#597 How Leaders Lose Credibility, and How to Keep It | Niels Brabandt
How Leaders Lose Credibility, and How to Keep It
Your leaders are credible, aren't they? Ask that question in almost any organisation and you rarely hear a clear yes. Most people answer with a story: they used to be credible, but not anymore. A smaller group says the opposite: credibility was low, but it improved. The majority, however, describes a decline, and a fast one. That raises an uncomfortable question. How can so many highly qualified people, educated at excellent universities and trusted with major responsibility, lose credibility so quickly?
Three cases from the past weeks
At the end of October, Audi's chief executive Gernot Döllner appeared on stage with Donald Trump at a midterm campaign rally in Georgia to announce Audi's first plant in the United States. The criticism inside the Volkswagen Group was immediate. IG Metall's chair accused him of a flagrant breach of his own company's rules, which require political neutrality before elections. Employees did something that rarely happens on a corporate intranet: they criticised a top executive openly, with their names, photos and full profiles. According to dpa, the comment function on the group's intranet was then switched off.
That reaction tells you how far trust had already fallen. Most people use internal social media for harmless updates: a bit of daily work, a bit of pride, a bit of humour. When they start criticising senior leadership under their own names, the situation is serious. And when leadership responds by switching off the comments, the criticism does not disappear. It moves to WhatsApp groups, public social media and the coffee machine, together with a new message: we were asked to speak up, but apparently not like this.
The second case: Tesla's Cybertruck, launched with predictions of around 250,000 units a year, sold 20,237 units in the United States in 2025. On 6 November, Elon Musk announced that production will wind down by mid-2027. The third case is older but still instructive. In 2022, the chief executive of P&O Ferries admitted to British MPs that the company broke the law when it dismissed around 800 seafarers without consultation. How do you rebuild credibility after admitting, under public pressure, that you broke the law in the first place?
Behaviour shows values
Every organisation has values, a mission and a vision. Many have them on posters in the corridor. What counts, however, is leadership behaviour, because behaviour shows values, and lived values show credibility.
You could argue that one executive at one rally does not represent all executives. True. But an appearance like this does not happen spontaneously. It passes marketing, legal and compliance first. Once it happens, every other leader has a choice: distance themselves quickly and publicly, or be seen as part of the same group. Sitting in silence to protect your own career while expecting others to see you as different is not an option. Opportunism is the cheapest way to keep your head down, and people notice.
Mistakes, consequences and moving on
Credibility does not require perfection. Anyone can make a mistake. What matters is what follows: the mistake, the consequence, then moving on. The more severe the misconduct, the longer it takes until trust can return, and in some cases it never fully does. What never works is declaring, immediately after a serious mistake, that everybody should simply move on. That decision is not yours to make alone.
There is also a better way to handle difficult decisions. When Canva announced that it would cut 1,271 jobs, around 22 percent of its workforce, the package included at least six months' salary, twelve months of continued healthcare, career coaching and the option to keep company laptops. Nobody welcomes layoffs. But you can make them humiliating, or you can show people a future. That choice is where credibility is won or lost.
Why educated leaders still get it wrong
In my experience, three motives explain most of these cases.
The first is economic. History shows that some business leaders will stand behind almost anyone as long as it pays, and in the darkest chapters of the twentieth century, including in Germany, large companies did exactly that. If economic reasoning drives your decision, you also have to accept the economic consequences when customers, employees and voters turn away.
The second is political. In a democracy, leaders are free to state their political views. Others are equally free to stop following them. Within the democratic spectrum, disagreement leads to discussion, argument and compromise. When leaders openly align with populist extremes, left or right, many employees quietly withdraw. They rarely say it openly, especially where dismissal is easy. Instead, they work slower, stay no longer than necessary and call in sick more often. You will not find this on a dashboard, but you will find it in your results.
The third is personal. Some leaders support whoever is in power because it opens doors for their own career. If that is the motive, please stop pretending it is about the team or the company. People see through it quickly.
How to keep credibility: three steps
1. Mission, vision and values that are enforced. The mission explains why the organisation exists, the vision where it wants to go, the values how it acts internally and externally. Whenever any of them is violated, it must be addressed. That does not mean instant dismissal. It means discussion, consequence and a clear way forward. Someone who violates them constantly cannot stay.
2. Walk the talk. Live by your own standards and meet the expectations you place on others. This is the minimum people can expect from leaders and executives.
3. Constant congruence. What is on the wall, what happens in meetings and how you treat suppliers and customers must match, every single day. This is how leaders keep both their legitimacy and their credibility.
Credibility is not lost in one moment. It is lost in the gap between what leaders say and what they do. Close that gap, and your organisation will follow you, even in difficult times. I wish you every success in putting this into practice in your team, your department and your organisation.
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
Your leaders are very credible aren't they? Or would you rather say, Either you say yes or no but most people will say something like, Well they were but they are not anymore or vice versa you say they weren't but They improved the vast majority however says It declined rather quickly in recent times the question is how can this happen How can we have so many qualified people in these places And their credibility goes downhill very quickly and that's our topic of this Week we have to talk about how, Do leaders lose credibility so when we talk about this we of course need real World examples and a disclaimer here I'm going to show real world examples for The ones who now watch me on YouTube you will see the press articles for the Ones listening you're not going to miss out on Any kind of content this is fully inclusive here but of course I'm able that's the Disclaimer here to share this with the Fair Dealing Fair Use Act or in German Zitierrecht quotation right here.
You probably heard that an Audi executive had the idea to appear at the Trump rally. Well, it went south from there pretty quickly. And I do not only mean for all These internal communications, but also for the midterms in general. When you appear at a Trump rally, you make an unambiguously clear statement Of where you stand politically. And of course, immediately people jump at it. It went so bad that within Audi, the German car manufacturer, They had to deactivate the comment function on the internal social media. That's how bad it escalates. And by the way, when you deactivate the social Media comment function, people will not be silenced.
They simply put it into the halls and everywhere saying, OK, First they ask us to be open. And now, I mean, let's face it, usually people are pretty quiet and very tame On a company's social media, because what most people simply do there is they Share a bit of their daily work, a bit of ego, a bit of funny stuff. But in general, most people simply say, I just keep my head down. I want to do my work. When people publicly, with their full profile, their picture, Their name, their faces, criticize senior executives there, you can imagine How bad things have become. And when you then practice censorship and you kill their voices, You cut them off, they will find a different place.
May it be public social media, as in this case, WhatsApp groups, Any kind of other information, or simply in the hallways at the coffee machine And anywhere else and say, hey, look, we basically were asked to speak up. And then they tell us, oh, but not in that way. So what about credibility here, Audi? And by the way, when we stay in the car Manufacturer industry, remember the massive success of the Cybertruck? By the way, you might have seen the news and the news is they're going to wind down production now. So what about that massive success? Where's credibility here? When you say, oh, these are all U.S.
examples, all different in Europe. Sometimes it is, can be. But remember P&O Ferries where the boss admits they Broke the law when laying off 800 people. What kind of credibility do you want to have afterwards when you openly have To admit due to public pressure that you broke the law in the first place? Most likely is not going to get any better from here and now we have to see Why does this happen how to deal with it how to make it better, First so in which situation are we we of course have companies and they say Look we have our values we have our mission and vision and whatnot else The most important part always is leadership behavior and the question is why Is that so important because of course you could now say hey look just because One Audi executive went for A Trump rally doesn't mean that all of the executives are like that true.
However when you appear at a Trump rally this passes countless steps before From marketing to legal to compliance to what not else you reconsider, Before when you say your leadership behavior is like that other leaders either Have to publicly and very quickly distance themselves from that behavior or You will be considered part of that group. You cannot simply say, I sit here in silence, saving my own career, Not saying anything, while at the same time, I expect anyone to consider me Different than all the others while I just swim along with the masses. That is not an option. Opportunism is always a cheap way how to keep your head Down for your own career.
So live up to the expectation in both ways, the good ones and the bad ones. Behavior shows values. The behavior shows the value. And by the way, the values then, As you live them, show how credible you are. If all you would say, hey, we are a pro-Trump company, we are perfectly fine That someone puts anti-trans rights into the military and we fully support that. You legally can say that for whatever reason you would say that, Which is completely off the wall to say that. But you can say that your credibility Crumbles as soon as you pretend you are something which you are obviously not, As it happened in this case.
So I'm sure that Audi will work through this and by the way that's also important For the other side of the game anyone can make mistakes, Depending on how severe the mistake is and then there's a sentencing there's A consequence and when the consequence happened we move on it's called re-socialization Re-socialize re-entry into society if someone does shoplifting, And they do it multiple times they go to jail and after serving their time they Are reintegrated into society when someone crashes their car into a wall of A house the house gets damaged people have to leave the house, Have to live in hotels for three months the house gets repaired person pays It person probably serves their term After that they are reintegrated in society of course the more severe the causes The more severe the offense the more severe the misconduct the longer it takes To get the chance to be actually reintegrated to society.
So of course very severe cases make it almost impossible. So when someone is convicted of murder it takes a long long long time until This person is reintegrated into society probably 20-30 years and by the way We have speakers in the UK, Where a victim, a victim of a former IRA bomber. The former IRA bomber that served jail time and the victim who lost their grandparents Over it, they speak together about forgiveness on stage, which is truly impressive And beyond anything that most of us can imagine. So always be aware when someone does a mistake, mistake, consequence, Moving on. But of course, the more severe the mistake, the longer the term it Takes to actually move on from there.
And by the way, you can never say, no matter how severe, we just move on next minute. That's not possible, especially not by yourself. The question now is, we have really educated people in these seats. People who come from elite universities, people who have the education, People who should know what they're doing. And you wonder, how can this happen? How can someone from Audi do that? How can someone say, Cybertruck's a massive Success and then wind down production? How can someone fire 800 people? And when you have to do that for one reason Or the other, there are ways to do that. Canva just last week cut down I think about 10 or even more percent of their Jobs and they gave people an amazing package and showed this is a master class of corporate layoffs.
Of course no one's happy about layoffs but you can make it either horrible or You can actually show people a future. So here you see what people can actually do with what they do when things go wrong. The question is how can things go so wrong in the worst way what is the reasoning Behind that so number one the reason often is an economic one and we have to Look into a history book here even during the worst times in history, Some leaders economic leaders from free enterprise stood behind fascists and Of course as you hear my bloody German accent here you might think does he even Mean yes yes I even mean Nazi Germany, When you look into Nazi Germany massive industrial companies stood behind the Nazis, And you see that some leaders are willing to go with anyone as long as they Can make a dime out of that or a cent depending on which country you live, So when you say economic reasoning is my push behind that live up to the consequences You saw the election of the midterms so when you support the Trump the people Clearly said we don't want you, This is the end so very important here the economic consequences here then have To be taken by this executive as well to make a clean plate and we can start from there.
Or restart from there. By the way, you could, of course, also say there's political reasoning. Legally, people are allowed to say, I fully support Trump. You are allowed to say, I fully support that we put ice on stage, Arrest people, have a go at trans people, initiate a trade war across the globe, Make everything more expensive for Americans as we see right now. You can legally say that for whatever reason anyone would say that, Because obviously I'm not a supporter of that person or anyone who supports That person but you are allowed to state your political opinion by the way others Have the right to do so as well, So when you as a leader say I support far right wing populist politics people Can say I'm not following you anymore and by the way when you say, I support far left wing populist politics people can say exactly the same within The democratic spectrum the means is discussion disagreement argument and then Usually compromise or anything in between, In populist ends left-winged far left-wing or far right-winged, People can say not with me and by the way people usually don't say this openly People don't say oh I'm having a massive go at my executive especially in the U.S.
because in the U.S. you can quickly get fired in Europe it's far harder to get removed from a job, What people usually do is they say oh so you support that okay. So they work slower. They put in less effort. When they get asked, Could you stay longer? No, have different plans. Sorry. And of course, you will establish your situation at work where you say, I don't work too much. I don't work too little, but I also don't work too much. And by the way, when I call in a day sick or two, you know, this just happens Because flip you, you can do that by yourself.
So very important here is the political aspect is something which might happen from time to time. And this political aspect needs to be the one where you really need to be careful That as soon as you face it when you go into populist politics people will not follow you any further And by the way it can also be and that is unfortunately quite often the case The personal reason people say hey Trump is in power it's going to favor my personal career good part of my network, Opens many doors and I will simply boost my career based on this behavior which And then they say oh yeah some things were not great we always have bad apples In the basket you know they will make something up to justify their own behavior But some people are simply in for their own game And for their own career for their personal gain and by the way then please Stop pretending that this is all oh in the spirit of acting as one no it's in The spirit of acting as you for you as you in favor of you, And do not pretend anything else is the case.
The question now is, how can we make it better? How can we implement actual Steps that things become better from here? So when it comes to implementation, the first step most companies, Especially larger ones, will already have, you need mission, vision, and values. And usually people say, yeah, we have these posters on the wall, And they are not necessarily bad. The question is how you deal with them. As soon as mission, why is the company there? The vision, where do you want to go? The values how we act inside and outside so to internal external entities as Soon as any of that is violated, It needs to be sanctioned it doesn't mean that people get replaced immediately But it means it has to be addressed there needs to be discussion probably maybe Arguments compromise and then we move on from there however when someone Constantly has a go at your mission vision and values you need to remove the person Because when people see these posters on the wall of mission, Vision, values, respect and what not else, people will say very quickly, Okay, let's see if people actually walk the talk here.
Walk the talk simply means you have to live by your own standards. You have to fulfill the expectations that you have towards others. Walk the talk is the better minimum that people can expect from leaders and executives to do. Because what really counts is that what you have on the wall here and what people Live by, as soon as this all gets together and you say, it's actually what we really do. It's actually what really happens. They have it on the wall and they live it In this building and they live it towards suppliers. All of that actually works. And that is called constant congruence. CC, not the CC from the email where anyone terrorizes you with.
So CC, constant congruence. It means that people every single day of the business Live by what they actually said. And this is how you keep up your legitimization and your credibility. And if you follow it, as we just discussed, everything will become better in Your organization. I wish you all the best implementing this in your team, Your department, your organization and company. And when you now say, hmm, I think I have a couple of questions here. Of course, feel free to, of course, contact me anytime. So first, Of course, when you now watch me on YouTube, feel free to leave a like there. Of course, you can also subscribe to my channel or you leave a comment there.
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