7 Tips to Amplify Your Personal Brand and Be Your Own Best Advocate At Work

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"I was getting my job done, outperforming my expected targets, remotely collaborating with my colleagues, and working extra hours. Since everyone was working from home, facing all these challenges and going through a difficult time, I wanted to do my best to support my team. But I ended up taking far more work than I could manage, and I stretched myself too thin. I thought at some point, my manager would see and give me more resources. I thought all my hard work over a crazy last year would reflect on my annual performance. But I was so disappointed to see that it didn't. I did not get a raise that I had expected. I did not receive the appreciation that I would have liked. Now, I am stressed, tired and demotivated and I have more work than ever. And I want to know how I can manage my growth better. How can I build my brand within my organization so that I get noticed for the work I am doing?

I heard this painful confession from a client during our coaching session last month. Her annual annual performance review had left her disappointed. The arduous 2020 had taken a toll on her. She had invested huge amounts of physical, mental, and emotional energy to lead her team through the crisis. And yet, at the beginning of 2021, she felt unrewarded, overlooked, unsupported and underappreciated. And it was time to change this.

What Does It Mean to Self-Advocate?

Self-advocacy means you take charge of your career and leadership within your company. It means you communicate and speak up for yourself and build collaborative relationships that support your growth and well-being.

3 Reasons to Take Charge, Build Your Brand and Be Your Own Best Advocate at Work

1. You create more and better opportunities for yourself. By managing your brand, your visibility, your perception within your company, you set yourself up for success. When you communicate for yourself, you make sure that your work doesn't go unnoticed.
2. You reduce your stress and exhaustion. By speaking up for yourself, drawing healthy boundaries and asking for what you need, you can better manage your workload. You can choose projects which bring out your best strengths and gives you a chance to shine.
3. You increase your motivation and productivity. The combination of great opportunities and right balance, can boost your intrinsic motivation to do better. You save time and increase your efficiency and productivity.

Where to Begin? 8 Tips to Start Building and Amplifying Your Brand and Become Your Best Advocate at Work.

1.Know your Strengths.

This is the first step to build your brand and becoming your advocate. When we are aware of our strengths, we can use them to advance our own and organizational goals. We can proactively build our reputation around those strengths. Being self-aware also helps us reducesome of that self-doubting and self-sabotaging inner voice.

2. Speak Up and Share

Let people know you have a voice and you are capable of using it. Nudge yourself to speak up at meetings (whether virtual or face to face). Prepare an insightful question or an update to share.

When you feel like you have nothing new to contribute, you can use your words to amplify those of another team member. Let's say for instance, a female colleague shared a great suggestion. You can use your turn to highlight her suggestion and give her credit. This makes your voice heard, strengthens your relationship, and also helps your colleague.

3. Ask. Ask. Ask.

Don't hesitate to ask. Get in the habit of asking for help, asking for suggestions and recommendations, asking for feedback, and asking for the opportunities which help you grow.

If you are a senior leader, you can ask for the opportunity to chair committees or events, mentor juniors or get included on the board. If you are relatively junior, you could ask for training and coaching, mentoring and sponsorship and consistent feedback to help you grow.

4. Learn to Say No and Set Boundaries

Setting healthy boundaries at work are essential. This ensures that people don't overstep or take your work for granted. Build up your 'No' muscle so that you don't become the one doing everyone else's work. Remember, when you say 'No' to what is not a priority for you, you are able to say 'yes' to the projects and opportunities that are right for you.

The demanding last year, has made us all support each other, and that's great. However, make sure that you are not draining yourself to help everyone else. To produce your best work, you will have to sharpen your focus, say 'no' a few times, and save your energy and talent for the things that matter.

5. Highlight your achievements

Don't hesitate to share your tiny and large accomplishments that you make every week. Send in an email to the entire team, including your leaders, to let them know how everyone worked hard to achieve a client's deadline or to move forward on a certain project.

At the next virtual team meeting, instead of replying "I am doing well / I have been good" to the question "How are you doing?", say, "I am feeling great because we managed to sign in that new client." You could also express your gratitude to your team or for your manager for their support. Including them in your story, will help you feel less awkward about speaking good for yourself.

6. Expand your internal and external networks

"If you want to go fast, go alone. If you want to go far, go together." Goes an African proverb. In the context of work, I would say, if you want to go fast and far, definitely go together with people.

Being your best advocate also means putting together your team of people who can advocate for you when you are not in the room. Building your brand is not always about speaking about yourself. It is about building strong and trusted relationships with people around you. It is about helping them grow, so that they can help you grow.

Don't miss out on scheduling regular 1:1 meeting with your manager and stakeholder and share progress. Have regular catchups with people across different sectors from your organization. This builds your visibility. Attend external webinars / online events to expand your network.

7. Create time for your personal growth and wellbeing

No matter what you do, don't forget that making yourself a priority is the ultimate step to be your best advocate. How can you perform at your best level if you are not feeling your best? And how can you feel your best, if you are also not taking the best care for yourself.

It is understandable that we get bogged down by life and work responsibilities. People often argue that they don't have time to sleep, exercise, have proper lunch, or work on their professional development because they are "so busy" at work. However, imagine how much more productive you would be in everything else if you first created a strong foundation for yourself.

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Advocating for yourself and building your 'Leadership Brand' is not a one-day task. It is a long-term project like a marathon. We can't do everything at once. We got to pace ourselves, do one little thing every single day. Don't let yourself fall into the "All or Nothing" trap. We have to be consistent and perseverant. Above all, we got to believe in ourselves that we are worthy of growth, we are worthy of collaboration and we are worthy to be seen. When you begin to feel guilty or awkward about doing this, know that someone somewhere is looking at how you take charge of your career and feeling inspired to take charge of theirs.

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That's all for today. Thank you for reading this till the very end.

Please do share your thoughts and tips on how do you advocate for yourself at work? Please share your success stories and challenges in building a brand for yourself.

As always, I would love to hear your stories and struggles. Together, we can help each other become BOLD, BRAVE and BRILLIANT.

If you would like to share a thought, ask me a question or learn more about my Coaching and Training Programmes on the topics of Powerful Personal Branding, Leadership, Communication, Confidence and High Performance, then drop me an email at [email protected]. I would love to hear from you.

With best wishes from,

Nidhi