How Defining Your Leadership Brand Drives Team Results

Do you have a leadership brand? Do you know what one is?

Let’s explore why it’s important and if you’re truly committed to this process and want to make the most of it, read to the end of this blog for an exceptional offer.

When you start a business, one of the things every business coach says is that you need a brand. This isn’t just a logo and colour scheme. It’s integral to what your business stands for and is known for. It’s the thing that helps your customers connect with you and get on board with whatever you are selling.

Leaders need a brand too. Just like a business, you are attracting employees, developing them, and ideally, growing them through your business to bigger and better things. You need to pay attention to how you manage this brand. You want people (especially those who work with you) to speak favourably about your leadership brand when you are not in the room. This builds your leadership reputation and reinforces your leadership identity.

Clarifying and writing down your brand is an exercise we have recently added to the WoW Sponsors kickoff meeting. It is something you identify early and then spend the entire program, and the rest of your career focussing on it to bring it to life. You aren’t a participant in WoW (yet) but I wanted to share some of it with you all the same.

So how is this useful to you?

WoW is focused on teaching leaders who are dealing with high expectations and ambiguity, and on the brink of burnout how they can build a better team culture. This involves new ways of thinking and also, making space for change. It is a core element of authentic leadership development.

Anything that can help you get clear, focus and STOP doing unnecessary things is a positive according to our participants. When you identify and clarify your leadership brand, it helps you to STOP focussing on trying to be all things to all people – and reduces the pressure you are under through creating clarity (the opposite of ambiguity). You can spend a lot of energy not knowing who you are and what you want for your team. Defining your leadership values is essential to this process.

Another benefit of having a brand is when people are deciding if they want to join or stay in your team, they know what you stand for and can make an informed decision. How many times have you joined a new business and thought that you were going to be working for someone, only to find out it wasn’t quite what you had hoped for? This is an opportunity to prevent that from happening to you.

This might sound like a risk, right? Wrong.

I hear you saying “what if people see my brand and don’t want to work with me?” In this era of high talent skill shortage and high attrition, it’s better to find this out early and not have to rehire within a year or have to go through the stress of dealing with people who aren’t a great fit for your team. Believe me – it takes up more time and energy that you don’t have to fix these things.

A side benefit is that once you know what type of leader you want to be, your decision load is simplified. You can use your brand framework as a yardstick for whether or not you do or don’t do things. The simple method would be to simply ask yourself – “based on my leadership brand, does this align with the type of leader I want to be, is there a way we could tweak this situation and align it”, or “It doesn’t align so I am not going to take that path”. So many of our leaders in WoW talk about how they saw their brand on the wall next to their screen and it helped them choose – without agonizing over it.

If you clearly know who you are and what you stand for, and communicate it effectively, others become clear too. You become perceived as more reliable and predictable (which builds trust) as you uphold your brand. This is the essence of values based leadership.

So how do you create a leadership brand?

This is a really interesting Leader Lab that we run but in order to get you started, grab a piece of paper and a pen, and answer the questions below. If I can give you one tip, it would be not to rush the answers. Give yourself some time to mull them over, make some notes, and then revisit them. If you’d like to take advantage of a great free coaching session to look at and examine your brand. The questions are in two parts – looking inside yourself and then looking more toward your team.

Building a strong leadership brand requires a commitment to authenticity and a deep understanding of your executive presence. To truly stand out, you must cultivate your influence, emotional intelligence, and communication skills. Your personal branding should reflect your core leadership qualities, vision, and values. By focusing on networking and mentorship, you can enhance your reputation and credibility. If you are looking to formalize this, consider an authentic leadership training program or an authentic leadership course to help build your leadership values list.