How do you become -- and stay -- more competitive in this rapidly changing world?

You develop a strong personal brand.

To fully understand and embrace the power of personal branding, the first question you should ask yourself is: Who cares? That’s not meant to be flip. Rather, to urge you to think about why -- and how -- your personal brand will attract people to you and why it will lead you to find opportunities that align with your brand.

What a personal brand is -- and isn’t:

Any brand -- corporate or personal -- is what you put forth as an expectation of the experience people will have with you. A personal brand gives you the ability to stand out from the competition in a way you design.

Everyone has a brand -- by design or by default. If you go through life and your career and you’re not mindful of the way you’re perceived -- if you’re not consciously designing it -- then the marketplace may do it for you.

A brand is proactive. It is a way to be intentional about how you’re perceived and what you offer others. Branding also gives you the ability to articulate your values. Presenting yourself in a way that is consistent with those values provides credibility. A brand strategy gives you the ability to anchor your message, your behavior, and your online presence.

Its goal is to influence, inspire, and impact others. And, very importantly for today’s competitive world, a strong brand gives you the ability to identify your target audience and align with what that audience needs and wants.

Most of us go through our careers with the intention of doing good work, adding value to an organization, and contributing to a team effort by using our skills and inherent talent. All of that is well and good, but we may find ourselves missing out on opportunities because we haven’t been intentional about aligning with decision-makers in our field, and presenting ourselves as someone they’d want to align with.

More importantly, we can no longer count on our talent alone to provide the all-important competitive edge. The assumption that talent alone will trump anything else is what I often refer to as the “passivity syndrome.” It could be fatal in tomorrow’s workplace, where certain “talents” may be considered commodities, and certain jobs will be viewed as easily filled by automation.

How are you staying competitive in your workplace?