What we do

Leadership credibility

We help leaders lead rather than manage. That means closing the credibility gap: the gap between what you say and do as a leader and what your employees actually experience.

Our credible leadership framework, built on eight practices, gives you and your leadership team a practical way to close that gap and lead the organisation where it needs to go.

Becoming a
credible leader

Leaders want to be believed and they want a team who will do what’s needed for the organisation to succeed.

This isn’t about managing a team, it’s about learning how to lead others.

To lead effectively, you need to be credible. And to be credible, you need to be able to share your vision, demonstrate you’re capable and support those around you.

Leading isn’t for everyone. But if you are in a leadership role, or want to be, you can learn the skills you need to be effective and impactful as a leader.

What happens when leaders aren't believed?

Teams are disconnected from the organisation and they don’t know why they are doing what they are doing. There is a lack of clarity about why things are happening and there isn’t anything that outlines what the organisation as a whole is trying to achieve.

There is disengagement across the organisation seen in low engagement scores. Trust, transparency and reliability are all missing and it's leading to people feeling disengaged and in some cases, actively working against the organisation.

Apathy or stagnation are all signs that people are lacking inspiration. Being able to lead means being able to communicate well and with passion for the future. As a leader, your ability to move others is key to the sustainable success of the organisation.

Download the 8 Practices of Credible Leadership

Based on research and foundation for the book Nobody Believes You, Become a Leader People Will Follow, this overview of the 8 practices of credible leadership will help you get started.

Common problems in leadership

If you’re seeing problems around retention, cultural challenges, productivity and growth, it’s time to look at the leadership team. Our advisory services and development programmes can support managers, leaders and emerging leaders in your organisation.

A new CEO, Managing Director or Manager

When you're new to an organisation you'll need to establish credibility quickly. For some stakeholders this will be about demonstrating capability, for others empathy and integrity will be more important. Take the time to invest in listening and aligning your words and behaviours.

Merging of leadership teams through M&A

When organisations come together in mergers or acquisitions there will be tension. We have to understand roles and responsibilities, and where strengths and weaknesses are to keep things moving. How the new leadership team is formed, what this means for the organisational culture and the future for the teams all need to be strategically considered.

Rapid growth causing chaos

When you grow quickly you often focus on the processes needed, but you can ignore the relationship aspects of growth. Relationships include the culture and the communication and this needs attention before things get too chaotic when there is so much pace.

Lack of trust in the leader or manager

The weight of trust is heavy for a leader. When people say the trust is missing, we need to explore if it can be rebuilt and why it has gone in the first place. Getting underneath the root cause of trust breakdown is important to fix the right things.

Being unprepared for change

Getting people ready for change and transformation is always better than hoping it will all go well. If you know it’s coming, get clarity as a leadership team and make time to take employees with you. Any change or transformation programme needs a communication and line manager plan.

People aren’t listening or following

People won’t follow leaders they don’t believe. And if they think you're an unsupportive leader who doesn't care about them, it's going to get harder. There are eight practices that make you a leader people will follow, and everyone who is leading can learn how to demonstrate them with their team.

The Field Model – Organisational Change

We had been through rapid growth, and I wanted to explore how we could make sure our people were with us on the journey. We went through The Field Model™ and – while there were uncomfortable conversations – Jenni always put the team at ease and helped us work through the plan to change. Jenni enabled me to reposition and understand where we needed to go. She enabled me to gain greater clarity between employees and the business.

Workshop

The workshops provoked conversations that wouldn’t have happened otherwise and helped us look at things from a different perspective. The workshops for our leadership team were very engaging and Jenni has been our go-to for helping us tackle internal communication issues and challenges. She’s challenging in all the right ways.

1:1 support

I've reached out to Jenni twice in recent years for 1-2-1 support in planning for job interviews. With her support I was successful on both occasions. Her advice was spot-on. She is so wise and has such a wealth of communications experience that she is able to quickly sees the bigger picture and help focus the mind. She's also really nice and fun to work with!

Our happy clients

We have worked with nearly 300 organisations around the world. From San Francisco to Morocco to London and the rest of the UK, we have supported organisations in a variety of sectors; defence, public sector, charity, technology, finance and more. We have implemented The Field Model, run online and in-person events and supported projects to improve engagement and organisational change.

FAQ on leadership

I’m a business owner / leader – what do I need to focus on with regards to communication?

Leadership isn’t easy. There’s a huge amount of pressure on leaders to understand the complexity of their industry and organisation, lead projects, grow the business, as well as recognise team dynamics and nurture relationships.

When chaos hits the leadership team it can have a huge impact on the whole organisation. Chaos related to leadership can result from a lack of alignment with organisational goals, inability to make decisions, absence of leadership skills or egos that prevent progress. If you’re looking for additional support, there are some resources and links that may help you below.

How do I become a leader people will follow?

You have to focus on your credibility and the eight skills linked to this. This is around building your skills and strategies around empathy, having a vision, capability and integrity to name a few of them.
You’ll need to be more intentional in how you communicate and engage with others and invest in yourself and your development to grow in these areas. Drop us an email if you’d like to explore more as Jenni can share her research in this area and do some 1:1 consultancy with you too.

Why is it so important to develop communication skills?

Communication is so important in building and maintaining excellent relationships at work. Do you understand your communication style? And do you know how you impact others? These questions are so important to answer to make sure you communicate effectively.
If you’d like to improve your communication skills, we create and deliver bespoke communication workshops for teams to help you to adapt your communication style to influence others and use the right communication methods to achieve the outcomes you want.

What are the eight practices of credibility?

From our research we have identified these eight practices as the skills to build to improve credibility: Capable, likeable, empathetic, integrity, supportive, trustworthy, visionary, vulnerable.
When one of these is missing there is an impact on the individual and the organization. You’ll need to delve into different ones more at different times and with different individuals or groups.