#549 How To Become And Remain A Credible Leader
How To Become And Remain A Credible Leader
Credibility is not a personality trait. It is the social licence that allows leadership to work.
Article by Niels Brabandt
“Formal authority gives a leader a position. Credibility determines whether people grant that position practical legitimacy.”
Credibility Is the Operating System of Leadership
Leadership is often described through strategy, communication, decision-making and performance. Yet each of these capabilities depends on a more fundamental condition: credibility. A leader may possess formal authority, an impressive title and extensive decision rights, but those assets do not automatically produce genuine followership. They merely establish a position. Credibility determines whether people grant that position practical legitimacy.
In this week’s podcast and videocast, leadership expert Niels Brabandt examines how leaders become credible, how they retain credibility and how they recover when their judgement has failed. His central argument is direct: leadership is a social construct. People comply not only because an organisational chart assigns authority, but because they consider the person exercising that authority legitimate, fair and worthy of trust.
Formal Authority Is Not the Same as Social Legitimation
Every leadership role contains two different forms of legitimacy. Formal legitimacy comes from appointment, hierarchy, contractual authority and defined responsibilities. Social legitimation is created by the willingness of others to accept a leader’s judgement and to act on it.
This distinction matters because formal authority can survive long after effective leadership has disappeared. Employees may still attend meetings, observe reporting lines and comply with essential processes while no longer trusting the person at the top. The leader remains in office, but leadership has migrated elsewhere. Teams begin to organise around informal figures, trusted colleagues or internal networks. The official leader is tolerated rather than followed.
For decision-makers, this is one of the most dangerous organisational conditions because it can remain hidden. Compliance creates the appearance of leadership, while disengagement, silence and informal workarounds reveal its absence.
The Moment Unequal Treatment Becomes a Credibility Crisis
The transcript uses a high-profile sporting controversy as a case through which to examine a universal leadership problem: what happens when an intervention appears to produce preferential treatment. The decisive issue is not whether leaders listen to influential stakeholders. Listening is part of responsible leadership. The issue is whether a conversation changes the application of rules without a transparent, defensible and impartial basis.
When similar cases produce different outcomes, people immediately search for the distinguishing factor. Sometimes different treatment is justified. A junior project manager handling a first assignment should not necessarily face the same response as a highly paid senior professional with fifteen years of experience. Context, competence, responsibility and prior conduct can all be legitimate differentiators.
The credibility problem begins when the differentiating factor is unrelated to performance, responsibility or evidence. If outcomes appear to depend on nationality, personal relationships, alumni networks, proximity to power or private preference, a leader’s impartiality is called into question. At that point, the dispute is no longer about a single decision. It becomes a judgement on the integrity of the entire leadership system.
Impartiality Must Be Visible, Not Merely Claimed
Leaders frequently believe they are fair because they understand their own intentions. Employees, clients and stakeholders cannot see intentions. They assess patterns, procedures, explanations and outcomes. Credibility therefore requires more than internal conviction. It requires visible consistency and reasons that can withstand scrutiny.
A credible decision does not have to produce identical outcomes in every case. It does, however, need to be based on criteria that are relevant, proportionate and explainable. The test is simple: could the leader defend the decision before those affected, before peers, before a board and, if necessary, before the public without changing the rationale?
Where discretion is necessary, governance becomes more important, not less. Decision-makers should define who has authority, which criteria apply, what must be documented and when independent review is required. Strong governance does not weaken leadership. It protects leadership from the perception and reality of arbitrariness.
Credibility Can Be Lost Quickly and Rebuilt Deliberately
One of the most important insights in Niels Brabandt’s analysis is that leadership credibility, although fragile, is not always irrecoverable. Leaders make mistakes. The decisive question is what happens next.
Recovery begins with an accurate acknowledgement of the error. A generic statement of regret is not enough when the failure is specific. Credible accountability names what went wrong, accepts responsibility, explains the corrective action and recognises the consequences. Depending on the severity of the case, this may include an apology, an independent investigation, a revised decision, restitution, a formal sanction or a change in governance.
The purpose of accountability is not permanent humiliation. In healthy organisations and democratic societies, people must be able to recover from mistakes once responsibility has been accepted and damage has been repaired. An organisation that never forgives encourages concealment. An organisation that never imposes consequences encourages repetition. Credible leadership requires both accountability and a path back.
Why Unconscious Bias Is a Leadership Competence Issue
Many failures of impartiality are not the result of an explicit intention to discriminate. They emerge from unexamined preferences, familiar networks and assumptions that feel natural to the person making the decision. This is why awareness alone is insufficient.
Niels Brabandt argues for the systematic qualification of leaders, including evidence-based work on unconscious bias. The aim is not to suggest that some leaders are biased while others are neutral. Every decision-maker has blind spots. The relevant question is whether the organisation has created mechanisms to identify and reduce their influence.
Effective qualification should connect bias awareness with real decisions: recruitment, promotion, performance management, succession planning, project allocation, disciplinary action and access to senior stakeholders. Training without governance remains symbolic. Governance without capability becomes bureaucratic. Credible leadership requires both.
A Practical Credibility Standard for Decision-Makers
Executives can strengthen leadership credibility by applying a disciplined standard before consequential decisions. First, identify the relevant facts and distinguish them from assumptions. Second, define the criteria that should determine the outcome. Third, test whether those criteria would also be applied to a different person, team or stakeholder. Fourth, document the reasoning where the decision carries material consequences. Fifth, invite appropriate challenge before the decision becomes irreversible.
After the decision, leaders should communicate not only what has been decided, but why. Transparency does not require the disclosure of confidential information. It does require enough explanation for people to understand the logic, the constraints and the standards applied.
Finally, leaders must be prepared to correct themselves. A credible leader does not protect every past judgement at all costs. A credible leader protects the integrity of the decision-making system, even when doing so requires admitting personal error.
Credibility Is Built in the Decisions Others Remember
Leadership credibility is not created by slogans, values statements or occasional displays of confidence. It is built through repeated moments in which people observe how power is used. They remember who was heard, whose mistakes were forgiven, whose conduct was sanctioned and whether the same principles applied when influential people became involved.
For Niels Brabandt, the lasting leadership lesson is clear: leaders preserve social legitimation when they act on facts, proof and evidence, remain visibly impartial, accept scrutiny and repair damage when mistakes occur. Those practices do more than improve a leader’s reputation. They strengthen the organisation’s capacity to trust decisions, confront problems and move forward together.
Credibility takes time to build and only moments to damage. Yet leaders who make fairness, accountability and evidence part of their operating discipline can retain it for the long term.
Niels Brabandt
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More on this topic in this week's videocast and podcast with Niels Brabandt: Videocast / Apple Podcasts / Spotify
For the videocast’s and podcast’s transcript, read below this article.
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Podcast and Videocast Transcript
Niels Brabandt EMBA MBA MSc
Credibility and leadership. And you now probably say, well, that is pretty important, isn't it, but many leaders today are not very credible, and that's exactly the issue what we're talking about today. The question is: how can you be a credible leader? How can you become a credible leader? How can you remain a credible leader? And of course, how in the long run can you maintain that level of credibility?
Niels Brabandt EMBA MBA MSc
And when you now think, does this have a reason why we talk about this right now? Of course it has. So first, this is not a football episode. It's not about soccer. However, you probably heard that we had the issue of Donald Trump calling Gianni Infantino, and afterwards suddenly a red card was set to probation, which before banned the best scorer in the American team from participating in the game against Belgium. Did it help? No. The US lost, 1-4, Belgium went on. The question now is: what happened here?
Niels Brabandt EMBA MBA MSc
A president calls a football association president, and suddenly a red card is not a ban anymore but put to probation. What happened here? And when you now think, well, I could tell you a million examples of things like that happening in my organization, that's exactly the reason why we're talking about this today. How can you stay credible as a leader? What should you do? What should you not do? What happened in this case? And by the way, again, it's not about football today. It is about what happened here, conceptually. What happened here from a leadership point of view.
Niels Brabandt EMBA MBA MSc
So welcome to the episode where we're going to talk about how to become, how to be, and remain a credible leader. So first, of course, what happened? Short update for the ones who are not watching World Cup. And by the way, I think so far I've seen 4 games, so I'm not really watching it. I only watch the games when I have to stay in the know for my client talk, because for many reasons I'm not following FIFA events anymore. That's a different story.
Niels Brabandt EMBA MBA MSc
So a phone call happened. A player, the best scorer the US team had on their team, was banned by a red card. One game banned. However, what happened then was Donald Trump gave Gianni Infantino, the FIFA president, a call, and magically and mysteriously the red card suddenly was on probation instead of a ban. First things first here. The phone call itself was already something where Infantino was criticized for. And that's, even if it's hard to say for me, that's unreasonable criticism. Because when you, when someone from the hosting country gives you a call, you don't even know what it is about, you take that call.
Niels Brabandt EMBA MBA MSc
Simply saying, as the president, I'm not going to talk to absolutely anyone, that makes you out of touch with reality. People, of course, can have a phone call. And of course, what should have happened is that Infantino says, "Mr. Trump, I hear what you're saying here. However, by the way, don't say 'I hear you' as a leader." That's too passive-aggressive. But probably when Donald Trump says, "Could you please put that card on probation?" Infantino should have said, "Look, I'm the president. I'm not the legal system of the FIFA. We have a division of power in different instances, and the legal team made the decision of the ban. As the president, I cannot undo this."
Niels Brabandt EMBA MBA MSc
So very important here. Thank you for your feedback. You're dissatisfied with our solution, with our decision. That unfortunately happens. Wishing you a great tournament. Your voice is very much welcome. However, I cannot change anything. That is what should have happened. And by the way, criticizing someone for only listening to someone is unreasonable criticism. When someone complains a million times and they expect to be heard one million first time, that will be unreasonable to take that call. But when someone suddenly just calls you and you don't even know what it's about, pick up that call. That's just normal communication. So we can't really criticize either the president or the, either of the presidents for what they did.
Niels Brabandt EMBA MBA MSc
Is it reasonable when a US president calls due to a red card in football? I find this very strange because politicians have different jobs. However, when someone says, "I see this as part of my mission as the president, legally borderline." However, we know that when you have something which is legally borderline, you always say in dubio pro reo, which means in doubt. When you're in doubt, you have to decide in favor of the defendant. And in this case, we have to give him the benefit of the doubt that maybe he had something good in mind. I don't know what it was. However, we cannot criticize Infantino for that one.
Niels Brabandt EMBA MBA MSc
However, the consequence here cannot be that suddenly a red card is put to probation. Because the question is, what do you communicate here? Which message do you send here? Do you send the message, "Oh, we're nice and you can talk with us"? Do you send the message, "We just like to have conversations"? Or do you send the message, "Well, when certain people call, there's a different deal for them compared to anyone else"? And that is what they send, in my opinion, in this case.
Niels Brabandt EMBA MBA MSc
Because what happened straight afterwards was that immediately an MP, someone in Parliament in the UK, said, "Look, we had a red card for an English player. Please put that on probation." And that was not followed up with. In France, someone from Parliament also wrote a letter and said, "Look, we have this yellow card against one of our players. There's a risk of that person being banned on a second yellow card. Can you please put that yellow card on probation? Thank you very much." And nothing happened here.
Niels Brabandt EMBA MBA MSc
So as soon as people say, "Hmm, we do the same thing, but we are treated differently," then, and very important, then we have to see what are the circumstances and the factors in the circumstances we see here before coming to a conclusion. Because often people say, "Oh, when there's a different treatment, it's always injustice." And here's the news: it's not. I'll give you an example.
Niels Brabandt EMBA MBA MSc
Let's say there's a project leader and they make a mistake. Due to the mistake, the company loses €250,000, or dollars, or yen, or whatever currency you use, British pound. Choose whatever you like. And then one person gets a personal talk with the CEO and gets a verbal warning, and the other person gets a written warning, which gets put into their HR file. And now you wonder, "Whoa, whoa, whoa, that's injustice, right?" Because they've both done the same mistake. And no, when you would have known all the different circumstances, it's not injustice.
Niels Brabandt EMBA MBA MSc
Because the first person was a junior project manager on their first project doing a mistake. So they got a verbal warning with a chat and then, of course, help, how to do it better in the future. The other person was in a way higher payroll and also 15 years in the business. So they should have known how to do this. They were hired to do this. They have the experience and the pay range to do this, and then they failed. Different ball game.
Niels Brabandt EMBA MBA MSc
So very important here is you always, before you jump to quick conclusions, and I love how quickly people love to jump to conclusions, when you have different circumstances and different factors, you need to take them into account. And in this case, we have yellow and red cards, and the only differentiation is one is with the US, one is with France, and one is with England. And when you say, "Look, the American guy gets the yellow card on probation and other nationalities don't," that is, of course, clearly unacceptable.
Niels Brabandt EMBA MBA MSc
If you would say in your business, "I distinguish in a usual," let's say you have a logistics business. You say, "When people do mistakes, I distinguish by passport if they're English, French, Spanish, Turkish, Brazilian, American, Canadian, or Australian, or Chinese, and by passport they get different consequences on the same error." That's a mixture of really weird racism and straightforward your path into the courtroom. Being sentenced, rightfully so then.
Niels Brabandt EMBA MBA MSc
The question here is, what happened? What FIFA did. As soon as a leader does something like that, you treat people unequally based on a random factor such as nationality. Then you lose your credibility. And by the way, what you have as a leader, because the whole concept of leadership is a so-called social construct.
Niels Brabandt EMBA MBA MSc
I'll give you a very example, a very easy example. When someone says, "Could you please put that box into the storage room?" and you say, "No." And then your boss says, "Sorry, I told you to do that," and you say, "I don't do it." And then they say, "I hereby order you to do it," and you say, "No, I'm not doing it." This shows you how thin the layer of leadership is. Because they can't call the police, and the police can't force you to do that. Because there's a difference between leadership and the legal system.
Niels Brabandt EMBA MBA MSc
The legal system can force you to do something up to a certain extent. Of course, when the legal system isn't accepted anymore, we talk about revolution anarchy. That's a different story. However, it's a purely social construct that we listen to other people because they have a different rank in an organization or a different title. And that is a social construct. This is called the so-called social legitimation.
Niels Brabandt EMBA MBA MSc
As a leader, you have two kinds of social legitimation. We briefly talked about that in podcasts before. Formal legitimation is your title, your position, where are you in the org chart, what kind of powers are connected with that. The social legitimation, the social legitimation, is that you are a leader that is followed by, that they do what you say. That is a social legitimation. And as soon as that is gone, and when you lose your credibility, you attack your own social legitimation.
Niels Brabandt EMBA MBA MSc
From there, everything goes south. As soon as people say, "That leader simply treats people by who do I like, who do I not like?" Or probably by passport, because they're a bit racist. Or simply by, "I like men over women." Gender discrimination. Or, "I like people of my age." Or, "These young people are too lazy." All of that will make your social legitimation go downhill at record speed. It is way harder to build up social legitimation compared to losing it.
Niels Brabandt EMBA MBA MSc
First, of course, when people say, "I want to be heard," involvement is a good thing. However, when you come to the judgment and the decision in your leadership, your involvement must be based on facts, proof, evidence, scientific standard. The impartiality, as soon as the impartiality is gone, you will lose your social legitimation. And it's very easy to find out, especially in today's times.
Niels Brabandt EMBA MBA MSc
Let's say two people make a mistake and then both get different judgments. They both get different consequences. And then they find out the person with the more favorable decision is one of your personal mates, or someone who's from your family, or someone who was in the same alumni network, went to the same elitist private university. All of that will dent your impartiality. And as soon as people consider you not impartial anymore, then as a leader, you will have to accept that your acceptance will go downhill at record speed.
Niels Brabandt EMBA MBA MSc
And by the way, as soon as you make a mistake, there's always a way to recover. I'll give you an example. If Gianni Infantino, as a FIFA president, would now step up and say, "Look, I had an error in judgment. I shouldn't have done this. I should have told on the call, 'I can't do anything. It was my error and I am sorry.'" I can tell you, within three days, the topic is off the agenda. And then anyone will say, "Oh, finally someone did something."
Niels Brabandt EMBA MBA MSc
As soon as people make mistakes, and let's face it, anyone does mistakes. I make mistakes, you make mistakes, anyone makes mistakes. As soon as there are mistakes, errors, there's always a follow-up. You can apologize if it's quite severe. You say you will face a certain consequence and punishment. Maybe you have to pay a fine, or you get an entry into your HR file, or whatever it is. But after that, we're moving on.
Niels Brabandt EMBA MBA MSc
And by the way, for people who say, "Sorry, I am unforgiving on everything," very important is, in a democracy, in a democracy, people have the right to recover from their mistakes. Anything else is not within the democratic spectrum. Of course, it is depending on how severe the offense was. Murder is way more severe than losing 100,000 of a multi-billion enterprise. And the more severe, the longer it takes to recover from your mistake.
Niels Brabandt EMBA MBA MSc
So the impartiality is something that you need to, that you need to remain intact. That people see you're acting based on facts, proof, and evidence, not a random opinion that you just hold for whatever reason. The question now is, when we convey this message well, how do we implement that and make it the standard in any organization? Because often people at this point say, especially when I give coachings or seminars, they often say, "Look, this is not the standard hardly anywhere, I think," because most people act on what they think without any proof or evidence.
Niels Brabandt EMBA MBA MSc
And that's exactly the problem. You need to get the awareness in that people are aware. Your personal opinion is not the end of the scientific scale. Who could have thought? Who could have thought, really? I did, and I can tell you that was also something which I could never have expected with Catalyst, the worldwide largest vendor.
Niels Brabandt EMBA MBA MSc
I did a multi-series, multi-month-long unconscious bias training. And the unconscious bias training showed me biases that I had, which I didn't even know about, about certain aspects and approaches in science, certain things where there's more than one view. And that's exactly what you need. You need to qualify your leaders. Unconscious bias training is just one part of the game here. The qualification is needed because often when people grew up in reasonably privileged circumstances, they do not know about certain aspects because they've never learned it.
Niels Brabandt EMBA MBA MSc
By the way, all of us have blind spots, no matter where you grew up. When you are very privileged, you, for example, often think anyone else is just too lazy, didn't work hard enough. When you are very non-privileged or your whole life was discriminated against, you probably think any person with money is a scumbag and should be hanged at the next corner from the next tree, which is also not correct. We need to have the qualification in place that people know this is something which works in a certain way, and it's not my fault. It's simply biases that we have.
Niels Brabandt EMBA MBA MSc
By the way, when you now say, "But what about the things that already happened?" When already things happened, it's almost never too late to recover. When you say there was something bad, you can say, "I deal with the consequences. I stand up to scrutiny. I pay the fine, or I accept that I have to apologize or whatever else it is." And from there, we move on. If you don't do that, you're outside of the democratic spectrum. Societies are designed that people can recover from mistakes, which is for the benefit of everyone.
Niels Brabandt EMBA MBA MSc
If Gianni Infantino would now say, "Sorry, I was wrong," people would move on. Even if Donald Trump would say, "Sorry, I was wrong," people would probably say, "They asked a little about 183 other issues I'd like to talk about, but for this one, tick the box, moving on." We have to see that when we implement it in the wrong way, that you say, "I have my mates, I have my system, I have my opinion," and I go with that. Your social legitimation will go downhill at record speed.
Niels Brabandt EMBA MBA MSc
When you say, "I stick to science, proof, facts, evidence. I stand up to scrutiny, and when I do mistakes, I apologize, and then I do whatever it needs to repair that damage," and then we move on. If you implement that system, your social legitimation will be extremely strong. And by the way, when your social legitimation is really strong, people will forgive more mistakes because social legitimation is something which is hard to build and quick to lose.
Niels Brabandt EMBA MBA MSc
If you put this into the organization the way positively that we just described, everything will go better. From there, for you as a leader, for your team as the people who are led, and for your whole organization who then sees excellent leadership with a high level of social legitimation. And I wish you all the best implementing this in your organization.
Niels Brabandt EMBA MBA MSc
And when you now say, "Whoa, I think I have about 48 questions here," feel free to contact me at any point in time. First, of course, when you look to me, when you now watch this on YouTube, feel free to leave a like there, subscribe to my channel, and of course, you can always leave a like there and also leave a comment there. Thank you very much for doing so. When you listen to me on Apple Podcasts or Spotify, thank you very much for giving a review, maybe five stars. We'll be very happy about that. We offer all of this with no charge. There's lots of research in here. All of this is no sales pitch, no product at the end. So any kind of positive review is much appreciated.
Niels Brabandt EMBA MBA MSc
And of course, because we now just went top 100 in Denmark as well, which we haven't done before, so rankings are getting better and better. Thank you very much for doing so. Feel free to recommend this channel anywhere you like, online, offline, circle of friends, colleagues, in the business, outside of that, social media, post of anything. Thank you very much for the recommendation. We only grow organically. I'm not buying any kind of followership. We only grow by content and sustainable approaches.
Niels Brabandt EMBA MBA MSc
And of course, we have more than this on a daily basis. You can get leadership tips. We have leadership, so-called YouTube Shorts, as the name says. They are only available on YouTube. So it really pays off to subscribe to my channel. Put the little bell in there because then you get a tiny notification, and the notification is going to tell you by notification when is the next bit up there, so you're not going to miss anything. And of course, you can also listen to me on Apple Podcasts on Spotify and subscribe there.
Niels Brabandt EMBA MBA MSc
When you want to know what I do for a living, if you now say, "We need someone who helps us in practice. We need a trainer, a speaker, a coach, a consultant, a mentor, project interim management, speaker for our event," feel free, or a host for our event, feel free to contact me anytime. You can go to nb-networks.biz, nb-networks.biz, or if you want to send me an email directly, either for a couple of questions, exchanging ideas or concepts, or simply having a booking request, all of that is possible. Drop me an email, nb@nb-networks.com. By the way, no worries. I answer every single message within 24 hours or less, so I'm looking forward to hearing from you.
Niels Brabandt EMBA MBA MSc
When you now say, "Do we also have live sessions?" Yes, we do. When you go to expert.nb-networks.com, put your email address in there. No worries. You only receive one email every Wednesday morning, 100% content, ad-free guarantee. In this email, you have full access to all the podcasts, to all the video casts, absolutely everything. And as soon as you sign up there, you get this one email every Wednesday morning where everything's in there. So you're always fully up to date.
Niels Brabandt EMBA MBA MSc
By the way, you also find in this email the date, the time, and the access link for the live session. We only communicate that via the leadership letter, nowhere else. So be aware that you should sign up there because there's no other access to our live session, and we have one reasonably soon. We have one at least each month, so I'm looking forward to seeing you there. When you say you need a private live session for your company, just drop me an email and we find the date and the time there as well.
Niels Brabandt EMBA MBA MSc
And of course, you can also follow me on social media, connect with me on LinkedIn, follow me on Instagram. You can, of course, leave a like on Facebook, and of course, you can also subscribe to the YouTube channel.
Niels Brabandt EMBA MBA MSc
The most important bit, however, is always the last thing that I say. Apply, apply, apply what I told you today. Apply what you learned today, because only when you apply what you've heard, you will see the positive aspect that you obviously want to see in your organization.
Niels Brabandt EMBA MBA MSc
I wish you all the best doing so and implementing this in your organization. If you need help, contact me anytime. Answer within 24 hours is guaranteed.
Niels Brabandt EMBA MBA MSc
So at the end of this podcast, as well as at the end of this video cast, there's only one thing left for me to say. Thank you very much for your time.