Gain Some Respect - Boost Your Credibility

It is not an easy task to gain some respect from others. People will always look at you from your head to your toes before they decide whether they can really put some respect in you. Or, in easy words, people will judge you by your cover (physically and intellectually) and this process is continuously. It will continue until they can really find some precious values in you that can earn their respect. You are likely being monitored for 24-7. And even later they have their respect in you, the process of maintaining their trust is still going on. That is for respect.

And credibility; socially defines as ensuring that others find you believable, honorable, dependable and trustworthy. It means you will achieve and deserve respect. And how you can get these two valuable things? Here are some actions you can easily incorporate into your daily work practices or when you are standing in the middle of the problem. It surely will help you in inspiring your confidence and building your credibility.

SHOW YOUR PASSION + HARD WORKS = ENTHUSIASTIC. Showing your passion and enthusiasm in whatever you do (in whatever way is appropriate for you) can let people automatically informed that you are really concerned about the task that has been assigned to you. As a result, you will inspire their confidence and that you can deliver a good result for every task given to you. This can let people see you as a professional person who is always serious in handling your works and responsibilities. You don’t have to be very talkative or bubbly all the time and mentioning about your works for every minute (and be aware not to affect others’ emotion). However, you can still express your concern regarding your assignments or tasks or responsibilities to your colleagues in appropriate time.

You can do this by asking opinions and during your tea-time discussions. This does not reflect your weakness (unless you show that you are very panic and messed up), but this is a sign that shows you are always trying to do your best in your own ways, and yet still accepting others’ views and opinions. Besides that, you can also show your passion through your professional attitude. By doing some researches, a discussion with your colleagues and some other more efforts (which mainly mean to improve your works, not just showing off), people will respect you for your hard works and being responsible, even the results might come out not as expected.

But, please remember do not go off too far! You can come up with being insincere and fake. This absolutely will turn people off instead.

FOLLOW THROUGH + KEEP YOUR WORDS = TRUSTWORTHY. Whatever tasks that you have been assigned, make sure that you will always keep it up and follow through with the people who assign you with the responsibilities. This is not only applicable for your working environment, but also to your own attitude towards other people. You may not understand but sometime simple and small things can actually reflects your credibility of being a trustworthy and reliable person.

This small thing includes your promises to other people. It also counts to what you promised to your colleagues at work, and people out of your working area. For example, if you say that you will call back your friends within a certain period, make sure that you will. Take every step to try to do what you have promised. This reflects your accountability. People will know they can count on you when you really do what you say you will. People will appreciate and give you a good credit when you consistently match your actions with your words. Plus, your credibility will go up to another notch.

ACTIVE LISTENING + EFFECTIVE ACTION: LISTEN, UNDERSTAND AND ACT! = PRODUCTIVE RESULTS. Do not simply jump to the conclusion without listening and understanding the real situation or gathering all information. Jumping into conclusion without enough judgments will give others the negative impression about you. You will be marked as a person who is not capable of listening, thinking logically and making good decision. And even worse, people won’t be confident with you especially when in the situation that needs serious consideration and best result. This applies to company meetings and in personal matters. When it happens, people won’t let you be the person who holds the main responsibility which needs serious attention, rational decision making and consideration. And even in your simple discussion, people won’t listen to you first or they will count your opinions in the last place. This is a result when you always have this kind of attitude.

Being an active listener will let you have many advantages. First and foremost, you will learn how to listen to others, understand others and help you to collect important facts and information given by the person who you listen to. This disciplines the impatient ‘you’ inside. Secondly, an effective communication comes from a two-ways communication between the sender and receiver. Information can be correctly delivered when the information is smoothly and effectively sent and received. To ensure this process is going on consistently and the whole information can be delivered to you effectively, you must first listen to what others say. When they have finished and you have the whole ideas about what they are talking to you (if possible, prevent any negative assumptions), you then interpret their messages in your own understanding and reflect appropriately according to the information given to you.

People and even yourself, do not like when people interrupt your conversation or when you deliver your message. This is not a good manner. And sometime, people can assume you as being rude when you usually react like that. You might unmeant to behave such that, but you won’t know what others think and they do not always have the same ideas as you.

Never ever fly off the handle. Remember, when you react such that and later the correct facts come to light, or you have made the wrong decision and caused other people any trouble which may or might return any bad results to any people or yourself, you will be directly blamed! And comes to the worst part, it will make you feel that you are foolish and people will feel the same about you.

CALM + STEADY + UNDER CONTROL = CONFIDENT + WELL-ORGANIZED. Do not panic. Be calm. Everything can be solved when you really find the solution! Keep in your mind that there is no works that can avoid stress and problems. All works have their risks of being situated in the middle of stressful environment. And it depends on how you can manage it. Learn how to deal with stress. Many things can help you reduce your stress. Even they may not be able to sweep away everything, but they can still help you in dealing with it.

Learn some breath exercises – lip-pursed exercise, deep breathing exercise, coughing exercise and many more. For example, deep breathing exercise; stop for a minute and relax. Then sit and lean comfortably against your chair. Take a deep inhale of your breath, hold it for 8-10 seconds and slowly exhale it. Do it several times. It helps you by increasing your oxygen supply to the lungs, body and brain. Thus, your brain will be ‘recharged’ and this boosts your energy.

When you manage to control your stress, you are able to well-organize yourself. It helps when you need to settle your works in certain time, finding solution for problems, planning for company’s big projects and events, and etc. As a result, you can think and settle everything in time and in the best ways of your effort.

People are watching you, remember? They will value you as a very confident and well-organized individual when you can take things under control. They won’t hesitate to have you involved in their decision-making matters or problem-solving situations. People know you can manage everything in the best way and they believe that you can come out with the most practical solution. And what does it mean? Does it mean that they trust you? Does it mean that you have the value and the credibility to be trusted and assigned with important tasks? So, you have yourself a promotion in the same time.

HONEST + FRANK TO ANY IDEAS + INTELLECTUALLY BRAVE + EMPATHY ─ (SYMPATHY + UNFAIR JUDGMENT) = STRONG + CHARISMATIC PERSONA. You know that your colleague’s ideas won’t contribute to company’s marketing plan and neither can speed up the sales. Or you are sure that your big boss is talking nonsense and making jerks about your sales strategy although he knows nothing about it; not even have a flash look at your marketing project paper.

Everyone knows your colleague for years; you may know him in a shorter time than others as you are new. But his reputation seems to shine from the first day you were there. He is ranked as a senior executive and has a wider experience than you. Plus, he is always highlighted by the top management people as the best achiever in the sales chart. And today, he is giving and presenting his marketing ideas at the meeting and you attend it. You are junior than him. You have your Degree in Business Management, planning for your Master Degree in Business this year and yet you are lack of practical knowledge. You are considered as theory-genius, and still your theoretical plans are frequently being considered in the first place. However for today, you see that his plans are just the same as last meeting; just a little bit change were made in the events, quantity and time. Yes, it does not decrease the reputable company’s sell chart. But it also does not assist in boosting the numbers – the amount of sales and new customers.

Your boss is 50+ or he is young and handsome. Has an oversea degree from a respective university. He has been in the company for two or three years earlier than you; enough to let you listen to him and be your boss. You also have a same degree (as your boss) which is coming from a local university. Although your university has high reputation in the local society and you scored all A’s in every semester, it is still considered slightly lower than his degree – by double-standard understanding. As a result, even you have come up with many ideas (many times!) which compatible with the company’s mission, he will still dump it. And often, he accepts your ideas after he has made some irrelevant comments and critics. But today is worst, he suddenly shoots you with his nonsense comments again, even before he reads through your marketing paperwork. He has no ideas; you are discussing the A matter in your paperwork, but he is shooting you about B, C, D and plus, plus, plus!

What will you do when you are in the inferior position like this? Of course, if you are in on top of other people, you will simply reflect or react, give your opinion and be frank with other people. They WILL listen to you; or at least consider it. In your current position as a junior executive or fresh graduate (entry level), you must try to be intellectually brave whenever you want to express your point of views, or disagree with senior people.

For the first situation, your colleague has no improvement in his new marketing plan. He made a small change but maintains the same methods. Nobody stands up to disagree and everybody seems to approve him. You know that the sales won’t decrease due to high-reputation that your company has. And yet, it also won’t make any differences than the last month achievement. So, be brave. Remember, be intellectually brave. Raises up your hand, ask for permission to interrupt (if he is still mumbling and taking too long), and professionally approach him with your opinion. This also applies to the second situation – the fussy and ego boss.

How to professionally do this? First, your tone – strong and steady (be aware of this: strong is not the same as raise up your voice. Strong means confident, and uses correct tune of your voice where you know which idea needs to be emphasized and which needs to casually express it. It also shows you have the right reason to disagree with him. Raises up your voice or high-pitched tone can show that you emotionally disagree with him. It may show that you are angry with him. It may sound like you personally dislike him. Some people in the meeting may think that you envy him, thus you stand up to condemn him.).

Steady means that you can maintain your strong voice, and avoid too many ‘baby’ languages (such as “uh”, “ah” and etc. which can reflect your confidence level) between the lines. Be sure which points that you need to highlight, which needs more explanation and which can be normally expressed. It is just the same as how you sing a song or story telling competition. People will be inspired to listen to you when you have a lively style and not bland. You do not want to be a robot, right?

Secondly and foremost, it is your knowledge and information about the discussed topic. It is like writing an essay. You have the fish bone with the main idea in the middle and there goes the sub-ideas flow out from it. Mainly, you know that you disagree with his plan. And from this, you have to develop the reasons that support your disagreement. Avoid personal reason and problem. Never ever disapprove someone’s idea because you can not get along with him or you dislike his character. Do not give reasons that touch anyone’s sensibility and sensitive issues.

Be frank to him and be honest to yourself. Ask why, what, which, when and how. Questions like: “Why I disagree? What makes me disagree?”, “Why his plan can not work?”, “What is irrelevant?”, “What needs to change?”, “What needs to improve?”, “What needs no repetition?”, “What can still be used? Why?”, “What is the alternative solution that I can offer him for everyone’s benefit?”, “What makes my suggestion has more advantage than his?” ─ will help you to deliver your message and disagreement confidently. If you can come up with all the reasonable answers to your questions (for business and certain matter that involve with numbers, details, actual facts and statistics needs a realistic or numeral facts to support your idea. As a result you will be seen as a smart and knowledgeable young executive).

POSITIVE THINKING + OPTIMISTIC ─ (NEGATIVE THINKING + PESSIMISTIC) = SUCCESS. What if Albert Einstein gave up in the first place with his theories? What if John Ford turned off and never continued his effort to make the first car in the world when people criticized and laughed at his idea? What if Neil Armstrong thought the idea of going to the moon was nonsense and never joined the historical exploration at that time? What will happen to the current world?

And please ask this to yourself: “What if I gave up my effort and it turned out to be that other people could achieve it, much-much better?” and “What if my thinking is wrong and it turned out to be the other way?”.

Those questions are your attitude towards excellence. This is driven from the ability of keeping positive thinking in your mind and practically applying it in your life. Being an optimistic person brings many advantages and chances to you; as if you always see the light even when others can not see anything. As if your friends and you were trapped in the dark and gloomy cave; where others (negative-thinker or pessimist person) chose to give up and only pray. And you, the positive-thinker or an optimist chose to effortlessly finding way to get yourself out of the cave darkness. When you never stop trying and not keeping yourself at the same place or level due to your positive values, you won’t stay the same as these coward people (they achieve no improvements and some also turn back to the lower state), you will someday achieve something valuable to your life. You would never achieve ‘zero’ when you choose to try your best; as if you would then find the light that led you to the freedom and out of the darkness, and those cowards would end up their lives hopelessly in the cave.

CONSISTENT WITH GOOD VALUES = UNQUESTIONED CREDIBILITY + LIFETIME ACHIEVEMENTS. Remember, as I have said, people keep their eyes on you, either you are working in an organization or living in a society. It is not meant to find your mistakes or weakness spots, but to gain trust from people is not as easy as losing it. The process is not temporarily, nor in the short period. It is a lifetime process. People come and go, some know you very well and, their trust and confidence in you might no be questioned anymore. What if you have new colleagues, new boss, new neighbors, new friends and new environment?

They are new to you and so as you to them. It is not easy to gain a trust from someone that you do not know. Thus, you have to be consistent with the good values that you have practiced and you know they help you a lot in building people’s trust in you. Your old friends and colleagues might give a good impression about you to your new friends, but it is not as important as you prove it by yourself. Besides, you have nothing to lose if you still practiced these values for your lifetime. Plus, you will be able to attract people with your own persona and charm through your unquestioned credibility and strong personality. And this will be a lifetime achievement.