Musings at Altitude

Unfortunately, credentials mean a lot to some people.  Credentials are those things that apparently qualify you in some way for some position or some special purpose.  Credentials are the letters after your name in a signature block, or the self-generated entries that define your history in a resume or bio, or the perpetuating stories of significant success in your past that give credence to what you may be doing today.

Those credentials do matter at times, when they are backed up by recent evidence and experience, but what matters much more than credentials is the credentialing that those with credentials do.  Credentialing is the pedigree building and certificate providing that those with credentials should be measured by.  For example, we all know great coaches who win enough games (and maybe even some championships) that are therefore considered credentialed.  But we respect even more those coaches who not only win but also seed the league with their assistant coaches and coordinators, thus not only being credentialed but also succeeding at credentialing.  But it doesn’t stop there.  We then justifiably deify those coaches who not only have credentials and give credentials, but then those who they gave the credentials to then go and pay those credentials forward, winning and credentialing on their own.  Those deified coaches don’t need to lead with credentials.  Their legacies are branded on each of their team members that go on and become credentialers of their own.

So my recommendation to each of us is to lead by credentialing rather than post our credentials.  At some point in the future, maybe each of us can then be compared to those truly great ones who were the ultimate credentialers. 

PS.  My guess is those great ones didn’t care very much about their own credentials.