Last week I saw instances where an action or two done in good faith affected the person’s credibility and perception about their leadership and presence.

2 stood out for me. In all cases the individuals have lost ground and will require damage control to redeem the situation.

One was a Coach who was put in Facebook Jail. She was reaching out to her email list subscribers to keep posting in her Group while she cooled her heels in the slammer.

Considering she’s a Facebook Coach, that’s a hit on her credibility as a specialist. Unless she swings this to her advantage, potential customers may shy away from her products and services.

I admire her and know she’s good but …

I’m not a Facebook Expert by any stretch of imagination.  Maybe it had something to do with sending lots of messages via Messenger. Somebody or somebodies might have gotten irritated and complained.

Messenger is being touted as the next best thing since sliced bread for reaching our followers on Facebook for business. What many Gurus forget is that there is a social element in social media as well as a fine line between marketing and spamming.

Then there was the instance of a marketing professional who messed up an important deal because she didn’t do her homework. She pitched her proposal right out of the ballpark.

Not satisfied, she badgered the prospective client with cold calls and is now getting the cold shoulder.

I appreciate the tenacity of the marketing professional. Back in the day when I was working in the Big Four Accounting firms, despite my client-facing role, I used to be involved in many of the proposals we’d send out. There is a lot of hard work involved.

It was not just filling up a template with numbers. We’d research the client, the market and draw on our firm experience to demonstrate why we were the right choice.

Quite often we’d win the mandate not because we were the cheapest but because the client liked the way the pitch team approached them.

2 completely different examples. The point is, it doesn’t matter what you know but what the other person thinks of you.

In a world that is going more digital by the day, our online actions take on a deeper significance.

Here’s another example from my own experience.

I received a cold email from a company offering me soft skills and leadership services. No personalization in the email. Clearly no research done on the company they were sending the email to.

I decided to research this company a little more and what better place than LinkedIn?

It turned out we had 25 mutual connections of which quite a few were known to me at both a personal and professional level.

So, I called the sender and asked how they had found me. I got a rude response about being in a marketing database. The conversation went in a completely different direction with my giving a few tips on Permission Marketing.

In return I was instructed to send an email requesting to be removed from their database that I did pronto.

I continued my research on this company and found they had plagiarized a blog post from a reputed SEO and content marketing company that I follow. The author is someone I admire. They posted it on LinkedIn’s Pulse.

Their credibility is completely destroyed in my eyes.

Sometimes it depends upon the story and how you present facts that can create a completely different perception as was pointed out in an HBR Article called Managing Perceptions .

The case study was about the propaganda created involving the incident during the Blair government of the capture and release by Iran of Britain’s 15 sailors. It was about how both sides managed the “truth” of the story and its aftermath.

Key lessons were shared in that post. One that is worth thinking about seriously is managing stakeholders sensitively because they will be the first to point out the blatant use of spin or concealment.

Perception is important in the corporate world where there are enough competent professionals vying for the top spots and sadly, everybody is dispensable.

Credibility and executive presence are more important now than ever.

Of course, the degrees from prestigious organizations will get your foot through the door. After that, your ability to demonstrate your leadership potential depends upon your actions and how they are interpreted.

In other words, you need to get a new skill that isn’t taught in school but in life experience – Perception Management.

The perception that I’m talking about isn’t just how your boss or senior decision makers see you. It includes the perception of your peers and subordinates at work too. If you are in a role where you are facing outside parties, then their perception becomes important too.

The art of being able to articulate your message and what you stand for requires social intelligence. This is also important for leaders at all levels and for professionals who want to get ahead in their careers.

Are you sending out the right message at work or to clients?

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Dagley and Gaskin identified the ability to deliver key outcomes consistently as one of 10 Executive Presence Characteristics. This is also a key characteristic of a good leader.

In fact, a good leader should be able to abstain from using coercive power or his position to get the work done.

Yet, many a manager fails to demonstrate true leadership style or executive presence. Even though they get the job done, they miss out on their goal to climb to the pinnacles of their organizations corporate ladder.

When it comes to leadership, a key quality is commanding the respect of our team and demonstrating Emotional Intelligence. Looking back in time, I remember the story of Big Brother Cat.

As a manager, his use of authority led to his ultimate downfall.

True Story of a Big Brother Cat Manager and Modern-Day Slavery

A decade ago, I was the Technical Manager on a major assignment involving an AIM listing on the London Stock Exchange. Our assignment involved converting the financial statements using International Financial Reporting Standards.

The successful close of this assignment would put the firm in a different league compared to other audit and consulting firms.

Back then, the only other time these reporting standards were being used in India was for European Group Reporting assignments. This was on an annual basis for clients with Indian subsidiaries.

It was a simple template filling exercise with adjustment calculations and not reconverting 3 years of financial statements.

I was the specialist on board this assignment with a team of 12 professionals. They knew nothing about these reporting standards but were eager to learn and good team members (a major plus).

Our team also had a manager of my seniority. His role was to help facilitate client interactions while I played the hands-on manager with big time on the job training.

I noticed a pattern in the productivity cycle which had direct correlation with the presence of the other Manager, whom I shall call Big Brother Cat.

Big Brother Cat was a good person but tended to micro-manage and bring out the whip even when it was not required. His emotional intelligence quotient was not good.

To the outsider it would appear to be a game of Cat and Mice.

We had been transported to a slave ship with Mice at the oars and the Cat at the helm beating his hammer.

From a Senior Manager, I felt I had suddenly become a Head Mouse who was being challenged to keep her team morale going against all odds.

We were working on a tight schedule and putting in 12 hours a day without weekends off to rest. Having a chance to laugh was a premium stress management tool.

Big Brother Cat equated laughter with goofing. He started with the premise that subordinates could not be trusted and kept telling them exactly what he expected.

Big Brother Cat forgot we were humans working towards an impossible deadline with a learning curve that had to defy the laws of gravity.

Timely intervention by the Partner ensured that the project had a successful close. We the Mice (yes, yours truly included!) lived to work on other projects.

By chance, the entire team on that project has left the organization to pursue new pastures.

10 years later, despite our hectic lives, with the exception of Big Brother Cat, we’re still in touch and enjoy a good laugh.

Our Micro Manager too left the company. His Big Brother tendencies had become a barrier to his cherished dream of partnership.

Getting along with people is a must for a good leader.

As potential leaders, we all learned lessons.

If you are inclined to micromanage your team, then there are pitfalls you want to avoid in your quest to climb the next rung on the corporate ladder.

Leaders who inspire have competitive edge over Micro Managers

I observed that the professionals were working together satisfactorily, sharing information, and helping each other with the workload. They were hardworking mice, if only Big Brother Cat would have stepped back and taken a realistic look.

Some socializing is always a good thing. It means that the individuals are working together as a team rather than a motley group of professionals.

I believe that there has to be some socializing for effective teamwork. Relationships are built when people get to know each other, like each other and trust each other.

It is one thing to run a tight ship but a too tight noose around the employee’s neck can have far reaching repercussions. These include but are not limited to drop in efficiency, barriers to task-focus and low morale.

If it gets too much, perhaps an employee leaving for a less stressful work environment.

A good leader knows how to achieve success in projects while facilitating individual goal achievement.

Micro-management by a manager sends out the message that you don’t trust the employee or their competencies.

If your team doesn’t respect you, be sure they will not give their 100% to you which ultimately impacts your own career prospects.

Fear as a motivator loses out each time to respect and appreciation. It gets the job done but the buck stops there. Fear kills creativity and thinking outside the box.

Fear means that the Mice will do only as much as is required, but not more.

The Big Brother Cat needs to rethink its role as a Manager and change its style of managing Mice.

He needs to become a real Manager a respected boss not the ones I describe in my post, 5 Boss Personality Types every Professional needs to manage for peace of Mind .

Change has to come from within. Take a long and hard view at where you might be going wrong. Ask your peers, colleagues and if you have the stomach, even your subordinates.

Use the information to develop your social intelligence.

If you hear something uncomplimentary, take note of it but don’t let it become personal. You are asking for feedback to change, not launch a witch-hunt.

Feel the urge to interfere or micro-manage? Count to ten or do some breathing exercises.

The time lag between the urge to interfere and act will give your brain a chance to think again about what you are trying to change about yourself.

Bad habits take time to break but they are habits and habits can be changed.

Take it a step further and from time to time become one of the Mice. Join them in a joke, join them for lunch and get to know your team members. It will make you a better manager and your subordinates will benefit from knowing their Manager is human and not a robot.

While you are working at turning around your management style, here’s one tip to build instant trust with previously frightened subordinates. Try to appreciate them.

If they do something right, acknowledge it and give them well-deserved praise. It they get something wrong, use a constructive feedback process and help them do better next time.

Learn to exercise genuine power like a true Leader.

One of the best touchstones or frames of reference that I recommend using in times of doubt is a quote from Chris Hadfield,

I’m curious, do you know about any reformed Big Brother Cat Managers? 

PS. Want to improve your Leadership Skills? This guide and planner will help you do it on your own. Click here to learn more or purchase directly by clicking on the image below.

This post was originally written in January 2013 and has been updated for relevance and more information.

Leaving The Ship by Frits Ahlefeldt