The power of personal branding

Leadership today is no longer simply about giving instructions and expecting people to follow. It is about persuasion, trust, and the ability to convince your boss, your peers, your team, your clients, and others to believe in an idea and move in the same direction. For women leaders, there is an additional balancing act. How can you appear confident without being perceived as intimidating? How do you demonstrate expertise without sounding arrogant? How do you become visible without appearing like you’re self-promoting?

The Filipina CEO Circle (FCC), the premier network organization for corporate female leaders in the Philippines with about 80 lady executive members led by president Patricia May Siy, recently invited Jorg Dietzel as its guest speaker. Author of The Next Big Asian Brands, he spoke about the importance of personal branding. According to Mr. Dietzel, a brand is not simply a logo. It is the expectation people have before they meet you and the memory they keep afterward.

Today, people often Google you before they meet you. They already form an initial impression from your LinkedIn profile, your social media presence, an article you wrote, or even something someone else has said about you. Personal brands go far beyond what appears online. It is reflected in every e-mail , every conversation, meeting, presentation you made. It is also reflected in how well you do your job. Are you simply passing information and acting like a mailbox? Or do you pre-process information, think critically, add value, and help solve problems? As Mr. Dietzel pointed out, a personal brand is not something you create. Rather, it is revealed and reinforced through consistent action.

Mr. Dietzel presented important questions under the personal brand framework to help us understand personal branding:

WHO? Who are you? Not your title. Not your position. Not the company printed on your business card. But what do you represent? Integrity? Financial discipline? Building people? Mentorship? Excellence?

WHY? What drives you? Your values, purpose, and beliefs. What is important to you?

WHAT? What unique value do you create? Not your skills, but your experience, perspective, background, curiosity, your values.

HOW? How do people experience you? Are you reliable? Creative? Calm under pressure? Strategic? Generous with your time? A good listener? This becomes your brand experience.

WHERE? Where should people encounter you? LinkedIn? Speaking engagements? Writing? Networking? Teaching? Mentoring? Visibility follows clarity.

Building a personal brand involves an interesting challenge. There is the need to be relevant enough to fit in yet distinctive enough to stand out, and still remain authentic. Personal brands are ultimately built on trust, and pretending to be someone you are not is exhausting. If the image projected is disconnected from who you really are, the inconsistency will show.

So, how is trust built? Through consistent behavior: keeping promises, being reliable, helping others, solving problems, and showing up. In the reputation equation, he pointed out that visibility gets attention, credibility earns trust, and consistency keeps it.

The chief executive officer is a brand’s touchpoint, he emphasized. People increasingly want to know who is behind the company. What does the CEO believe in? How does the company treat its employees? Does leadership communicate honestly? The behavior of its leaders becomes part of the company’s story. Leaders themselves have become part of the brand narrative. He gave examples of how closely a corporate brand can become connected with the personality, behavior, and public presence of its leader.

During the session, we were asked to break up into pairs and describe the person beside us. My seatmate was Vogue Concepts CEO Louie Camara Scott. I saw her as elegant, gentle and kind. She was pleasantly surprised by the description of gentle. However, how we see ourselves and how others see us may not always match. Mr. Dietzel said: “Customer perception is reality.” Surprisingly, some women were actually more self-critical, so they work even harder and exert more effort. No wonder they are CEOs and women achievers!

The FCC women have already built their individual brands. FCC creates a platform where that collective credibility becomes an asset for the next generation of Filipina leaders.

After a job title changes or a business card is replaced, your name remains. When people hear your name, will they remember not just your achievements but who you really are? The most important brand? Your name. The brand called YOU.

The views expressed herein are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect the opinion of her office as well as FINEX.

 

Flor G. Tarriela was former chairman of the Philippine National Bank and the first Filipina vice-president of Citibank, former undersecretary of Finance and currently serve as director and board adviser to publicly listed companies. She is a gardener and environmentalist.

The power of personal branding
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