of gossip is interesting, you risk compromising the esteem in which others may hold you. Be you but bear in mind the context.
6. Not following through on your commitments: this erodes trust. Without trust, you can’t sustain either personal or professional relationships. Aside from keeping to commitments, rather than constantly cancelling them, there are other behaviours that instill trust which I cover on my business communication online training.
7. Fidgeting: stroking your hair, rubbing your neck and any other self-grooming gestures give you that air of insecurity.
8. Your voice is shallow and high: many studies have shown that lower voices in both genders reflect greater competence and trustworthiness than those with higher voices. This is how to breathe to enrich your voice and have people listen to you more attentively.
9. There’s no physical engagement: slumping, leaning back and looking disengaged can diminish your status. Looking away while the other person is speaking adds that extra touch of disinterest. However, showing disinterest can have its benefits, revealing an unwillingness to engage with certain behaviours.
10. Don’t remove distractions: have all your notifications on so there are more bleeps than a metal detector in a steel works. Keep your phone face up so you can see all your messages and alerts. Basically, by not being present or attentive, you’re smashing any connection quietly but deeply, like a sharp, smooth blade. If people are using their phones on you while you’re trying to talk to them it’s like being snubbed, hence the term ‘phubbing’ for ‘phone snubbing’. Discover how to deal with it here.
11. Uptalking: this is where you make everything sound like a question. The voices repeatedly rises up at the end of every phrase, like a ‘Mean Girls’ imitation.
12. You lack projection: if we can’t hear you, then no one can criticise what you’ve said, right? But then again, it becomes too hard to listen to you so we don’t. In business communication training, your desire to have others listening to you needs to precede how to do it.
13. Over-apologising: for everything. All the time. Research has revealed that women tend to do this even more than men. If you apologise constantly, this diminishes the weight of your sincerity when you really mean it. Furthermore doing often conveys insecurity.
14. Inconsistency in messaging: saying one thing but doing another can make you come across as unreliable. Maintain credibility with a consistent message. That’s not say you can’t pivot or be flexible but if the values or the process keep changing no-one knows where they are.
15. Overuse of jargon: Using too much industry-specific terminology can alienate listeners. In business communication it can be a useful shortcut, but very often it can be used to hide a complete lack of meaning. The higher up the ladder you go, the less they want that jargon: it sounds like you’re trying to hard to sound ‘professional’ when the clear, simple language is what’s really valued.
Your Action Steps:
- Identify maximum two of these traits that you may do – when you really want to be taken seriously.
- Do the opposite.
What if you don’t know how to do the opposite or if you don’t know what the opposite actually is? Then you could be looking for some communication and influence skills training, Contact me here and become a Communication Ninja!