by dlavieri
3) When you’re trying to make your case. When we fall into
debate mode during a meeting, we may ignore others’ comments
and obsess about the points we want to get across. Instead, it’s
more effective to understand our colleagues’ goals and concerns
so well that we can frame our suggestions with a minimum of
conflict. Collaboration is a vital career skill, and it starts with
appreciating the viewpoints of all the players.
4) When you’re in the middle. Have you ever found yourself
caught between two warring parties? You know it would be a
mistake to take sides, but it can be a challenge to participate in
meetings without seeming to align with one faction or another.
The best approach here is to consistently present yourself as an
open-minded listener. Let everybody know you’re always willing
to be fair and hear what folks want to communicate.
5) When they’re hard to get along with. Once we start think-
ing of people as difficult, we may stop really hearing them. As
they speak, we feel defensive and start working on our rebuttals.
At some level they know we’re ignoring them, so their obnox-
ious behavior gets worse. You can often defuse a tense situation
by putting aside your resistance and concentrating on what is
being said. By quieting your negative inner commentary, you
may launch a new era of healthy communications.
6) When you want to look confident. When people feel insecure,
they may chatter about nothing, brag too much, or insist their
opinions are correct despite the weight of the evidence. Genuinely
confident people aren’t afraid to stay quiet. They already know what
they think and now they want to know what you think. If you want
to come across as self-assured, look for opportunities to shine the
spotlight on others. Ask questions and be respectful of the answers.
Listening is a powerful strategy. It can help you understand what’s hap-
pening, show that you care, and contribute to the growth of a supportive
community.
4
tweak Your Brand to
send clear messages
do you feel squeamish when people start talking about “personal branding”?
Maybe you think it means pretending to be something that you’re not.
If that’s your view of branding, get over it. There’s the real you, the essential person that you are. And related, but not exactly the same, there’s the
professional. Your professional persona should be deeply rooted in your true
values. But the person you are on the job is just a piece of your whole package.
Also, in your professional life—whether or not you know it—there’s your
personal brand. Your brand might be quite different from the essential you,
and even the on-the-job you. Even if you don’t want it or like it, you do have a brand. It’s already out there, alive, and influencing the way people react to you.
Understand and shape your personal brand
Your brand distinguishes you from everybody else.
Originally, the word “brand” simply meant a name or symbol indicat-
ing the owner or producer of a product. For example, ranchers used hot irons
31
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Think Like an Entrepreneur, Act Like a CEO
to brand cattle so they could spot their own steers among the free-roaming
herds. And back when soap was usually just called “soap,” Pears Soap was
named after the barber who invented a new kind of gentle cleaning bar.
Today, the term “brand” isn’t the same as a brand name. In a “branding”
effort, marketers try to distinguish a product, highlighting how it differs from its competitors. But the modern concept of “brand” is even broader than that, because it encompasses not just the qualities of products but also how customers feel about those products.
When we refer to a “brand,” we’re getting at something that reaches
way beyond the actual product to include a full range of customer reactions.
For example, the Coca-Cola brand reflects not just soft drink attributes and
whether people like the taste, but also the emotional reactions customers
might have to the happy messages in Coke commercials.
Your personal brand isn’t the same as the real you, because it’s defined
partly by what people think about you. It’s based on their assessments of your expertise, your work, and your character. Your brand is powerful enough to
open—or close—career doors. But it might be quite different from either who
you are or the high achiever you try to be when you’re on the job.
In other words, even if you are a good person and you work hard, there’s
no guarantee that your brand reflects your best qualities and will bring you
the career success you deserve.
This is a lesson that Sally* had to learn. She’s a smart, tech-savvy, and
collaborative project manager, but she’d been turned down for promotions.
Beth, her manager, asked me to help Sally understand why she wasn’t being
taken seriously.
With Sally’s permission, I spoke with some of her colleagues. Several
described her as “a flake.” Part of Sally’s reputation was based on her appearance. She loves fantasy events and science fiction conventions, and sometimes she allowed weird fictional characters to influence her fashion style at work.
Even worse, she bored colleagues by talking endlessly about the weekends she
spent at shows related to her interests.
People liked Sally and found her amusing, but they thought her hobbies
were silly. Sally’s eccentric personal tastes had become such a big part of her brand that coworkers overlooked her strengths.
As we talked, Sally concluded that she didn’t have to give up the things
she loved to do in her free time. But she didn’t want her passion for them to hold her back at work. So she launched a three-pronged plan to rebuild her
brand within the company:
tweak Your Brand to send clear messages
33
1) Manage appearances. Sally aimed for a more mainstream per-
sonal style, so that her coworkers’ reaction to her clothes and
grooming wouldn’t blind them to her competence. She began
dressing more like her boss and she tucked her long hair into
a neat French braid. She also stopped trying to interest work
friends in her weekend activities.
2) Build expertise and let it shine. Understanding that it’s not
good enough to appear more like everybody else, Sally wrote a
“brand statement” that described ways she wanted to be seen as
unique. In particular, she hoped to be recognized for her techni-
cal abilities. She set the goals of becoming expert in a hot new
technology and having her expertise recognized. She took an
online course, kept studying and experimenting on her own, and
published an article in an industry journal. As she learned more,
Sally prepared a “how-to” guide for her colleagues and, with her
characteristic enthusiasm, she said “yes” when they needed help.
3) Show up like a leader. Sally took a course that required her
to start a leadership journal. As she wrote about the leaders she
admired, she became more conscious of how she wanted to
appear. She wrote a list of the leadership characteristics she most
admired, loo
ked at it frequently, and thought about it as she
planned her participation in routine meetings. Visualizing the
kind of leader she wanted to be helped her become more confi-
dent about her contributions and decisions.
Rather quickly, Sally changed her brand. Beth said other managers
were talking about how Sally had “finally grown up.” With her new, well-
chosen expertise, Sally became known as an innovative thinker. Soon, she was
assigned to a key project.
Try these strategies to manage your brand
To gain control of your brand, start with an honest assessment of how you
come across. If you’re creating impressions that don’t serve you well, then it’s your job to change them. If you’re ready to do some rebranding, start here:
→ Research your current brand. When marketers want to enhance
a product brand, they may start with customer surveys. If you
want a better sense of your brand, gather feedback from other
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Think Like an Entrepreneur, Act Like a CEO
people. On the job, this might take the form of a “360 review” in
which your bosses, direct reports, and other col eagues are quizzed
by a third party about your performance. A simpler approach is to
ask col eagues how you might be even more helpful.
→ Look in the mirror. As Sally found, people are more likely to
regard you as successful if you fit in with the crowd and look
professional. Even in dress-casual offices, your aura of success is
impacted by your personal style. People are influenced not only
by how you put your look together, but also by the way you
speak and carry yourself. If you feel that it’s time for a make-
over, find inspiration by looking around for people who appear
energetic, polished, positive, and powerful.
→ Promote your work. It is not enough to build expertise and
do good work. You need to share news about what you’ve been
doing and learning. You could give speeches, write articles, or
send out progress reports. Or you can show what you know
in more subtle ways, such as offering your services to someone
who needs your help.
→ Shape your online presence. The way you show up in an
online search has become vital to your broader professional
brand. When you meet someone for the first time, the person
may have already Googled your name. You can’t get around this
by doing nothing. Your name is out there somewhere. An easy
starting point for your online strategy is to create your profile
on LinkedIn.com. If you can’t bear to share, you don’t have to
complete the entire form. You can project your brand to the
world simply by typing in a few sentences in the “Summary”
section of LinkedIn’s profile template.
Building your brand is the antithesis of being fake or manipulative. It’s
about becoming better attuned to how your work impacts other people, more
aware of relationships, and more adept at understanding and displaying your
inner self.
5
start now to
Build leadership
into Your Brand
lodged within your broader image is your brand as a leader. Your reputa-
tion as a potential leader may take years to fully develop, but it begins long before you manage a team or have a lofty title. Even when you’re just starting out, your leadership reputation influences how much people trust you and
whether they want to work with you.
It starts in small ways. You look like a leader any time you spot a problem,
create a plan to solve it, and then execute your plan. You act like a leader when you treat other people with respect and you leave them feeling a bit more positive. And you can become known as a leader when you accept responsibility
and follow through on what you promise.
As we discussed in Chapter 4, the full scope of your personal brand
includes the impression other people have about you, from your clothes to
your technical skills. The leadership component of your brand is particularly important because it’s close to your core values. If you have a strong leadership 35
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Think Like an Entrepreneur, Act Like a CEO
brand, other people will have faith in your ability to deliver at a high level.
Beyond that, when you’re clear about the kind of leader you want to be, your
own standards will help you to make decisions. And once you decide how you
want to be known, it will be easier to focus on your highest priorities.
How to make leadership part of your brand
How people regard your potential to lead is a significant part of what makes
you distinctive. Your particular aura as a leader may have a huge impact on
the kinds of opportunities that come your way. This four-part exercise can
help you define and project a leadership brand that will serve you well:
1) Create your vision of leadership. A simple way to create your
vision of the leader you will become is to compile a list of per-
sonal qualities that you want to develop, and that you want oth-
ers to see in you. Begin your vision by coming up with the names
of leaders whom you admire; they could be teachers, bosses, or
historic figures. When you’ve named three to five leaders, start
your target list of personal qualities by asking yourself:
◆
What characteristics set these people apart?
◆
Which of these characteristics do I want people to use
when they describe me?
◆
Which of these qualities sounds most like me when I’m at
my best?
2) Expand your vision list. Review the following words and
phrases that many people have used to describe effective lead-
ers, and add to your own list any qualities that strike you as
important:
◆
Always growing. The best leaders are constantly learn-
ing something new. It doesn’t have to be job related. Your
development as a leader is tied to your development as a
person, and the growth areas you pursue in your free time
can impact the way you show up on the job.
◆
Self-aware and good at building relationships. Research
by leadership expert Daniel Goleman suggests that strong
leaders are distinguished from the mediocre ones by their
level of “emotional intelligence.” And that means you
start now to Build leadership into Your Brand
37
have self-awareness, like noticing when you’re too angry or
distracted to handle a delicate matter. In his book Social
Intelligence, Goleman says “we are wired to connect” with
one another and by becoming more self-aware we get better
at managing our interactions with others.
◆
Positive. A leader’s attitude has an enormous impact on the
team, and most people are more productive when they are
around positive people.
◆
Engaged. To lead we must be actually focused on the
people and activities around us. Other people can sense
whether we tend to stay present in the moment, which can
influence whether they see us as genuine and charismatic
leaders.
◆
Service oriented. Leadership may begin with the feeling
that you want to help others, perhaps by delivering what
they need or helping them to succeed. The concept of “ser-
vant leadership” emphasizes attributes like kindness, trust,
empathy, and the ethical use of power.
◆
Well organized. Good intentions aren’t enough to deliver
results. To achieve their goals, effective leaders develop
work habits and systems associated with productivity.
◆
Collaborative. There’s a big demand for people who can
work well with others to achieve shared goals. One reason
for this is that innovation is so often the outgrowth of a
collaboration involving people with different views and
skill sets.
◆
Energetic. To be at their best, leaders must manage not
just their time but also their energy. This includes physi-
cal energy, which is linked to exercise, nutrition, and stress
management.
3) Study your vision list. Now that you have a list of the leadership qualities you intend to develop, post it in a conspicuous place and
look at it frequently, including each morning. Because we tend
to remember pictures more easily than words, some people like
to create an icon to represent the characteristics they’re work-
ing on. Bill*, a client, came up with five attributes to define his
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Think Like an Entrepreneur, Act Like a CEO
style of leadership. For each one he created a symbol—a simple
picture—to capture a quality he wanted to develop. Because
he’s an avid biker and was training for a mountainous 100-mile
ride, his symbol for “perseverance” was a triangle, representing
a challenging mountain. Bill could glance at his sketch of those
five icons and instantly recall the characteristics he hoped to
develop as a leader. Eventually, to thank his wife for supporting
his efforts, he had a jeweler find or create each of the icons in a
charm. Then he was reminded of his growth path each time he
looked at the lovely gold bracelet that his wife wore.
4) Act this way. A key to projecting your brand is identifying the