How to Define Your Leadership Brand
Have you defined your leadership brand?
Do you know what you stand for, what drives you, what you want people to take away from interactions with you, how you want to show up? Do you know what your beliefs and values are that guide your behavior and decision-making and how you want to be as a manager or coach? Regardless of your level you should get clear on these points, but especially if you’ve reached the senior ranks. Yet, how many of us actually pause to think about these factors and document them for ourselves and to share with others? Too few, unfortunately.Getting clear will help you establish your unique voice that will command attention. It will also help you in establishing the culture you want to shape for your teams. Leaders create culture regardless of the level at which you operate in an organization. You set the tone, so you need to be thoughtful with your intention.
So, don’t waste time! Define your leadership brand now. Where to get started?
First do some investigation, searching back through your career history.
Identify three to five highlight career stories you can explore to unearth insights about your leadership brand. For each story, ask yourself:What were my motivations in these situations?What personal values do these stories reflect? How have these stories shaped my beliefs? What philosophies have I learned and formed based on these stories? What drove my behaviors and decision-making in these situations?What traits and characteristics were represented in these experiences?Then, look forward to your current leadership role. Ask yourself:What are the expectations of me in this role from different stakeholders?What do I need to achieve in this role?How do I need to behave and show up in this role to be my best self with the different stakeholders?How would I like my team to behave, and, thus, what do I need to model?What culture do I want to shape for my team?
With that exploration as input, now consider these 5 topic areas to further express your leadership brand:
Your Purpose – What is the higher purpose that drives your leadership? Why do you do what you do? What kind of impact do you want to make? What is the higher purpose of your team? What impact does your team need to make in your organization? Summarize in a short statement: “My purpose is to…. My team’s purpose is to… ”
Your Values – Consider peak experiences you’ve had over your lifetime. What were the values being expressed in each of those peak experiences? What are the common themes? Which are most applicable to work situations? How does this tie back to your Stories exercise noted above? What work stories do you have as examples where each value was demonstrated? How would you simplify these down to a handful of values to communicate to others? Again, write a short personal story that ties to and demonstrates each of these values.
Your Beliefs – What are your beliefs about the world, your industry, your category, your function, and how your people should operate in your organization? Simplify down to 5 or so core beliefs you can share with your team to set clear expectations and to fall back on to guide your decision making, behaviors, and choices.
Your Leadership & Management Philosophy – What are your leadership and management philosophies? How do you inspire and motivate people around you to be the best versions of themselves? What are expectations you have for your team? What can they expect of you? How do you serve your team members? How do you like to make decisions? How do you want your team to engage you in decision-making and project management? Be clear with yourself and your team to set expectations and help them work best with you.
Your Traits. Get clear on how you want to show up to meet the expectations of your role. What do you want to be known for? What are a handful of adjectives you’d want people to say about you after an interaction? How would you be behaving to elicit those responses? Identify a handful of traits you want to express and select real work examples for you to envision ways of being to bring those traits to life. This can serve as an inspiring vision to help you step into the leadership brand you want to bring to life.
With this summary, you’ll have a good sense of yourself as a leader and who you want to be as a leader in your current role.
It will allow you to step into the intention you hold for yourself around being a leader and help shape the kind of voice you want to own and the kind of culture you want to nurture in the workplace. With it, you can be your best self as a leader and one that can make a positive impact in your organization.
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The world needs more great leaders, and you can be one.
Why aren’t there more great leaders in the world? Do you want to be one? It’s not easy. But, it’s possible. And, it offers great rewards. For you, your team, your brand, your business. You just need to set your intention, make a commitment, and get clear on the type of leader you want to be.
Our “Your Leadership Brand Model” paper offers a 4-week sprint with a step-by-step guide and weekly assignments to get you clear and focused on your Leadership Brand, who you are and who you want to be as a leader to elevate your leadership performance.
A Leadership Brand Example: A powerful one-pager to keep you focused on who you want to be as a leader.
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