Authority without integrity has an expiration date, and it’s usually sooner than expected.

Position can make people comply for a while, and compliance is not the same as belief. Once it becomes clear that the person in charge does not hold to what they say, everyone starts quietly planning around them: information gets routed elsewhere, effort gets rationed, and the role keeps its title while losing its content. The collapse looks sudden and was not.

Look at whether your authority currently rests on what you can require or on what people have decided about you. If it is the first, start closing that gap. Keep one promise this week that would have been easy to let slide.