Executive’s communication

The Gallup Management Journal website has an interesting interview with Blaise James, Gallup’s global brand strategist and principal.  “It’s Time to Brand Yourself” explores why now, in this challenging economic climate, personal brand is more critical than ever to your career.  Countless articles and how-to books have been written about personal brand, peddling simple prescriptions for turning anyone into a personal power brand overnight, or sooner.  Mr. James offers a common sense explanation on what a personal brand is, including the critical fact that no one’s brand starts with a blank page: “You already are a brand, whether you know it or not. Your bio, experience, skills, behaviors, appearance, even your name -they all express your brand.”

A personal brand has many elements and reputation is key to a strong personal brand. I like this anonymous quote regarding reputation: “A person’s reputation is a mixture of what his friends, enemies, and relatives say behind his back.” You can add employees, ex-employees, co-workers and classmates. Thanks to LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter, ZoomInfo and whatever else you use to network, there’s a mother lode of information about you to remind your friends and enemies what you were like way back when…  LinkedIn became a new and a far more effective way to check references or to get information about prospective candidates from former colleagues and bosses than the obligatory list of candidate-supplied references of yesterday.

The most critical driver of a personal brand is communication: how well an executive can put into words his or her experience, achievements and personal strengths.  Presentation skills matter, but content matters even more.  And yet, few executives invest the time to develop a personal portfolio that can make the difference between getting a dream job or accepting second best.

“You’re every bit as much a brand as Nike, Coke, Pepsi, or the Body Shop,” wrote Tom Peters in his ground-breaking article on personal brand, published in Fast Company almost two years ago.  Mr. Peters is right when he says that your brand is your responsibility, not your company’s corporate communications. What counts is your communication on every social networking site and everything you do above and beyond your everyday job – from training your daughter’s soccer team to helping at a food bank.