Your Brand on Purpose

by Amanda Rey, MA and Ramien R. Pierre, Ed.D.

The Importance of Brand There comes a point in one’s career when technical competence alone is not sufficient to achieve career advancement. In fact, the combination of technical competence and the demonstration of emotional intelligence is often the deciding factor between candidates who are considered good versus exceptional. What does that tell us? It indicates that how we manage ourselves - our time, our stress, our work style - and how we build and cultivate relationships with key stakeholders -direct reports, supervisors, or industry peers - within the professional landscape is just as valuable or potentially more valuable when considering criteria for career advancement or industry transitions.

AMANDA REY, MA is the Senior Program Manager for Custom Client Solutions at the Executive Leadership Council RAMIEN R. PIERRE, Ed.D is the Director at The ELC’s Institute for Leadership Development & Research

TTHE QUESTION THEN BECOMES how can we develop a personal ‘north star’ for ourselves to guide the consistent execution and alignment between our technical performance and our self and social management? The answer is simple: Create and live by your own brand and do it on purpose. We encounter brands every day. Whether it’s the joy of an intense game recalled by the Nike swoosh or the innovation and sleek design inspired by a quick glance of the bitten Apple, brands and brand imagery evoke emotion, a suite of products, and trust or distrust. The same is true for your own brand. The ELC community knows this to be true. In fact, 91% of Black professionals surveyed by The ELC reported having a personal brand. In a world where a solid work product alone isn’t enough to secure the promotion, one must be able to separate oneself from peers by evoking emotion and trust. Developing a brand, your own north star and calling card,

could aid in that journey toward differentiation. It is the hope of these authors that this article will serve as a roadmap for defining, designing and practicing your own brand with intention. Perceived brand vs. actual brand To have a brand is to know what you stand for and how that expresses in your work, behavior patterns and interoffice relationships. Without an awareness of self, your brand will gradually happen to you and not be authored by you. To design your brand is to drive your own narrative. A well-crafted, intentionally executed brand could be the difference between whether you are considered for stretch assignments, introduced to C-Suite operators, or granted access to promotion pathways. Simply stated: Brand development has the potential to impact career growth and yet, too few professionals possess a uniform understanding of how a brand is defined or develop a brand with intention. While 91% of those surveyed reported having a brand, when asked to define the concept however, there were two distinct groups: those who offered a definition and those who submitted a few words or phrases describing their own brand. For those who offered their own personal brand, the question remains: How do you know the phrases you submitted accurately reflect your work and behavior? Basically, is your self-perceived brand your actual brand or a submission of what you hope your brand is otherwise known as your aspirational brand? Does your brand align with your career aspirations? Next there was the group who defined the term brand. Of those respondents, there was little consistency in definition though several words emerged including perception, reputation, values, experience, and credibility. These submissions are not incorrect, but they bolster the notion that there is little clarity or a uniformed understanding around how a personal brand might be defined. Execution is not enough In addition to highlighting the splinter in defining brand, our research reinforced the idea that while Black professionals recognize the significant role brand plays in career development, there is still a tendency to focus on execution. The “keep

your head down and let the work speak for itself” mentality is prevalent within the Black community with one respondent commenting, “I am busy trying to keep up with day-to-day tasks of job, family and education…” indicating there was little time for what the respondent referred to as extracurricular efforts. Another respondent commented, “Growing within my organization feels daunting. It feels crushing when people see my potential, benefit from it, and it doesn’t tend to pan out from an organizational growth standpoint.” Finally, another Black professional of the ELC community submitted, “I have lost focus on my personal brand in executing the normal work routine and balancing a new role.”

These respondents are saying what we all already know: Quality work alone does not facilitate career growth. Career growth also hinges on relationship currency and few people are willing to facilitate introductions unless they know your work and character will reflect positively on their own work and character. The creation and practice of a personal brand is one way your internal and external industry peers might get to know you without even an introduction. Therefore, reflecting, drafting and refining a personal brand could be critical in making the shift from being perceived singularly as a task driven team member to a strategically driven team member. It is, of course, crucial to perform well but that is the baseline. To be seen as a strategic partner and to meet strategic partners who might facilitate your next steps, developing your brand needs to take center stage. Action + Output + Consistency = Branding Blueprint One of the goals of The ELC is to make career development and professional advancement clear and accessible. The ELC defines personal brand as the combination of one’s actions, output and the consistency with which each is performed. As stated, good work is not enough. Are you a collaborator? A communicator? Are you diplomatic? Curious? Humorous? Do you work well under stress? If so, how do you know? Finally, are you consistently producing quality work demonstrating alignment with your personal and company values? One

successful project experience does not sustain your brand. Several instances of quality output alongside demonstrations of personal and professional integrity does. Consistency creates reliability in work and behavior and that breeds trust. Cultivating trust earns career capital and gets you the large scale cross functional project or the influential introductions aligned with your future goals.

The ELC model for personal branding (figure 1) is outlined like a pyramid because without a solid foundation, there is no peak. At the pyramid’s base are the components concentrated on action and output. As you can see, they are vision and storytelling. Vision is focused on values. Do you know what you care about? Often, we think we know our values, but we don’t actually know the full scope of which values we prioritize until they are questioned, compromised or violated somehow. If you do not know what you care about, you may not always understand when to advocate for yourself or your team. Identifying your values is a key step in understanding your brand. Without knowing what you stand for, you may be easily persuaded to take on projects that do not align with your values or your goals.

Accompanying vision at the base of the pyramid is storytelling. Storytelling is an interpretation of values through the lens of your work and behavior. If you’re unclear on your values, your work and behavior may tell inconsistent or even competing stories. Clearly identifying your values facilitates an alignment between your values, your work and your behavior patterns. For example, if you care about transparency but do not share information with your team, you are not expressing your values in your work. Your actions tell a different story than you’d like to tell. If you care about communication but do not build consensus or ask questions when leading a project, once again, your work is not reflective of the story you’d like to tell.

One of our respondents commented, “I have always been shy and a little introverted, not wanting to draw attention to myself, working quietly to achieve results.” Your storytelling is

one method to draw attention to your accomplishments. Each time you interact with team members or deliver an assignment there will be a story told about you and your work. Make sure you are driving the narrative by being clear about your values and how they are expressed in your output. We’ve established that our actions and output are expressed through vision and storytelling. The third component of brand is consistency. As a result, notice clarity and trust inside of the pyramid in the figure provided. Your values and stories must be clear and repeatable. The repetition is what breeds the reliability. For example, if some of your values are communication, authenticity and creativity you might integrate big idea brainstorming into your check-ins with your team or your direct supervisor. Your integration of this process signals to the team that its input is valued, no idea is silly, and that each unique perspective contributes to the unique tapestry of the broader organization. The action is consistent with your values, happens on a rhythm and tells those around you of the same. Clarity is key to building consistency and consistency builds trust.

Figure 1. The Branding Blueprint

BRAND

STORYTELLING Interpretation of data/ communicating case

TRUST + CLARITY

VISION Aspirational/ Integrates values

Tactics to revisit or establish your brand Before outlining tactics for establishing your brand, a caveat for your consideration: Your brand is a living breathing concept because you are a living, breathing and evolving being. After you’ve established your brand, it’s not necessarily set in stone. It is incumbent upon you to revisit it on a timetable that works for you (maybe once a year) to reflect and consider: Are these still my values? Is my portfolio of work reflective of my values and where I’d like to develop? That said, if you decide you would like to be intentional about building your brand, outlined below are tactics that might make the process of establishing or revisiting your brand run smoothly. ■ Identify your values. Write down as many values as you’re able and group the values that are related to one another. The more values you focus on, the more challenging it will be to focus on which values carry the most weight. Try to narrow it down to 3-5. ■ Align values to behavior. After you’ve identified your values, brainstorm 3-5 projects in your personal or professional life of which you are most proud. How do they reflect your values?

Are there other values that emerge through this reflection?

For example, you might have chosen structure as a value but it’s possible following this exercise, your favorite most valued projects reflect you enjoy the flexibility to create structure and therefore may be more entrepreneurial. ■ Pursue feedback. Now that you’ve established your values and understand how they may (or may not) be woven into your work, it is time to decipher perception versus reality through feedback. There are several ways to pursue feedback however, the most useful might be through 360 assessments, directly asking your supervisor or peers, or friends. For your professional network you might ask: What do you consider is my value add to the team? I’d like to refine my personal brand to be XYZ. What about my current work aligns from your perspective? For friends you might ask: What makes me a good friend? Asking for feedback could be scary because

you’re purposefully placing yourself in a vulnerable position.

You might hear something you were unaware of or don’t like.

You might hear something you love. Either way, you’re unable to calculate the outcome. Remember that all of this is data to understand yourself more comprehensively. Like a regular data analysis, look for the patterns and identify the outliers and questions. This exercise will position you to understand which parts of your brand are actual and accurate and which elements are aspirational. ■ Establish goals. You have your values, you’ve reflected on your projects and you’ve gathered data. The next step is to determine what you’d like to do with this information and establish goals that will help you reach your next step. You might find that your brand is strong and aligned with your goals except in one area like networking. That’s excellent. You could create a goal to contact one colleague per month for a

Zoom lunch or in person coffee/tea. Make sure your goals are incremental, small and achievable. Remember physical fitness doesn’t happen overnight and neither does relational fitness whether the relationship is with you or others. The primary goal is awareness and consistent steps to get to where you ultimately see yourself. Give yourself grace to get there. ■ Make a statement. Your brand is your calling card. Whenever you deliver projects, attend events or lead teams, those who have interacted with you should immediately know this was your project. Now that you’ve reflected on your values, your projects, and your goals ask yourself: What does that mean?

If I had to introduce myself quickly what would I want people to know? It might sound something like, “I lead with positivity to cultivate curious, inclusive and connected workplace cultures through continuous learning and development programming.” ■ Build your currency. Relationship currency is critical. As Carla

Harris states, “Performance currency alone is not enough for advancement. Relationship currency is key because to date, all pathways for advancement still involve the subjectivity of people.”

Take this time of clarity and use it to build relationships.

Reinvigorate dormant relationships. Do you have an old boss? Give her a call! Is there a new team member you haven’t connected with and would like to? Set up a coffee meeting over Zoom or in person. Cultivate relationships from a position of learning. You’re interested in what they do, what they’ve been up to and industry insights. Remind them of who you are and leverage your newfound or revitalized clarity of brand to become smarter in your field of choice.