Facilitation Skills for Teacher Leaders Handout - NESA

CredibilityCredibility, the fifth C, is a by-product of the other four; like permission, it is assigned to thefacilitator by the group. Credibility does not live inside the facilitator; rather, it is a perception thegroup forms about the person. When a group believes that a facilitator is competent, confident,neutral, trustworthy, and fair, the group can say that this person is credible.Credibility, like trust, can temporarily be lost. Being less than honest, not owning mistakes, orspeaking disrespectfully about those who are not in the room will drive a wedge of discomfortbetween you and the group. One essential facilitator capacity is learning how to recover frommistakes. As a friend of ours says, if you step in it, know how to step out of it.The strongest element of a recovery move is to step away from the place you made the error.This strategy is called Visual Paragraph (see Appendix A). Acknowledge whatever you did thatevoked discomfort. Take responsibility (“I’m sorry, I was supposed to bring that to you today, andI forgot”), apologize (“That was insensitive, please accept my apology”), self-disclose (“Did I saythat?”—pointing to the space you just left), or direct some humor at yourself (“I always wanted tobe skillful, now I realize I should have specified at what”). These are some unassuming ways torecover focus and direction.©2012 Adaptive Schools Seminars 14