Newsletter - March 2009
Personal Branding: Myths and Opportunities
March 12, 2009 - Surinder Shalimar Singh
It is no doubt that a good leader, who is at the same time a skilled and experienced communicator, is an asset for the organization. But what happens when the skilled communicator, consciously or otherwise, becomes a brand along with that of the organization?
In the ever-increasing list of things "brandable," one of the most talked about is personal branding - or the leader as a brand. Does it mean that leaders have now seriously worked up the courage to really assert themselves - or is it just another hyped expression of the Big Brother economy where it is only a question of being in the limelight? One thing is certain, that personal branding, like so many other new angles on management, opens up for both opportunities and pitfalls, and at the same time leads to some special challenges in the many situations where individual brand becomes linked with the company brand itself.
What is a brand?
Whether we talk about leaders, soft drinks or airline companies, there are some fundamental premises for the establishment of a brand. As a starting point, brands are a coherent set of symbols and attitudes that signal a particular identity and differ from others. Branding is based on:
- The creation of visual symbols that invite recognition and repetition
- Expressions of a promise of special content, quality and consistency
- Indication of affiliation to some of the stakeholders
- Indication of dissimilarity to other brands
In spite of many shades in debate, branding involves the expectation of a uniform, coherent and distinct experience. But when leaders become brands, they stand for something special, which is often symbolized in specific qualities, talents or approaches. Some people argue that artists, intellectuals and gurus have always been brands in themselves, as their success depended on their ability to stage and deliver distinctiveness, experienced by others as relevant and emotionally attractive. But now executives are hopping on that "brandwagon.”
When Jack Welch of GE became the ultimate, powerful management brand of the nineties, it was because he created an entire mythology on his special style of management driven by hard hitting facts such as "changing the game,” "face reality and adapt" and "control your own destiny.” There are many ways to create an executive brand, but common to them all is that they appeal to our feelings and create strong preferences - contrary to leaders who merge with the wallpaper and are recognizable only by the generic qualities inherent in leadership.
The duality of a leader: Personal brand and corporate brand
Unlike other types of personal brand, leaders possess a particular duality, that is, they represent not only themselves but also others - the company and the employees they lead. To a leader, personal branding is a question of creating meaningful interaction with the corporate brand. In many cases, it can also be argued that the leader as a brand is rarely created on the merit of his personal qualities and talent, but rather grows out of the status, prestige and attention bestowed on the leader. Although the leader's role has been discussed for decades, branding adds a new dimension which enters actively into the leader's identity and ability to express it: Who is he? What does he stand for? How does he stage himself?
Concurrently with growing interest in personal branding, there has been growing orientation toward corporate branding where the entire business, including management, becomes the starting point for the brand. This entails an added challenge to the personal branding of a leader because he becomes a key symbol for the business as a brand and also, the credibility of the business as a brand puts special expectations on the leader who in his personality and style contributes to supporting the core ideas of the business. When the interaction of personal branding and corporate branding is a success, the leader becomes a strong and vibrant symbol of the company and not only a passive expression of corporate values.
It is well documented that a corporate brand plays a key role to attract and retain relations with important stakeholders - from new employees to investors and cooperative partners. A strong executive brand which supports the corporate mission may create more impact, credibility and substance for the total corporate brand. The leader can, at the same time, be instrumental in challenging and renewing the brand through his personality, which like so many strong institutions, risk being stuck in established expectations. Infosys and HLL are Indian examples of strong personal brands which have supported corporate identity and at the same time extended the limits of the brand. The well-planned succession process in both companies has shown how the executive brand is supported by a strong corporate brand, too. Conversely, there are certain situations where personal branding becomes destructive and obstructs the leader's ability and will to orient themselves towards corporate needs. When the leader is occupied with nurturing and developing his own personal brand, the needs of the business suffers and the leader loses his sense of need for the continued development of the corporate brand.
The restlessness and lack of loyalty which have been identified in the criticism of "The Cult of the CEO" and "The Global MBA Culture,” proves that exaggerated focus on personal branding is risky, where the interest for own market value and future employability overshadows the interest for value creation in the company. But at the same time the majority of employees expect their leader to express what the enterprise rather than he himself stands for. Some employees are appalled by an exaggerated leadership cult, while others feel that it does not leave any room for their own development of the corporate brand. However, a great deal depends on the corporate situation and culture. Where many newly established enterprises and strong entrepreneurs survive only on account of the leader's personal brand, there are just as many well-established enterprises where a strong personal brand may be seen as an expression of abuse of power and exaggerated vanity.
As emphasized by Wally Olins, branding creates fundamentally more options because strong brands - people as well as companies - will feature prominently and choose a platform from where they act and relate to the world. This creates more diversity and inventiveness, because it is no longer enough just to be a leader who adjusts to a specific type of company, but it is also necessary to find one's own personal and specific expression of leadership which is created in the chemistry between enterprise and personality. This contains exciting opportunities for our understanding of the emotional and expressive sides of management which, in many ways, have been locked up inside organizational forms, managerial roles and institutionalized adjustment. If personal branding can be instrumental in the creation of greater personal courage and diversity in leaders of the future, then let it be welcome - even if the efforts to create personal branding, just like any other branding, may run the risk of ending in staged, insane self-promotion.
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