Building An Effective Personal Brand

The leader and employee in today’s environment must possess a credible and trusted brand, much like a company does.

This is sometimes also referred to as a personal and/or professional reputation. Either way, people see you a certain way based on your behaviours, words and actions. Being aware of this helps you to take control of your brand.

 

Like culture, it exists whether we influence it or not. Why then, wouldn’t you want to take control of this as much as possible? The benefits of modern technology make this easier than in the past. It also provides potential pitfalls and risk.

However, your personal brand and the perception you create is more than your Social Media profiles and habits. Your ‘real life’ actions and behaviours shape the perception others have of you. After all, those closest to you are the people who you should be most interested in influencing. Rarely is the depth of relationships online as strong as in person. Sadly, the lines are becoming blurred for many people.

Your Brand Is the Experience People Have of You

One useful way to think about personal brand is this: your brand is what people have come to expect from you.

It is not simply what you say you value, what appears on your LinkedIn profile or how professionally you present yourself. It is the accumulated experience people have when they work with you, speak with you, rely on you, disagree with you or need something from you.

Do people experience you as calm under pressure?

Clear and direct? Approachable? Reliable? Commercial? Curious? Decisive? Supportive? Difficult to read? Slow to act? Someone who follows through?

Importantly, these perceptions develop whether you consciously manage them or not. This creates an important distinction between your intended brand and your experienced brand. You may want to be seen as empowering, for example, while members of your team experience you as controlling. You may believe you are considered decisive, while others experience you as impatient. Equally, you may significantly underestimate positive qualities that others already associate with you.

The opportunity is not to manufacture a different version of yourself. It is to better understand the experience you currently create and deliberately strengthen the parts that reflect the leader and person you want to be.

Brand Requires Evidence

A credible personal brand needs evidence.

If you want to be known as someone who develops people, there should be people who are better because they worked with you. If you want to be regarded as dependable, people should be able to point to occasions when you followed through, particularly when doing so was difficult. If you value honesty, it should be visible in the conversations you are prepared to have.

This is where personal brand moves beyond image.

Your reputation is built through repeated moments, not occasional statements.

People notice how you behave when pressure increases, when somebody disagrees with you, when mistakes occur, when there is no obvious answer and when doing the right thing is inconvenient. Those moments often shape your reputation more powerfully than the periods when everything is running smoothly.

For leaders particularly, consistency matters. People should not need to guess which version of you will arrive today.

Conduct a Personal Brand Audit

A useful exercise is to stop thinking initially about what you want your brand to be and examine the evidence that already exists. Consider these questions:

1. What three words would I like people to use when describing me professionally?
2. What three words would the people who work most closely with me probably use today?
3. What do people consistently come to me for? This often reveals strengths and value that you may take for granted.
4. What behaviour of mine could be creating a perception I do not intend?
5. Where is there a gap between what I say matters to me and what people actually see me doing?
6. Whose perception matters most? Your brand does not need to mean exactly the same thing to everybody, but the people you lead, work alongside and serve should experience a recognisable core.
7. What is one behaviour I could practice more consistently over the next 30 days that would strengthen the reputation I want to build?

You can take this further by asking several trusted people a simple question:

“When I am at my best, what do you think I bring that is particularly valuable, and what is one thing I could do differently to have greater impact?”

Do not ask purely for reassurance. Look for patterns.

Personal branding is about making a full-time commitment to the journey of defining yourself as a leader and how this will shape the manner in which you will serve others. (1)

Personal Brand Is Not a Destination

Your personal brand will change as your responsibilities, experience and priorities change.

A new manager may initially need to establish credibility and reliability. An experienced leader may need to become known less for having the answers and more for developing the judgement of others. Someone moving into a broader organisational role may need to strengthen their ability to influence beyond their immediate team.

The question therefore is not simply, “What is my personal brand?”

A more useful question is: “What do I want people to be able to consistently rely on me for at this stage of my career, and does my behaviour provide enough evidence for them to believe it?”

That question makes personal brand practical. It connects reputation with behaviour, contribution and impact rather than promotion or image. Ultimately, you do not build a strong personal brand by talking more about yourself.

You build it by becoming increasingly deliberate about what you stand for, how you behave and the value people consistently experience from having you involved.

It takes time and effort to develop your reputation built on genuine results, behaviours, skills and qualities that others identify as strengths and positive attributes. This is important for all of us, but is most critical for leaders.

Many leaders are already performing well in their roles and have much to offer. Whether people recognise and acknowledge this is another question. Having the knowledge and tools to promote yourself effectively without appearing to be ‘big-noting’ is a challenge for some. I look at this differently. It is not about being a self-promoter. It is more about being comfortable enough in who you are and your achievements so that you can comfortably talk about it. This comfort stems from strength in self-esteem and self-acceptance, amongst other attributes.

Overlooked for promotion; receiving little recognition; difficulty in explaining beliefs, passions or roles, along with other skills are often difficult challenges, but can be overcome. Creating a strong brand can only be achieved through consistent practice and application. This takes effort and accountability. The CoachStation REOWM Accountability Model highlights the importance of expectations and taking accountability.

Perceptions about self and what we think others believe about us influences much of who we are and what we do.

Building a Brand Based on Substance

Each person has their own beliefs and needs and are at various stages of acceptance of their situation, financial requirements and employability. Being clear about what you want from life, including as an employee, helps you to make appropriate decisions. Decisions based on want, values and need and not simply situation and opportunity. Even when current roles appear stable, understanding of yourself and focusing energies on the next steps or options is a worthwhile exercise.

This is the same when promoting products, services or people. People see through this kind of facade very quickly, even when we think they haven’t.

What is presented to the world via your online presence is becoming more and more critical to how other people view who you are and what you stand for. It is a wonder to me how many people still struggle with this concept. As important as this is, meaning and substance matters more than merely presenting yourself professionally online. It is how you communicate, manage perceptions, behave, respond, learn about and apply emotional intelligence. A solid social media presence is one aspect, but your brand is more than that.

It also relates to your ability to develop relationships, foster an ability to connect with others and various similar core skills that help you to influence people.

Taking control of and developing your reputation is essential for the advancement of your career and development as a leader. Unfortunately, personal branding has become a “commoditized” term that has lost its intention as people have irresponsibly used social media as a platform to build their personal brand and increase their relevancy. They believe social media can immediately increase their market value for their personal brand rather than recognising that the process of developing their personal brand is a much bigger responsibility; a never-ending journey that extends well beyond social media.

This doesn’t mean self-promotion – that you should be creating awareness for your brand by showcasing your achievements and success stories. Managing your personal brand requires you to be a great role model, mentor, and/or a voice that others can depend upon. (1)

This is not only relevant and important when you are looking for a new role. Essentially, having a strong brand always matters. I work with people in various industries at all levels of management, yet the branding elements remain surprisingly consistent.

The issues that exist and skills required in modern workplaces are as applicable for entry-level employees as they are for supervisors and executive level leaders. View your personal brand as a trademark; an asset that you must protect while continuously moulding and shaping it. 

Your personal brand is an asset that must be managed with the intention of helping others benefit from having a relationship with you and/or by being associated with your work and the industry you serve. (1)

The need to develop your brand and reputation is more relevant today than ever. If you don’t take control of your brand it will continue to evolve but not in a way that will add value to yourself and those you care about.

Have you defined your own brand? If so, do you live and  breathe it consistently every day?

Think about what your brand looks like from the perspective of others. Take action to be accountable in shaping your brand to greatest effect. As always, the opportunity is yours.

 

Resources:

(1)  Personal Branding is a Leadership Requirement, Not a Self-Promotion Campaign: Forbes

(2) How To Create a Standout Personal Brand: Entrepreneur.com