'Brand is a Leader's Essence'

I recently met Todd Emaus through a longtime mutual friend (Thank you Anthony Ronga ). I was struck by his openness, sincerity, and his earnest desire to connect. When our conversation moved to what we both did (he partners with founders and startup leaders to help them navigate the ups and downs of their company-building journey, including leaders at companies like Twitter, Slack, Bandcamp, Iterable, Firstbase, Magic Spoon, Snapdocs, and Tilt - wow!), we enthusiastically started to explore the intersection of culture, identity and brand.

Todd is an empathetic realist -- he sees that leadership is often lonely, and he knows that to break that loneliness, leaders must first deeply explore who they are, what he refers to as their essence. I completely agree.

When I shared our philosophy of intrinsic branding, Todd lit up, and started sharing how it was in alignment with the way he works with leaders.?

I didn’t want to keep it all between us, and I wanted to continue this conversation about BRAND AND... (a new little series I'm creating and sharing with you) going, so I thought I would share it with you…

I asked him to tell us a little bit more about how he sees brand and how it intersects with his work on culture.

Emily: In your opinion, what makes for a resonant brand?

Todd: When I talk with leaders about culture, we always explore their essence first.

Their essence is this inner sense of identity that makes them a unique and distinctive organization. Brand is the same thing, just perhaps more externally focused and often a more polished and packaged representation.

Brand is a representation of the values that an organization holds and the vibe they want to convey so that customers, employees, and other stakeholders can experience it. Brand and culture act as the connective tissue to help a person understand whether an organization is aligned with the type of person that they are and with what is important to them.

Emily: I could not agree more. So, in your experience with leaders, organizations, and culture, how much does a leader need to embody a brand?

Todd: If they want the brand to authentically resonate then they need to see themselves as a bearer of the brand. The way they communicate and the way they lead must flow from essence or else risk coming across as incongruent.

I've seen leaders who do this well and their team, their customers, their investors lean in because of it. I've also seen the flipside. When a leader acts counter to the organization’s essence - whether brand or culture - it creates skepticism in others because the things that matter most, what the organization truly stands for, become murky.

Then trust erodes and growth stalls. I guess that's all to say, if the leaders don't live it then they miss out on a primary point of leverage.

Emily: So true! We once had a client, a COO, ask what he could do to make sure we were successful as their brand strategy and messaging team. I told him he needed to go all in with the brand language, message and elements we came up with. I encouraged him to use the language, to believe in the project and to share that enthusiasm with those he influenced. That approach is, by far, the best way to brand – by embodying it yourself.

But what happens when an established leader takes over a brand? Should she revisit the brand foundations or roll with what is existing?

Todd: For a leader taking over a brand, I'd encourage her to understand how we arrived where we are today and to validate its resonance before carrying it forward untouched. To start, I'd suggest a listening tour of both 1) employees who have actively shaped the brand in recent years and 2) employees who have been around a long time to understand how they've seen things evolve. In particular, she should holding that frame of "What is our essence? And does our brand convey that today?"

Brand and culture can, will, and should evolve depending on the current leaders so I do think there's a normal expectation that a new leader would influence some evolution of the brand in the medium-term, but short-term I'd encourage them to focus on understanding and validation before any change is attempted.

Emily: This is great advice. A listening tour is the wisest way for a new leader to begin leading. Lead first by listening – and not just with your mind, but with your heart and intuition, too, I think that’s what you’re talking about when you mention “resonance.” That’s a word we use a lot in our work.?

I've had clients at huge brands, and at small ones, begin with listening tours. In small orgs, that can be sitting down one-to-one, with each person. In either case, this approach is always a huge success.

Given the idea of resonance, where do you think branding needs to live in an organization?

Todd: At the end of the day, the brand - just like culture - lives in the leadership of the company. In the early stages, this is the founder(s). Later, its center of gravity tends to shift to an executive or leadership team. They are the ones who must instill the essence of the organization into all of the work that they do.

Of course, there might be other people who are responsible for the 'doing' of building the brand (i.e. a marketing or comms team).

But the 'being' of the brand, the living of the brand, starts at the top.

EMILY: Completely agree! Thanks, Todd!

As owner and lead brand strategist at Root + River I think about brand All. The. Time.

To be honest, it's a relief to get those thoughts out of my head and into conversation with other smart, kind and intelligent people.

Brand And... is a series where we talk about the intersection of brand and...whatever! Brand impacts, is born of, and is intertwined with so many things from the personal to the professional, from art to science, from psychology to sociology. The possibilities are limitless! And so are the conversations.

If you'd like to have a Brand And...conversation, send me a message.