"People never respect laughable credibility" - Futurist Jim Carroll
People always see through the emptiness of laughable credibility!
I don't know why I'm using this particular image, but it seemed to fit the mood of the quote. I generated the little guy on MidJourney while preparing my book Embracing Mediocrity, which is days away.
I like the little guy!
Let's talk about empty leadership.
And the idea of leadership transparency.
Let me hit you with this thought: in our hyper-connected world, hollow leadership credibility isn't just visible – it's fluorescent. And here's the kicker: once people see through it, there's no unseeing it.
Leaders today live in a new sort of glass house. You don't need to see through them to see their vacuous mentality. it's right there for the taking. It's an era of radical transparency, where every leadership action (or inaction) is visible from every angle, at every moment. Think you can fake credibility? Think again. Your team, your customers, your market, your citizens – they're all equipped with the world's most sophisticated authenticity detector: human intuition amplified by digital connectivity.
Or, in impolite terms, a really fast bullshit detector. Remember my bullshit bingo card? People today play it in real-time. I had an AI generate one - it couldn't spell. We know that AI is sometimes full of BS as well.
Let's call it a transparency accelerator. We all know that information moves at light speed. Authentication happens in real time. Empty promises echo across digital spaces with embarrassing permanence. In this environment, 'pretend leadership' creates a special kind of cringe that no amount of PR can erase. When everyone is laughing, no one is respecting. Lots of Canadians had a bellyful of laughs yesterday. They needed it after a wild few days.
Let me break down what people see right through:
- Innovation theater: Throwing around the latest buzzwords while running the same old playbook without any sort of realistic strategy? Your team is already sharing knowing looks across the meeting room and on the Zoom screen.
- The empty engagement: Those town halls where you talk about "embracing change" while shooting down every new idea? Your people aren't just seeing through it – they're documenting it in their resignation letters. They are also laughing at you. Sometimes, openly.
- The credibility cosplay: Trying to look like a visionary while clinging to outdated methods? That's like wearing a Steve Jobs costume to a tech conference. Everyone knows it's just dress-up. Playtime. Total emptiness.
Respect evaporates in an instant in today's world.
Here's the brutal truth about laughable credibility: Once respect is gone, it doesn't just hide – it vanishes. It never comes back. And in its place grows something worse than distrust: ridicule.
Here's what every leader needs to tattoo on their decision-making cortex: in the digital age, the gap between what you claim and what you do isn't just visible – it's measurable, shareable, and permanent. These are the new rules of credibility:
- Authenticity isn't optional – it's survival
- Empty words create permanent echoes
- Real beats are impressive every time
- Actions speak louder than bombast
- Transparency happens to you whether you choose it or not
Want to know the real math of modern leadership? Here's today's respect equation: Credibility = (Real Actions × Visible Results) ÷ (Promises Made).
The smaller the gap between what you say and what you do, the greater your credibility.
It's that simple, and that unforgiving. Every empty gesture, every hollow promise, every fake transformation initiative, every grandiose strategy that fails isn't just seen – it's remembered, shared, and archived. In the age of digital memory, laughable credibility becomes your permanent leadership legacy.
The truth is, people don't just see through empty credibility – they catalog it, share it, and use it as a career cautionary tale. And once you've become that kind of object lesson, no amount of rebranding can save you.
You become a joke, not only to yourself but to everyone around you.
Futurist Jim Carroll had a really good laugh around 5 pm yesterday.