CREDIBILITY: WALKING THE TALK

Credible. It’s not a word I remember seeing in any translation of the Bible. However, the idea of being believable and authentic, having our actions consistent with what we say we believe, is solidly biblical. In fact, as Christians in the marketplace, without credibility any personal story about our own faith experience has little likelihood of success.

The apostle Peter seemed to have the notion of credibility in mind in his first letter to the church when he said, "Keep your behavior excellent among the pagans, that although they accuse you of doing wrong, they may see your good deeds and glorify God..." (I Peter 2:12).

I’ve found that most Christians in positions of leadership in the marketplace yearn to find a way to carry their cherished values into the workplaces and infuse them into the workplace culture. The most compelling reason is they work! When we run our workplaces by principles taught in the Bible, we produce harmony and successful outcomes, just as we do when we apply those principles to our personal lives. If we only focus effort on productivity and process improvements--without a companion emphasis on values and character--we’re only doing half the job. You can’t operate a successful organization if everyone is focused on themselves.

A second reason to bring our values to our workplace is that it creates an opportunity for co-workers who are far from faith to see the difference Christ can make in a life and, eventually, come to know Him personally. But here’s where the credibility issue becomes critical because it’s also where it gets difficult.

Many of us find it more exciting and fulfilling to share the gospel and see someone come to a profession of faith, rather than to do the hard work of modeling our faith through consistent actions—such as demonstrating integrity and the love of Christ toward all people, even difficult co-workers. We want the harvest without doing the planting, watering and cultivating.

If you want to see your values integrated into your workplace, here are some suggestions:

• Pay attention to the ways your workplace behavior either reinforces or contradicts your expressed values and professions of faith.
  
  
• Do the little things that demonstrate respect for co-workers--like returning phone calls, affirming and praising, providing clear performance guidelines, and giving fair and timely performance feedback.
  
  
• Demonstrate a Christ-like servant spirit in your leadership role.
  
  
• Build your values into an organizational values statement and reinforce that statement at every opportunity, beginning with the employment interview.
  
  
• Be willing to discipline and even terminate employees who don’t live up to your organizational values-- even when the employee may be highly skilled and technically valuable.
  
  
• Give co-workers permission to give you honest feedback about your leadership. It’s demonstrates humility and tells you how well you are "walking the talk."
  
  
• Finally, be willing to admit it when you come up short.

It’s scary to hold ourselves up on the job as models of Christian character. The truth about us is that we’re still flawed people, capable of all sorts of manipulative and self-centered behaviors. It’s a "given" that we won’t always get it right. But if we want to champion a different way to live, people have to see what faith looks like across the entire landscape of our work life. In other words, if faith is to be attractive it has to be…credible.

--Michael Wallace

Michael Wallace is a former senior-level corporate executive and small business owner. He has also developed a leadership development/mentoring program called "Connections," which is based on biblical values.