Before banks trust u with a loan, they check your credit. Same with leadership. People are always assessing your credibility.
True. A seminary professor, Dr. Scott Wenig, would use the analogy of poker chips. To make changes, to get people to follow you, both require lots of proverbial chips. You need to earn those little by little before you can spend them.
The same is true about losing credibility. To use a different metaphor, I'll borrow from my father-in-law. One of his pearls of wisdom he shared with me during monthly lunches together while I was dating Jennifer was this: "House points. You earn them one at a time, and lose them by the thousands." The point: just as a harsh word to my wife or a stupid, thoughtless mistake can really harm my relationship with my wife (thankfully, she's really forgiving!), so too can just one instance of not being totally above board or a breach of character--even a small one--can lose for a leader many years of building credibility.
By the way, this is very, very true in youth ministry. Teenagers can smell hypocrisy and disingenuousness a mile away.
