Reputation walks into work before you do, and teams cling to old stories. Chris Dodd explores how labels form, why cynics shape perceptions, and how leaders earn credibility socially through visibility, listening and consistency. Behaviour, not title, rebuilds trust, lifts morale and stops you battling an outdated version of yourself.
One thing I learned very early in the Royal Navy, is that your reputation normally arrives before you do. Long before a new Captain, senior leader, manager, or supervisor even steps onboard, opinions are already doing laps around the ship.
- “Ooo I know him.”
- “She’s alright actually.”
- “He’s hard work.”
- “Stay out of their way.”
And the funny thing is, half the people saying these things probably haven’t worked with that person in years. But that’s how teams work sometimes, stories stick, opinions spread, and once something gets repeated enough times, people start treating it as fact.
Before the new manager has even found where the kettle is, people are already deciding whether they like them or not
Honestly, civilian workplaces are no different. Whether it’s an office, hospital, engineering firm, warehouse, or corporate environment, somebody always says: “I worked with them years ago.” And that’s it. Before the new manager has even found where the kettle is, people are already deciding whether they like them or not.
Growth and change
The truth is people change, but organisations are terrible at updating their opinions of people. The arrogant twenty-five-year-old supervisor may have grown into a calm and experienced leader fifteen years later. Equally, the easy-going and popular junior manager everyone loved years ago may have become distant, overly corporate, or disconnected after climbing the ranks.
But workplaces freeze people in time.
I saw this constantly in the Navy. Somebody would join carrying a reputation formed years earlier, good or bad, and younger or less experienced members of the team would absorb those opinions almost immediately. Not because they’re incapable of making their own minds up, but because humans naturally look towards influential people in groups for cues on how they should think and behave. Social psychologists refer to this as social conformity and normative influence, where people subconsciously align with dominant group opinions to fit in and avoid conflict.
And this is where things can quietly become toxic.
Sometimes the most damaging person in a team isn’t the loud aggressive manager everyone notices immediately. Sometimes it’s the influential cynic in the background quietly shaping everybody else’s opinion before they’ve even met the person properly.
If somebody senior says: “The new bloke joining is a nightmare.” There’s a good chance people will unconsciously start looking for evidence to prove that statement right. That matters because perception shapes behaviour. If people expect somebody to be arrogant, confidence gets mistaken for arrogance. If they expect somebody to be difficult, every decision becomes evidence confirming it. In many ways, leaders can end up fighting old versions of themselves that no longer even exist.
Credibility is earned socially
The better leaders understand this quickly. The strongest leaders I worked with never tried to overpower bad perceptions using rank or authority. They understood that credibility is earned socially long before it is enforced professionally. So instead, they focused on behaviour.
- They made themselves visible
- They spoke to junior staff informally
- They listened before making sweeping changes
- They learned names
- They asked questions
- They stayed present under pressure
- Most importantly, they acted like human beings
Some leaders get this completely wrong. They arrive trying far too hard to appear senior. They disappear into offices, communicate only formally, or lean heavily on hierarchy before building any kind of relationship with the team. That usually creates distance very quickly.
Because most teams are not really asking: “What position do they hold?” They’re asking: “Can I trust this person?”
Leadership behaviour compounds over time
I think many organisations underestimate how emotional leadership actually is. People want fairness. They want consistency. They want honesty. And they want leaders who feel genuine.
You hear it in workplaces all the time:
- “What do I care? They earn more than me.”
- “Why should I do that job?”
- “They walk around like they own the place.”
At first, it sounds like moaning, but usually it’s frustration around fairness, visibility, and disconnect. Good leaders understand that leadership is not only about what’s true, it’s also about how things look from the other side of the room. That doesn’t mean leaders should pretend to be somebody they’re not. But it does mean they need self-awareness. Because leadership behaviour compounds over time and people remember how leaders made them feel.
The importance of trust on morale
Research into organisational justice and workplace trust repeatedly shows that perceived fairness, respect, and leader behaviour have a major influence on morale, engagement, and team cohesion. People are far more likely to trust and follow leaders they believe are authentic, fair, and emotionally consistent.
Young leaders especially underestimate this. Ego, arrogance, poor communication, treating people badly, constantly pulling rank… all of it feels insignificant at the time, but workplace memory is long. Eventually those behaviours become reputation.
The positive side is that reputation is never fully fixed either. I’ve seen leaders arrive carrying years of baggage and completely win teams over through humility, consistency, professionalism, and calm leadership. I’ve also seen people arrive with brilliant reputations and completely destroy them within weeks through arrogance and poor behaviour.
That’s why the best leaders never rely entirely on reputation, good or bad. They keep earning trust. Because in the end, titles might get somebody through the door, but their behaviour decides whether people actually follow them. Leadership karma is real. The way you treat people early in your career has a funny way of catching up with you later.
Chris Dodd is Director & Founder at R2AI and author of Navigating Leadership: Essential Lessons from Life at Sea
