If you follow this series of articles, you know that we approach credibility as a marriage of characteristics and activities. You can develop the characteristics and you can implement the activities. In other words, credibility is not the result of some Harry Potter magic. It is what happens when many different (specific) things come together. If you don't have those things, you're more likely to have neither credibility, nor the ability to demonstrate credibility. Now, with that in mind, let's look at one of the essential elements of credibility – relevance.

You can be a true expert in your field and not have credibility. You can be an expert and also possess unimpeachable integrity – and still not have credibility. What's missing is relevance, and without it, there is no credibility.

For some reason, relevance is the most difficult "credibility element" to gain and the element most often missing.