“I’ve learned that people will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel.” Maya Angelou, American Poet
What do we mean by reputation?
Our reputation is a combination of what we do and how we do it; it’s largely driven by emotion and is an expression of how we make people feel. Our reputation precedes us and is built from the smallest gestures everyday in the way we show up, what we do and say and the culture we create as we work with others.
Whether we realize it or not, we all have a personal brand (or reputation) already. This is because our reputation is characterised by what people say about us when we’re not around. So unless people you work with have absolutely nothing to say about you, you already have a reputation and it’s reflected in your personal brand.
If you’re not convinced, think about your favourite consumer brand - you will be able to describe in a few words why this brand ‘speaks’ to you. You’ll associate values to the brand and it will evoke feelings in you, and the same goes for people. If I asked you to describe your boss by just using 3 adjectives you would be able to and those words would reflect how that person makes you feel - that’s their personal brand.
When people think about being intentional about their personal brand they might think this is about personal promotion, but this is a mistake, because we all have a brand - whether we are ‘promoting’ ourselves or not. So this is about crafting your reputation, so it more accurately reflects who you really are, rather than how people might already perceive you to be.
Our reputation is built over time and is very important as it plays a large part in the opportunities we will be offered and the success we enjoy.
‘But my performance should speak for itself!’ ..is a common protest from those resisting the concept of reputation. Sadly, it just doesn’t work like that in the majority of cases in large organisations. You may be fortunate enough to have an outstanding manager who understands your role, recognises your brilliance, and has the time, selflessness and energy to ensure that people know what you do and how well you do it. That’s extremely rare. And without someone else doing that for you - you’ll have it take charge and do it for yourself.
Why does reputation matter to your success?
I’m sure we’ve all heard the saying ‘first impressions matter’ and it’s also true that your reputation matters much more. Your reputation stays with you and is built every day through what you do and how you show up.
We all exist as social beings and rely on others for recognition, engagement and acceptance. A good reputation can smooth our journey, whereas a bad one can cause doors to slam in our faces, testing our self-confidence.
Our reputation determines what opportunities are and aren’t open to us. This is both in the short term, such as being invited to lead projects or present at high stakes meetings, and in the longer term such as our career progression. This is particularly important in large organisations where hiring decisions are usually made by ‘committee’ and the recognition, reward and investment made in individuals is scrutinised by people other than your immediate boss.
So it’s not just who you know that’s important, it’s about what they know about you and how they would describe you to others, that really matters.
In Ann Bastianelli’s Ted Talk on ‘Powerful Personal Branding’ she highlighted 3 important benefits, that she has noticed, of having a strong personal brand:
- You lead more - because people know you more authentically, so they follow you more enthusiastically and they get other people to follow you.
- You win more - because life is really one negotiation after another and once you know what the other person thinks of you, then you can negotiate more confidently.
- You earn more - those with strong personal brands earn 10-25% more every year, so the earlier you invest in your reputation, the more you’ll earn!
How can you spot if you need to work on your personal brand?
There are a number of ‘signals’ that might mean you could benefit in paying more attention to your personal brand including:
Overvaluing productivity (what you do) and undervaluing how other people see you (how you do it).
- Struggling to talk about yourself with clarity and conviction. Not owning your strengths or lacking conviction when asked to describe your achievements.
- Being overlooked or rejected for opportunities or roles where you can see that you are well qualified for the situation.
- Lack of awareness in what other people know about you or how they would describe what it’s like to work with you.
I’ll be the first to admit that I’ve fallen into this trap.
About 15 years ago I was plucked out of middle management ranks in Thomson Reuters and promoted to my first senior role in that company. As part of this promotion, I was invited to join a new career development program designed to accelerate the careers of a small group of women. It was a wonderful opportunity, and I think it helped change the trajectory of my career. And it was also FUN - it involved some fantastic learning experiences, there were management offsite retreats, I was flown around the world to visit different offices and I was exposed to the very senior tier of leadership in the business.
This all sounds wonderful and it was. But I really wasn’t very well prepared for some of the opportunities and situations that I found myself in.
I used to work in the London office and every year the Executive Board would meet there and various people would be asked to present to them to give visibility to various topics. On this occasion I wasn’t asked to present (which was a relief at the time) but I was asked to join what was described as an ‘informal lunch with the board’ along with a group of women from the career development group.
It wasn’t how I imagined - the informal lunch turned out to be a very formal affair in the boardroom, seated and with name places. When I arrived I realised to my horror that I was placed next to David Thomson, Chairman of Thomson Reuters and the most senior person in the room.
That lunch was excruciating, I was nervous yes, but the biggest problem was that I didn’t have anything to say about myself.
Of course I had prepared some canned conversation topics for what I thought would be a casual networking lunch, but David threw me when he said ‘tell me something about yourself’.
I stumbled through an incoherent professional timeline of every job I’d ever done. I hated that entire conversation and I still squirm when I recall it. It was painful, I was profoundly uninspiring and David soon turned to the person on the other side of him and became engrossed in what I can only imagine was a much more entertaining conversation.
What this epic failure showed me was that I just wasn’t prepared for this type of conversation - and it wasn’t just because it was David Thomson (although that level of seniority was definitely daunting) it was more than that. I simply didn’t know how to talk about myself in a way that wasn’t boring, self-deprecating or somehow contrived.
Fundamentally I didn’t know what impression I wanted to make and what I wanted to be known for and that’s why I struggled so much in those situations.
A few months later I was lucky enough to be working with a business coach and we were talking about how I could expand my network and start to build more of a positive reputation with people I didn’t already know.
I told her about my epic failure at that board lunch and she asked me ‘What do you want to be known for? If you don’t have that clear, you’ll struggle to help people understand who you are and you’ll never be able to tell your own story well’
I couldn’t answer this question about what I wanted to be known for, but a memory came back about what I didn’t want to be known for...
..At Lloyds TSB during the late 1980s... The company was acquiring a lot of smaller businesses and expanding at a fast pace. I had risen through the ranks very quickly and ended up running quite a big operational group when I was still in my 20’s. I was young and immature but good at my job. It was a crazy busy time, I had a lot of responsibility, I was running at a million miles an hour and I didn’t stop to think about the impact I was having on the people around me.
I must have created a reputation for being cold, aloof and unapproachable, because when I left to go on maternity leave, I learnt that I had acquired a nickname - everyone apparently knew me as ‘the ice maiden’.
I was shocked.
That wasn’t how I viewed myself and it certainly wasn’t how I wanted to be thought of. So when Maxine, my business coach, asked me what I wanted to be known for, this experience is what came into my mind. I didn’t want to be known as the Ice Maiden and although that had been in a different organisation, I knew those tendencies had stayed with me. If I was going to create a different impression, I would have to be intentional about it.
So - what do you want to be known for? It doesn’t have to be completely fleshed out and beautifully finished, but if you want to shape your career, you also need to shape how you show up each day, as this creates the reality of what you become known for.
By working on your personal brand you can start to craft a way how you want to be perceived - but to be effective this has to be authentic. It has to be a genuine, credible reflection of you. You, at your best. If you start crafting a personal brand that is incredible and inauthentic, people will be able to spot this very quickly and it will feel incongruent for you too.
So where can you start with this work? Here are 3 practical steps you can take:
- Research your Reputation
Ask 5 people you work with to describe you using 3 words or phrases. I suggest you pick a mixture of people who know you well - and not so well, so you get a spread of views. Make this request by email to avoid putting them on the spot, and make it very clear that you want them to be honest.
- Get familiar with your strengths
Start to build a picture of your strengths and how they show up in your work, so you can lean into these and amplify them to lend bench strength to your reputation. You can do this through a variety of ways including:
- Asking a couple of people who know you well and have seen you work at your best to help you see what your strengths are. This is usually done well as a conversation, but be careful not to decry or deny when they point out what you’re good at!
- Try building your self awareness with a tool like the Myers Briggs Personality Test or the StrengthFinder tool, or ask your HR department if you can access one of the many Strength profilers that most large organisations subscribe to. Use the output of these tests as a start for your own thinking, they are not a definitive answer, but they will give you plenty of ideas to think about in terms of your own unique set of strengths.
- Start crafting your Personal Brand
We have a free, practical guide on how to intentionally build your Personal Brand, to receive it just email meThis email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. .
The good news in all of this, is that the skills and awareness needed to curate a positive reputation can be learned.
At Nkuzi Change we work with clients who are keen to develop - as they care about the quality of their relationships and their leadership. We help organisations unlock the full potential of their people through coaching that is focused and directed, inclusive and scaleable.
Learn more at www.nkuzichange.com
And connect with me and my co-Director Kate on LinkedIn: Elise Finn and Kate Franklin
