On Credibility

Professor Michel Abs

The Secretary General of the Middle East Council of Churches (MECC)

When we speak about credibility, we are speaking about a set of values, ideals, standards, and behavioral patterns that a person or an institution must uphold in order to be considered credible.

Those who possess credibility, whether individuals or institutions, have accumulated a considerable record of transparent, honest actions with no ambiguity. These actions were witnessed by others, influenced them, and lodged in their collective memory, granting these individuals or institutions a respectful and trustworthy image in the public consciousness.

The concept of credibility is cumulative and is accompanied by other notions such as transparency, honesty, truthfulness, and harmony with virtuous behavioral values. These are among the good qualities our parents and teachers reiterated to us, extolled by writers and poets, and codified into law. Over time, they came to resemble legendary stories that were passed down to us in proverbs and anecdotes, weaving themselves into our innermost being and shaping our conscience in their likeness.

When I write about credibility, I see before me images from the past that we heard about from our grandparents, when people were bound by their word of honor, would settle their debts by the due date or even earlier, and considered lying a sin. They spoke only the truth; anything else was viewed as reprehensible by both family and society.

Would you believe that a merchant, after declaring bankruptcy and distributing his wealth among creditors, worked to repay his debt in full at 100%, because what remained of his assets covered only half of the debt, and he did not want to depart this world with his reputation tarnished?

Have you heard of low paid employees who do not lay a finger on their organization’s money because they were raised this way?

Have you heard of the employee who sent salespeople out of his office because they offered him a commission if he purchased their goods for his institution?

Have you heard the story of a taxi driver who found that one of his passengers had forgotten a bag containing a large sum of money on the seat, and who took the bag and handed it over to the police?

In contrast, there are people who corrupt the world through bribery, embezzlement, and similar acts that no religion, values system, or law can tolerate. Worse, they try to justify their deeds with excuses that neither justify nor excuse these deeds.

Does all the wealth on earth compare to a look of reproach from a judge in court, or the glance of an investigator in the public prosecutor’s office, or even the eyes of a wronged person gazing at the one who robbed him?

Such people do not know shame because they do not know honor. In fact, they consider honor a heavy burden from which they choose to turn away.

With advances in fields like management, accounting, and auditing, credibility is no longer left solely to a reputation formed by people’s experiences. It has become the outcome of a specialized, systematic process, based on standards and rules through which a person or institution is declared credible—further supported by information technology that centralizes individual and institutional records.

This credibility directly affects the work and success of individuals and institutions alike and determines the size of the credit or contracts that may be granted to them.

There is no greater treasure for a person or an organization than a reputation of credibility, one that grants entry into the minds, hearts, and collective conscience of society.

In light of all this, I am astonished by those who fail to build a good reputation and high credibility for themselves. Indeed, they fit the popular saying which goes “When ethics is decreased, calamity becomes widespread.”