Today, we hosted an e-roundtable with our friends and elementk and the dynamic duo of leadership and career coaches Sheila Goldgrab and Mary Rosenbaum on the topic of reputation management and personal brand building. Sheila and Mary left our audience with one key thought about personal branding…
Be unique. Communicate who you are.
Sounds simple, right? Unfortunately, to be unique and communicate who you are, you actually have to KNOW who you are. Which again, might seem simple, but in my own experience, isn’t. Here are some of the highlights of what I learned today:
When it comes to our reputations (personal or professional), a number of factors are at play:
- your actions and behaviours (what you do and how you do it);
- stereotypes (people’s impressions of you from surface information… your education, your role, your gender, etc.); and,
- your core values.
It’s easier to be “who you are” when you understand your core values. If you’ve never explored your personal values, Sheila and Mary shared an exercise that helps you start to surface them. Here’s what you do:
- Think about a high satisfaction event in your life. What were you doing? Who was with you? Where were you?
- Then, think about why that particular set of circumstances gave you so much satisfaction? What was going on? Why was that particular event so significant?
- Identify your value “clusters”. As you reflect on your answers, see if you can find the “clusters” of words that help you identify a set of values.
You can also do this exercise using an example of an experience that gave you low satisfaction which will also surface your values.
Having explored my own values over many years, I can definitely attest to the “value” in doing this type of exercise. It had such a big impact on me when I started exploring my own values over a decade ago, that I made it a core part of all the programs we run at The Executive Roundtable. I would also say that I’ve found it incredibly helpful to work with coaches to help me clarify my values. There’s nothing like a neutral sounding board to help you get to what’s important to you (and away from what you think you “should” be picking as a value).
In my personal experience, to enjoy your career to its fullest, your values have to be aligned to the work that you do, or else you’ll always feel a rub of discontent.
Happy leading!
