The Personal Credibility Factor: How to Get It, Keep It, and Get It Back (If You've Lost It) [Paperback]

Sandy Allgeier (Author)

Book Description

ISBN-10: 0132082799 | ISBN-13: 978-0132082792 | Publication Date: February 19, 2009 | Edition: 1

You'd trust your life with some people. Others, you wouldn't trust for an instant, even when the stakes are low. Why? What builds the personal credibility that some people simply exude? What do they do differently? This book shows you and helps you build your own personal credibility, the #1 attribute in earning trust and achieving success. Renowned personal coach Sandra K. Allgeier begins with a set of powerful stories that demonstrate what personal credibility really consists of, how it's earned, and how easily it can be destroyed. You'll discover how small daily actions, together with specific communication techniques and decisions, shape others' view of whether you can be trusted. Next, Allgeier illuminates three oft-neglected, crucial secrets of personal credibility. You'll find a hands-on assessment tool designed to help you bring more personal authenticity and transparency to your interactions; as well as practical guidance on suspending judgment and really listening, thereby earning others' trust even if you ultimately choose to disagree. Allgeier concludes with seven specific steps you can take every day to increase your personal credibility, and rebuild credibility you may have already lost. Following her easy-to-understand, easy-to-use guidance, you can live a life that's not just more successful, but happier and more fulfilled, too.

Editorial Reviews

About the Author

Sandy Allgeier, SPHR, is a consultant, trainer/facilitator, and coach who helps organizations maximize their human resource potential. Before launching her consulting business in 2000, she had 25+ years’ experience in HR, rising to SVP of HR at a major provider of assisted living services, with responsibility for over 7,000 employees.

 

Allgeier contributed to the book Conversations on Success, Volume 7 (Insight, 2005), which also featured Stephen Covey and Dr. Denis Waitley. She earned the 1999 Award for Professional Excellence from SHRM’s Louisville chapter and was selected as faculty member and facilitator for SHRM’s HR Generalist Certificate and Recruitment and Retention Certificate Programs.

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.

Introduction

I Wouldn't Trust That Person for a Minute!

You have probably had this feeling before. It's that little mental nudge you get when you really don't expect it. It might even seem somewhat irrational at the time. Try to put yourself in the following situation: You have been invited to have lunch with a respected business consultant who is interested in hiring you as a contractor. "Kate" has a solid reputation and an established consulting business. She wants you to consider joining her as a consulting partner to work with some of her best clients, and this could mean wonderful earning potential for you! The lunch is going well—but you cannot shake this odd feeling that something just isn't right. That little voice will not go away that is saying, "Don't trust! Eat your lunch and let it go at that. This just doesn't feel right!"

Or perhaps the opposite has happened to you—which might be equally confounding. Have you ever been challenged with hiring contractors to help you with projects around your house? Most of us have learned that hiring someone for odd jobs, such as small building projects or fixing a clogged drain, can be downright infuriating. Perhaps you have experienced the frustration of having a contractor who won't return your phone calls. Or, maybe you can identify with the challenges of having appointments made to estimate pricing, but no one shows up. Then, when you call to find out what happened—your call isn't returned. Unfortunately, you begin to believe that you will never be able to find someone to do the work.

Then, amazingly, someone walks into your life that is dramatically different. If you are fortunate enough, you meet someone like "Dan." Even though you are a little cynical about hiring contractors, you believe that Dan will keep his appointments, follow through on commitments, and do a great job with anything he agrees to do. And,

THE PERSONAL CREDIBILITY FACTOR

he won't agree to do something that he doesn't believe he can do effectively. When you look back on it, you can remember being certain that Dan could be trusted from the first time you talked with him.

So, what does this mean? Does it mean that most of us have internal voices that can predict whether someone is trustworthy and credible? Does this mean that personal credibility is just something we instinctively sense in others? And, what about you? Do others instinctively believe and trust in you—or is there some reason that others are naturally skeptical of you?

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Our "instincts" about people can be helpful, but, obviously, it is so much more than that.

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It isn't particularly complicated either. Everyone can have strong personal credibility—but it does require that we understand it, desire it, and make a decision to seek it for our lives.

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What Is the Personal Credibility Factor?

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When others believe, trust, and have confidence in you, you naturally receive their respect—you are someone with personal credibility. When you are respected, your self-worth and confidence increases. When you receive respect—from both yourself and others—you are more self-accepting. Self-acceptance allows you to just be yourself, which increases authenticity. When you are authentic, others instinctively believe and trust in you more.

But wait...Is personal credibility based on the type of person that you are, or is it based on the types of things that you do?

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If you really think about it, the only way we can assess people is from our observations of what they do.

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It is what people do that forms our opinions, relationships, and ultimate decisions of whether to trust and respect them. Our impressions, thoughts, and opinions are constantly being formed and reformed, most often in our subconscious. Although we might be unaware of it, we stay in constant "observer" mode with those around us, and they stay in that same mode observing us! We might not always have all the facts, and our observations might change over time, but, regardless, it is still the only information on which we have to base our thoughts and opinions of others. For this reason, it is what people do that determines our belief, respect, and trust in them—it is what we all do that determines personal credibility.

Why would this matter? It's really pretty simple. At our very core, we want to know who we can trust and respect—and we want to receive that same trust and respect from others. However, we are living in a world where it is becoming more and more difficult to discern who deserves our trust and respect. Headlines and TV news are filled regularly with stories of troubled organizations such as WorldCom and Enron, fallen TV evangelists, government leaders, and others taking the spotlight for misleading the public. Consequently, we find ourselves wondering if personal credibility with public figures is only something of the past. On a more personal level, family, friends, or coworkers violate our trust and lose credibility as a result. Most people—regardless of whether they are in the public spotlight—don't intentionally choose a life of being disbelieved, mistrusted, and disrespected.

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The reality is that personal credibility either occurs or is damaged due to ongoing decisions we make and behaviors we demonstrate.

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For most of us, there is an inherent need to be valued and respected by others, while at the same time, to be comfortable and confident in being who we authentically are. We want to live a life that causes others to say: "(Your name)—now that is someone with personal credibility!" We all don't experience that type of life though. The great news is this: We can experience greater personal credibility—if we are willing to honestly evaluate ourselves, look at our own actions and behaviors, and build some new habits.

© Copyright Pearson Education. All rights reserved.

Product Details

• Paperback: 192 pages
• Publisher: FT Press; 1 edition (February 19, 2009)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0132082799
• ISBN-13: 978-0132082792
• Product Dimensions: 8.2 x 5.5 x 0.5 inches
• Shipping Weight: 8 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.2 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (5 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #761,715 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

32 of 34 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars True Enough, but Nothing New, September 21, 2010

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Kevin L. Nenstiel "omnivore" (Kearney, Nebraska) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: The Personal Credibility Factor: How to Get It, Keep It, and Get It Back (If You've Lost It) (Kindle Edition)

When I was a boy, my father gave me a few bits of advice to heed if I wanted others to trust and respect me: follow through on your promises. Don't rush to judgment. Match your words to your actions and your actions to your words. Show others the respect you'd like to receive. Treat your word as a sacred bond. Apparently Daddy was a smidge too circumspect, because Sandy Allgeier has spun those concise, durable little sayings into a full-length book that investigates Daddy's advice in truly exhausting detail.

Allgier takes the truths I'd like to think most of us grew up with and extrapolates from them three "secrets," seven "steps," and so many fortune cookie bromides that I lost count. Now I know that the tech stock bubble, Enron meltdown, and subprime mortgage crisis prove that not everyone listened to their parents as religiously as I did. But Allgeier says nothing between these covers that Dale Carnegie, Napoleon Hill, and generations of business book writers haven't already said at great length. It got to where, with each new page, I prayed for just one idea or piece of information I hadn't already heard. And with each finished page my prayers went unanswered.

Don't misunderstand me. I agree with all of Allgeier's points, and in the unlikely event that you haven't already heard these pointers from your parents, teachers, mentors, friends, bosses, Scout masters, random strangers, or thousands of prior business books, she expresses them well. But when I invest my finite time and effort into a book, I expect the author to respect me enough to tell me something I don't already know.

22 of 25 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Who Do You Trust and Why? Who Trusts You and Why?, November 1, 2010

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Anne Wingate (Salt Lake City) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: The Personal Credibility Factor: How to Get It, Keep It, and Get It Back (If You've Lost It) (Kindle Edition)

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This book fascinated me for one reason to begin with. About ten months ago I met a Mexican (legal resident, not yet a citizen) laborer in the doorway going into the bank. He's worked for us ever since. Now, what did Manny do to cause my husband and me to trust him instinctively? The author answers this question in the first few pages of the book, in his story of a man called Dan. First, Manny was wearing a shirt that had his business name and business license number stenciled on it. Second, he spoke with us cheerfully and cogently and agreed to meet us at our house in half an hour to discuss an urgent but small task. Third, he carried through. Fourth, he kept us from making a serious mistake that would have made the situation much worse.

This book, according to previous critics, is nothing but common sense. I agree. But in the last fifty years, common sense has become more and more uncommon. Do you want it back? Do you want your work superiors to have it? Do you want your subordinates to have it? What can you do to accomplish those goals?

I was reminded of two college students who had been put in basic writing when they should have been put in advanced freshman writing. They were disrupting the class, and finally I took the two of them out in the hall. I frankly acknowledged that they had been put in the wrong class, but pointed out that there was nothing that could be done about it now, and their shenanigans were causing trouble among the students who did need to be in the class I was teaching. I told them that clearly they were natural leaders, and asked them to help lead the others into learning, not into causing trouble for themselves and others. Both became ashamed of their actions, and for the rest of the semester they behaved very well, and did exactly what I had asked of them.

You can be that kind of parent, teacher, leader, or whatever. You can be the subordinate who stops the trouble rather than starts it. This book will help you in all phases of your life: personal, business, and recreation. It is well worth reading and owning.

23 of 28 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars More of the same..., April 12, 2009

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Sox Fan "In Search Of..." (Chicago) - See all my reviews

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This review is from: The Personal Credibility Factor: How to Get It, Keep It, and Get It Back (If You've Lost It) (Paperback)

This book was OK, pretty much in line with the many, many titles of similar theme. Most of the observations and/or suggestions included in the book are common sense, but it never hurts to refresh one's common sense thoughts from time to time...