You probably spend some time reflecting on your reputation at work. You may have wondered how your recent actions influenced how your employees think of you. However, have you ever reflected on your leadership brand?
Your leadership brand is your reputation. It reflects your values and your offerings—including how you provide them. Also, it helps people describe who you are and evaluate your value as a leader.
In addition, it’s how you communicate with other people to produce results. Therefore, you should align your position and the position you want. Otherwise, your efforts may not create the impact they should have.
If you need help defining your leadership brand, you may consult Navalent leadership development services or other leadership consultants in your area. They’ll be able to help you develop a strong leadership brand that can:
- Improve your ability to reach your career goals
- Broaden your impact on your employees
- Distinguish you from others based on your unique value
- Help you grow and develop
Therefore, if you’re looking for ways to build and improve your leadership branding, you’re in the right place. Below are some of the crucial leadership branding tips for executives you might want to consider:
1. Define Your Values
Values are the nucleus of uniqueness and individuality. Who you are as a leader and how you act toward other people impact your capabilities to be an efficient and effective leader. Also, people often follow a leader that they like and respect.
When identifying your values, make sure to answer the following questions, such as:
- What kind of values do you have?
- What principles do you stand for, and what are those you don’t want to support?
- What are the values you admire in other leaders?
- What do you want your employees to see you?
- How do your values influence your successes and failures in your life?
Here are the most common leadership values you might want to review:
- Empowerment
- Vision
- Communication
- Reinforcement
- Empathy
- Humility
- Passion
- Commitment
- Respect
- Patience
When you evaluate your values, look for heroic stories within your company. Determine what kinds of habits and traits are often admired in your company. Then, ask yourself if you’re able to manifest these habits. If not, assess yourself if you can do it or should you do it.
Remember, your leadership branding has to be as authentic as possible. There’s no problem in emulating the values of other leaders. However, imitating other leaders doesn’t produce long-term results and may lead to personal brand confusion.
2. Understand Your Current Brand
Once you’ve defined your values, it’s time to find out how other people perceive you. Think about how you learn from your employees, influence them, and share information with them.
You may ask your managers, staff, and even your family for feedback regarding how you communicate and make decisions—and your strengths and weaknesses.
Here are the common challenges you might need to overcome to improve your leadership branding:
- Being Humble: Great leaders are humble leaders. So, avoid being an arrogant leader who alienates employees and causes unnecessary commotions. Instead, recognize the value of your team, show them respect, and work willingly with them.
- Dealing With Stress: Being stressed often leads to being impatient. You tend to get mad easily, even with small issues when you’re impatient. So, it’s essential to learn how to deal with stress to avoid leadership pitfalls that may ruin your brand.
- Being Vulnerable: Vulnerability is related to humility. It’s the ability to admit your wrongdoings, learn from criticisms, and ask for feedback. Of course, it’s not easy, but it’ll help you become an effective leader.
3. Define Your Goals
Once you’ve understood the challenges of your current brand, it’s time to define your goals. Which among these challenges do you want to achieve? And what kind of results do you want to produce within the next 12 months?
When you identify your goals, consider those who will benefit from your expertise and efforts. They are your employees, investors, and customers.
If you don’t know where to begin, here are some examples of leadership goals that may help you get started:
- Become an active listener
- Turn negative criticisms into positive ones and learn from it
- Learn to adapt to constant change and evolution
- Be comfortable allocating and distributing tasks
- Practice transparency within the organization
- Become a great mentor for your employees
- Improve your time management skills
4. Create Your Personal Mission Statement
At this point, you have already defined your values, determined how people perceive you, and set the goals you want to achieve within the next 12 months. So, how do you plan on using all these insights to leverage your leadership brand?
It’d be a good idea to start with a mission statement. It’s a promise to yourself, your colleagues, and your family.
Also, it may help you answer some of the most critical questions your team would probably ask, such as what principles you stand for, who you are, and how you execute your duties as an executive.
If you don’t know where to begin, here are some examples of personal mission statements that may help you get started:
- To have an exciting adventure in life and learn from mistakes.
- To live a life filled with empathy and humility and be a significant voice in other people’s lives.
- To be a great educator and to be recognized for being a good inspiration to many individuals, helping them realize that they’re more than they thought they could be.
5. Live Your Brand
For all your plans to come true, it’s best to put it all into action. However, this can be more difficult than you might think. Like most people say, ‘it’s easier said than done.’
Keep in mind that everything you do, no matter how small it is, conveys a message. While your facial expressions, words, and tone are your standard methods of communication, you’re also sending a message with your choices and actions. Be mindful of the message you’re trying to convey by:
- Checking where you allocate your resources, including the areas you don’t
- Reviewing how you spend your time
- Assessing how well you know your staff
This list may continue, but the main point is pretty straightforward. For your leadership branding to be authentic, you must make sure that your actions and decisions are in conjunction with the brand you aspire to.
Furthermore, to stay on top of your brand, ask your trusted employees to provide feedback and create a daily reflection practice to remind yourself of your intentions.
Final Words
Leadership branding is rooted in your reputation, especially in how you interact with others, particularly your employees. To improve your brand, you should start by assessing your values and how these can affect your organization.
Then, understand your current branding and all the challenges present, and set a goal that’ll help you achieve them one by one. After that, create a mantra you want to live by and bring your plans to life to achieve your desired brand.