We started from the premise that whether you want to develop your career in an organisation or build your own business (or make any kind of change happen) that a key skill is influencing the behaviors and decision-making of other people.
How people perceive you and what people think of you is all about your personal brand.
A personal brand isn’t about being something you’re not but more about being your best and authentic you. It’s about being deliberate in aligning how others perceive you and building your reputation with who you really are.
Everyone has a personal brand. Jeff Bezos famously described personal brand as ‘what people say about you when you’re not in the room’.
Where do I start with my personal brand?
To find out your personal brand, start with giving some thought to how you want to be perceived. What words do you want people to associate with you? How do you want to be described? Write it down. Then ask your friends who know you professionally for 5 words they’d use to describe you in a work context. Put the results into a word cloud. A word cloud is an excellent visual way of seeing how you currently show up. Is what other people say about you congruent with how you want to be perceived? If not, you have some work to do on your personal brand.
Don’t leave your personal brand at the door
I’ve written before about how people often leave their personalities at the door when they arrive at work because they are trying to fit in. If, in your work environment, you can’t be you, if you have to pretend to be someone else, you need to think carefully if you are in the right job for you, because therein lies the source of huge unhappiness and dissatisfaction.
The average person spends 80,000 hours of their life at work. You probably will spend longer. That’s far too long to be unhappy. Satisfaction at work comes from the people you work with and the organisational culture. That’s why it’s important to work in an environment that fits with your values and where you can be yourself.
Antoinette had some solid advice so you don’t end up in a culture clash. She suggests when you are contemplating moving jobs to find and talk to people in the organisation for an informal chat about what it’s like. These people will give you insights on the culture that you wont get from a job application or the recruitment page of their corporate website.
What if you’re an introvert and don’t feel comfortable ‘promoting yourself’
Introversion and extroversion are about where you get your energy from – yourself or other people. Building your personal brand doesn’t have to be shouting how great you are or showing off. We don’t recommend that! You have to build your brand in a way that adds value to your audience and feels ok for you.
Whether you’re an introvert or extrovert, build relationships strategically. Whether you are building a reputation internally or externally, think about who needs to know you and focus on building your reputation with them. Think about who you need in your ‘personal boardroom’. Focus on those people. Check out the book ‘Who is in your personal boardroom?’ for more detail on how to do this.
You also have a choice of whether it’s important to develop your reputation outside your immediate circle or not. For example, you can build your personal brand to a wider audience through public speaking, posting comments online, blogging or deliberate publicity. The benefits must outweigh the discomfort. When I first became a freelancer I decided that I needed to build my brand so people would know how I could help them. The pain of public speaking, blogging and creating publicity was worth the reward of a successful freelance career. It was really painful at first. I blogged for months before I actually shared a blog with anyone!
How you show up on social media is about being thoughtful as to how you want to come across, who your audience is and what you want them to think. How personal do you want to be? How much do your audience what you to share? A good litmus test is to think ‘What if that was written on the front page of the paper?’ or ‘What would my parents say?’ or ‘What would my children say?’
If you’d be unhappy for the press, your parents or your children to see the post – then don’t post it. Simple.
Antoinette’s advice is to consider if building your brand outside of your immediate circle is important that you do it in a comfortable way and break down the task into the smallest steps. For example, when posting on LinkedIn, rather than share your views on the Brexit shambles, you might choose to thank others for the work they’ve done with you this year. That way you’ve posted something, nothing is controversial and you’ve made other people feel good – and if one of the traits of your brand is ‘being thoughtful’ then you reinforce that too.
We like to be liked and our personal brand won’t suit everyone. And that’s ok. What’s important is that you are perceived in the way you want to be by the people that matter and that you are your real and best you.
If you’d like some help with building your personal brand, you might benefit from joining the Lucidity Network. It’s a pick and mix of online and offline learning and connection to a dynamic network of people that can help you. We’re open to new members a few times a year. Join the Lucidity Community Facebook group to get in the Lucidity groove for clearer thinking and better results and be the first to hear when the Lucidity Network is open for members.