Page 116 - The Voice of Authority

You can immediately see how electronic communica-
tion adds complexity to the equation:

Anonymity of Web site postings, chat rooms, and e-
mail puts character at question. Who’s the real per-
son posing behind the words?
Chemistry is difficult to develop when you’re “meet-
ing” by video- or teleconferencing. Pity the poor per-
son who’s doing a job interview by videoconference.
CEOs speaking by video to 60,000 employees face the
same challenge.
Body language and tone of voice are difficult to in-
terpret in an e-mail.
The polish that technology and media professionals re-
quire and contribute (makeup, scripts, teleprompters,
coaches) often work against authenticity and infor-
mality that people really want to see.

Competence matters a great deal. People want to believe
and follow a winner. When deciding to believe you, they
consider carefully the old chorus, “If you’re so smart, why
ain’t you rich?” We’ll explore this concept further in Chap-
ter 9. Character, too, plays a strong part in whether people
tune in to what you say—in fact, it may be the deciding
factor. Truth telling and consistency have their own chap-
ters (Chapters 1 and 5).
Competence and character aside then, let’s focus on the
remaining three attributes of credibility: the look, the lan-
guage, and the likeability factor.

The Look

Imagine yourself having run a couple of ads in Sunday’s
newspaper. One ad features a job opening for a chief fi-

104 The Voice of Authority