1. McGraw-Hill/Irwin
Copyright © 2012 by The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved.

2. Skills for Building Personal Credibility and Influencing Others8
Chapter
Skills for Building Personal Credibility and Influencing Others

3. Introduction
This chapter will concentrate on the following basic skills leaders need:
Building credibility.
Communication.
Listening.
Assertiveness.
Conducting meetings.
Effective stress management.
Problem solving.
Improving creativity.

4. Building Credibility
Credibility is the ability to engender trust in others. It is comprised of two components:
Expertise - building expertise involves increasing one’s knowledge and skills in the areas of technical competence, organizational knowledge, and industry knowledge.
Trust – is comprised of clarifying and communicating your values, and building relationships with others

5. The Credibility Matrix
Figure 8.1: The Credibility Matrix
Source: G. J. Curphy, Credibility: Building Your Reputation throughout the Organization (Minneapolis Personnel Decisions International, 1997).

6. The Credibility Matrix Explained
Leaders who are in each quadrant have different interactions with followers.
First quadrant - have a high level of trust and a high level of expertise; they would likely be seen by others as highly credible.
Second quadrant - might include leaders who have spent little time with followers, who do not follow through with commitments, or who are new to the organization and have had little time to build relationships with coworkers.
Third quadrant - may be new college hires or people joining the company from a different industry. Unlikely they would have technical competence, organizational or industry knowledge, or time to build relationships with coworkers.
Fourth quadrant - may include those promoted from among peers or transferring from another department within the company.

7. Communication
Figure 8.2: A Systems View of Communication

8. Ways to improve communication
Leaders can improve their communication through a number of different means including:
Know What Your Purpose Is.
Choose an Appropriate Context and Medium.
Send Clear Signals
Actively Ensure That Others Understand the Message

9. Listening
It is important to remember that listening to others is just as important to good communication as is expressing yourself clearly.
Leaders are only as good as the information they have, and much of that information comes from watching and listening to what is going on around them.
The best listeners are active listeners.
Passive listeners are not focused on understanding the speaker.

10. Active Listening 4 ways to improve active listening skills include:
Demonstrate Nonverbally That You Are Listening.
Actively Interpret the Sender’s Message.
Attend to the Sender’s Nonverbal Behavior.
Avoid Becoming Defensive.

11. Assertiveness
Assertive behavior allows someone to be able to stand up for their own rights (or their group’s rights) in a way that also recognizes the concurrent right of others to do the same.

12. Assertiveness
Assertive behavior allows someone to be able to stand up for their own rights (or their group’s rights) in a way that also recognizes the concurrent right of others to do the same.
It is different from acquiescence and aggression.
Acquiescence is avoiding interpersonal conflict entirely either by giving up and giving in or by expressing our needs in an apologetic, self- effacing way.
Aggression is an effort to attain objectives by attacking or hurting others

13. Assertiveness, Acquiescence and Aggression.
Figure 8.4: Relationships between Assertiveness, Acquiescence, and Aggression

14. Developing Assertiveness
We can do several things to behave more assertively:
Using “I” statements
Speaking up for what we need
Learning to say no
Monitoring our inner dialogue
Being persistent.

15. Conducting meetings
Seven helpful tips for running meetings from Guth and Shaw:
Determine Whether It Is Necessary
List the Objectives
Stick to the Agenda
Provide Pertinent Materials in Advance
Make It Convenient
Encourage Participation
Keep a Record

16. Stress
Stress - the process by which we perceive and respond to situations that challenge or threaten us.
Responses may include:
Increased levels of emotional arousal
Changes in physiological symptoms(increases in perspiration, heart rate, cholesterol level, or blood pressure).
Stress often occurs in situations that are complex, demanding, or unclear.
Stressors - specific characteristics in individuals, tasks, organizations, or the environment that pose some degree of threat or challenge to people.
Stress can either facilitate or inhibit performance, depending on the situation

17. Effective Stress Management
Monitor Your Own and Your Followers’ Stress Levels.
Identify What Is Causing the Stress.
Practice a Healthy Lifestyle.
Learn How to Relax.
Develop Supportive Relationships.
Keep Things in Perspective.
The A-B-C Model:|
A) Triggering Event
B) Your Thinking
C) Feelings and Behaviors

18. Steps in Problem Solving
Identifying Problems or Opportunities for Improvement
Analyzing the Causes
Developing Alternative Solutions
Selecting and Implementing the Best Solution
Assessing the Impact of the Solution

19. Cause and Affect Analysis
Figure 8.5: A Cause-and-Effect Diagram

20. Selecting and Implementing the Best Solution
Figure 8.6: Force Field Analysis Example: Starting a Personal Exercise Program

21. Improving creativity There are several ways to increase creativity:
Seeing Things in New Ways
Think in terms of analogies
Try putting an idea or problem into a picture rather than into words
Using Power Constructively
Forming Diverse Problem-Solving Groups