How do you make your personal Brand?
It is said, You are a Product of your environment.
Whatever trait or value system it is that people around you associate you with, is a result of your upbringing and set of experiences so far.
What are your personal values?
The value system is a set of your thought process and the way you apply yourself in social and personal situations.
There have been leaders whose names on recollection immediately fire off a set of value systems that the world has come to associate with their personalities. Here are 3 examples:
Gandhi's value system is the pursuit of truth, non-violence and tolerance. This lead him to lead the principled life of being an Integral whole with his constituents and that imagery of the poorly-adorned Leader springs in our mind.
This imagery was seen in his private and public interactions without the proliferation of Internet based Social Media – such that is available today to all.
Jesus the Jewish preacher sacrificed his life for caring of the children of God. His value system emphasised caring, service to mankind, and shunning the self.
Hitler also had a powerful value system unlike other leaders and his value system edged on towards purity of his race to serve his autocratic goals.
Many of us broadly dream of becoming the type of person that we’d like to become. There are easy role models to emulate, those whom we admire, listen to and follow on social media. It could be anyone like a parent, Bill Gates, Trump or even Alexander and then we dream of emulating their qualities and achieve fame and success like them.
But why don’t we become this person? What challenges we face while appraising our role models? Millions of employees globally want to create a positive buzz for themselves. They want to differentiate themselves in market by achieving their goals and objectives. But many fail.
What is their excuse?
Many of them justify their lack of preparedness, lack of developing the strategy required for them to succeed and aversion to seeking out professional help and even share blame with the organisations on a weak development culture.
This repetition of excuses goes back to the value system instilled in the individual right from the beginning. This set of mental repetitions and justifications for the way you are then manifests itself into a self-fulfilling prophecy and one ends up materialising the set of his/her own limiting values.
Self-Delusions – further aids to excuses
Some employees face classic delusions. They overestimate their strengths and capabilities which act as mental roadblocks to their personal growth and change.
"I have the wisdom to objectively evaluate my own behavior" this perception inhibits accurate assessment of problem, potential barrier and solutions. Although, self-assessment is necessary there is no substitute to get professional help. Success oriented organisations & world class players hire the services of an Executive Coach to evaluate leadership behavioural blind spots and then work on becoming the best.
"I don’t need help or structure to become the person that I want to become".
Your own decision and bold steps are necessary to develop your brand. The person who listens to external stimuli and blends his own understandings to them always takes better decisions. An expert advice from a leadership mentor can assist you shape your personal branding.
These mental roadblocks or delusions need to be avoided to make self a powerful brand by presenting yourself in an effective way. A leadership coach can help you in getting that edge.
Why Personal Brand Values
A good value system defines and shapes your responses and actions towards those who engage with you. It provides a good barometer to guide your decisions and lets people know what they can expect from you in most social or personal situations.
Successful leaders get help from professionals to shape their action processes after defining a value system that reflects their sense of self. Some of the important value systems I’ve observed in leaders are:
- Authenticity – Present yourself as you are, as people can notice a façade when they see one. You can build a trusted personal brand only if you are true to yourself.
- Learner – To improve your brand you need to learning from mistakes and stakeholder feedback.
- Innovation – conveys to teams, your openness to fresh ideas and constructive discussions on ideas than on people.
- Aggression – conveys your zeal to reach common goals with full energy and commitment.
- Quality – conveys your zest for continuous improvement.
- Service – to social or environmental causes sets your branding apart from others.
- Teamwork – allows people around you to build an atmosphere of trust and sharing for the common causes.
- Harmony – builds an element of respectability in teams around you and generally leads to engaged employees at work
Having chosen the top 3 sets of value systems, the Leader can further fine tune their own definitions of what it means to act out these values. A good leader then gets into the strategy for implementation of the value system which then results in a meaningful process for a fulfilling life.
