Cultivating Your Leadership Brand
Ever since I was introduced to branding as a market researcher decades ago, I have been enthralled by brand positioning, identity, and brand strategy. Coupled with my love of writing, I have found a branding angle in many of my professional undertakings. As an image consultant, I helped women create and present a personal brand aligned with their professional aspirations and conducted workshops on personal branding. As a consultant, I’ve helped solopreneurs and small businesses, brand their websites, identify their client niche, and position themselves so they stand out in the marketplace.
I’ve found a lot of women aren’t clear about identifying, cultivating, and leveraging the power of their personal brand, which among the clients I work with tends to be their leadership brand. This is especially true for professionals going through a career transition or pivot of some type.
Your personal brand is part of your identity—it is a way to communicate who you are and what you stand for in your professional circle. It is your unique value and reputation in the marketplace. Your brand is about you—your skills, your values, your experience, your interests, and your points of differentiation.
As I’ve written in the past, we all have a brand, whether we leverage it or not or intentionally manage it or not. We are constantly communicating messages about who we are, what we stand for, and the value we bring to our work. Yet many professionals leave their personal brand message to the whim of others to define it for them.
As a leader on the rise or rising, personal branding is important because it is a way for you to establish and consistently reinforce who you are and what you uniquely offer in the workplace. Your personal brand highlights your skills, qualities, and strengths, which define what makes you stand out from other leaders.
Your personal brand can strategically position you in a way that allows the most salient aspects of your brand identity to be front and center, so it is obvious to your team, reports, clients, customers, or colleagues.
You get to shape the narrative so why leave it to chance? Unfortunately, many leaders do.
Who you are is how you lead. Your values, persona, character, faith, personality, strengths, and weaknesses, all inform how you lead others.
Let me say it again because it’s important: Who you are is how you lead. If you want to lead more effectively and impactfully, you need to understand the leadership style you embody clearly.
Maybe you’re a leader soaring to new heights, desiring greater visibility. Or you could be on the brink of a major career glass-ceiling-shattering position and you’re wondering whether you really have what it takes to lead. Perhaps you’re unsure about your leadership brand and impact and need clarity.
I’ve created an assessment that may be just what you need to begin to solidify your leadership brand. My What Is Your Leadership Brand assessment will help you understand which one of EIGHT distinct leadership styles most reflects your current or aspiring leadership brand.
After taking this assessment, you’ll get a cool summary of your most matched type, which will help you know which type of leadership style you lean towards and have insight into how you can tap into these points of differentiation more intentionally.
The assessment takes just about five minutes to complete so you can take it pretty much any time. Plus, it’s fun too, so for the high achievers reading this, it can be your excuse to take a mini work break.
You can access the assessment HERE.
Please feel free to share with your inner circle and compare notes on your Types. And if you have any questions about your results, please do give me a holler.
Summer is winding down and we have a long weekend coming up next week. I don’t know about you but I’m going to really try to SAVOR these last couple of weeks before the frenzy that is the last quarter hits. I have been SO busy getting my next book, It’s Your Time to Shine Girl ready to publish in a couple of months that I could use a break. I’m sure you can too.
Here's to your brilliance!
As "The Brilliance Unveiler," Natalie Jobity leverages more than a decade of experience empowering hundreds of women as an image consultant and now as a leadership and career coach of The Unveiled Way. She works with high-achieving women at career crossroads to unveil their brilliance, so they're empowered to be unstoppable leaders of change with ripple-making impact in their arena.
Natalie’s second book titled, It’s Your Time to Shine, Girl: Own Your Brilliance, Step into Your Influence, and Lead Like a Trailblazer, will be published in the Fall of 2022. This leadership and empowerment book will not only inspire women the world over to step into their purpose, but also give them the tips, tools, and techniques needed to succeed and thrive as a woman of influence.