How (&Why) to build a personal brand? Guidelines for an Introvert, but not only

“I will never post anything on LinkedIn, even commenting on a post is too much for me. I do not understand people that do such things …”. During my work, I meet many very talented leaders, hard-working, empathetic, people who are achieving exceptional results while changing their, and our, world for the better. I call them the ‘silent heroes’. Many of these people would fully agree with this initial quote. Are they appreciated and recognized in their organization? Sometimes yes, but when this happened, it was always connected with some external, ‘vocal’ item like a wise boss or some kind of obvious and self-explanatory feedback “a job well done”. Let’s consider what could be a factor that could transform their recognition from “sometimes” to “almost always”.

Start from Why …

I am far away from calling myself an introvert (those that know me can support this :), but I must admit that for a long time, similar thoughts to “I will never post …” were in my head. That is why, for many years, I continued to be only reactive on sites like LinkedIn. Yet somehow from the other end, like a moth to a lightbulb, I was attracted to try to start building my own personal brand and uncover the somehow related ‘tricks’, even if it doesn’t feel truly natural to me. Over some time answers appeared in my mind to the question “why is it attractive to me?”:

(1) Self and other development is valuable to me;

(2) I would like to continue, to be an expert that is active in education, mentoring, and coaching others;

(3) I love the structure of knowledge, to build ‘a map’ of the leadership domain and to test it through discussion & sharing with others;

(4) To understand a general truth: the most wonderful thing, if not seen, can’t be appreciated.

When I sat back and looked at these answers it was straightforward - personal branding is a tool that is helping/resonating with these things. After this ‘enlightenment’, it was not a matter of “if”, but a matter of “how”, I should do this to feel coherent with myself. I started to plan and decide on ‘my way’ to this.

How …

My way: Using things related to or based on solid academic/research knowledge; long-standing activities that will be a foundation that will help to build my ‘vision’; focus on topics that I am passionate about; helping me with my present role and what I am building now.

What, for sure, is not my way: exposing too much of my private life, details or relations; publishing very often and short content (simplification); using mostly emotions and ‘newspaper headline’ styled content.

What …

There are a huge variety of possibilities to build your professional brand via LinkedIn, or any other channel. For now, I have chosen to:

1. Post once/twice per quarter an article related to management and leadership; 
2. Review each day for 5 minutes what is going on and like/comment only on things that resonate with me;
3. Post items that support building my organization (e.g. job offers, re-share related organizational posts that are interesting and valuable to me/my audience).

Guidelines and next steps

To sum up what might help you in building your personal brand. Even if, at first, it is not your cup of tea:

• Do not force yourself to do anything because others are doing this. Check your motivation - “Start from Why?” (@Simon Sinek thanks for your golden circle :). If you see what it is important, start looking for your way to build your personal brand (go to “How” &“What” later).
• At the beginning, diagnose where you are now with your professional brand. To do this, you can use LinkedIn SSI (social selling index). Here you can see how you are positioned in relation to LinkedIn. You can also see how it is built and use this knowledge to follow on with your “How and What”. Later you can track your progress via this SSI tool.
• You can do much more – be a speaker at professional events, be involved in your employer’s branding within your organization and many more. Many training materials about personal branding can be found through LinkedIn training, movies on TED or simply ask for advice from someone in your network who is good at this.

To be a Leader

The last but most important thing if you are in a wider than ‘individual contributor’ role. As a Leader, you are also accountable for building the brand of your team and organization. You might be surprised at how powerful a tool it is (i.e. sustain people’s motivation, enhance effectiveness & grow people, career development support, building trust). Doing good work is the mandatory condition in each organization but it might not be enough to be appreciated - showing how well you are doing it can also be necessary. Unfortunately, some leaders are more focused on the showing, rather than doing the actual work. I, personally, do not recommend following their approach. 

I understand for some of you, the last point can be questionable - “it is not fair, the work itself is the most important”. True, but people’s perception is as it is. No bad intention in this, sometimes reasons are trivial - a lack of time, stress, a number of parallel activities and a ‘boss’ can’t see things that are so obvious to the doer. Those that are doing both good work and branding it well, have a much bigger chance to achieve more for their teams/domains & themselves.

So, consider your approach, check your SSI, comment if you have different experiences/ideas. As far as I checked this topic is always a little controversial :)