Navigating The New Normal For Personal Brand Leadership

Introduction

We cannot start talking about navigation the new normal for personal brand leadership without talking about personal brand itself. When we talk about personal branding, this is about how you promote yourself, the expertise, the experience and the personality that you want everyone else to see about you. It can be a combination of how the people around you look at you, how the media depicts you, also the idea people get from the information they find about you online and how they perceive you in real life. For example, my daughter Elsie Bowazi is in cake making business running “Daisy’s Sweet Treats and Events” so apart from studying accountancy and information technology, she also bakes cakes and she talks about it all the time. Just reading about her online, you will easily depict where her passion lies, she is so passionate about making cakes among other things she is involved in.

If you don’t have a clear personal brand, then your ability to lead will be limited. That is because those around you won’t know what to make of you, they won’t know what you stand for, what you believe in and they may not even notice you or your work. A personal brand makes it clear of what you stand for and helps you get noticed for your work. Apart for excelling in my work place, personally I am a mentor, coach and motivator. I get involved in weight loss challenges, fitness, career guidance and faith. I have worked with over 1500 people since 2018 to date on weight loss issues, I get to be contacted all the time about weight loss support because that’s part of my personal brand I have promoted, my brand associates with public engagement activities too that include facilitating, motivating, coaching, mentoring and being on panel of discussion in different occasions. I have worked with Women Bankers Association during their annual conference, Annual Managers Conference for Pan African, (ICTAM) IT@50 Conference, Malawi engineering Institution, AGE Africa ICT Day, ITU (MACRA) Inte-Day for Girls in ICT, Malawi technological Hub, Professional Women Network (PROWNET) and The Malawi Polytechnic lady students, SCOM, MBC TV Mother’s day program, Rainbow TV program-“Phenomenal being” as well as “Women Eyes”, Timveni Television, CAN radio, ABC radio among others. In all these, I talk about lifestyle, faith, fitness and career.

Why Personal Brand

As indicated, each one of us has a personal brand, whether you manage it or not. The very fact that you are able to be recommended for hiring in a work place or a business opportunity as an entrepreneur, that forms an impressions of the quality of your work, your work ethic, your interpersonal skills. Your personal brand is right out there but the question is whether you’re making it work for you or not. A lot of people don’t even know they are a brand that exist, the fact that you apply for a job or a business opportunity and they search for your personality even online is a clear indication that they want to know about who you are. Usually the recruiters, potential clients or hiring managers look for information that is associated with your name, the images that are associated with your name, how many of your social media and forum posts can the general public see, what sort of media coverage do you have for your work or personal life, as well as your accomplishments. They would also check about your online reviews for your business if you are an entrepreneur. The question is does it truly represent your best work? What do your mentors or academic advisors say about your skills? If past employers or clients have given you LinkedIn recommendations, is there a theme running through them about reliability, creativity, or some other positive trait?

Create your brand

If you don’t have one, create one, the first step in developing your personal brand is self-awareness. “Find one thing you believe passionately about, have mastered as a skill and capability, the thing you can speak to easily, that which brings you joy, and allows you to operate in authenticity,” says Yates. Once you discover your passion, explore it, learn about yourself, discover your strengths, your weaknesses, skills, values and interest areas. Start to build on it and let the people around you start to learn about your passion and who you are. Don't be afraid to start, it gets better with time says Elsie Bowazi

Differentiate yourself

First impression matters, ensure whatever you do, people should be able to remember you, ensure you leave an impact. In all this, present yourself well because your personality is what attracts and engages people. Make yourself more memorable by sharing your interests and your passions, your skills. The question is what are the hard and soft skills do you possess? How do you impact on others? What can you specifically contribute to the people around you, in your work space even in your business dealings? Leave up to your reputation as it goes before you, what stories are you attached with? Therefore differentiate yourself and position yourself for greatness and you shall not go unnoticed, always work toward leaving an impact in whatever you do.

Make sure you show your skills & everything you are good at, this will bring about opportunities at given times because the people that know you for what you do best will always want you to be part what they are doing. Margaret K Chaika PHD

 Navigating the new normal

The world is changing regardless of whatever industry or geographical location you are in. The Covid-19 pandemic has disrupted everyone in some way – forcing everyone to work from home and juggle both personal and work lives, while driving businesses to suddenly embrace different ways of working. It will take too long to go back to the old way of doing things, and there is no guarantee that we will operate as before therefore there is need to move with the times. You cannot talk about brand leadership without navigating the new normal which is the digital technology considering the changes in the way of doing things.

The outbreak of COVID-19 has caused major disruption and challenges to economies, businesses, communities and people worldwide. But from these challenges also come opportunities and learnings, we have no choice but to adapt to the new normal. This calls for a different approach in the way we position our personal brand and maintain its leadership, It is clear digital communication has become the order of the day, the physical has now become virtual, most of the things that were offline have moved online, there is a shift from traditional communication to digital, unless you position your personal brand in this environment only then can you maintain its leadership. As a public speaker since covid-19 hit, all my private and public engagements that I have been involved in have been done online, all the meetings in my work place are all being done online. Life never stopped but it just migrated into the virtual space. There is need to be able to break through the noise to reach our target audience in a meaningful way.

How do you maintain an engaging, inviting, and unique personal brand leadership in this new normal?

Stay focused

Traditional communication might be something you are used to but the faster u navigate in this current environment the better in order to maintain your brand leadership. You can shun the social media because of different reasons but you may not shun it forever as you will need to promote your brand online if you are to remain a brand leadership and ensure your visibility is always felt online. What matters is how position your brand out there, when promoting your personal brand online ensure to keep your message and content consistent to one niche topic so that it becomes memorable within a specific targeted grouping. The narrower and more focused your brand is, the easier it is for people to remember who you are. And when it comes time to hire a speaker or a new employee, your narrowed-down brand will be what they remember.

Be authentic and live your brand

 As you navigate through the online platforms ensure you are genuine and authentic, do not copy and be what you are not, that’s an easy way to have an original personal brand. Your personal brand should be an easy daily filter that you create content and reach out to your audience with. The audience should easily be able to relate you and your postings. One of the ways you can make building a personal brand difficult on yourself is to separate your brand from your personal life. While certainly doable, it’s easier when initially creating a personal brand to have your actual lifestyle and brand be one and the same. Your personal brand should follow you everywhere you go. It needs to be an authentic manifestation of who you are and amplify what you believe. Your personal brand is not only a reflection of a series of job functions you are involved in like marketing, finance or creative but it is also involves things like giving back to the communities, thoughtful leadership, coaching or mentorship.

Avail yourself and tell your story

Some people think being absent online works better for them as they do not expose their private life to the public, there is no story attached to what they post when they come online. For someone who is promoting his brand leadership will always ensure she or he is telling a story. If your personal brand isn’t telling a story, you’ve already lost half of your potential audience, no one wants to hear you shout about your brand into the social media void, and so create a story around your brand that your audience can engage with says Goldie Chan. You don’t have to be complicated, write something periodically about what you do or just pick your smart phone, take a video, tell your audience about your story, what you believe in, the things you do and ensure the message is catchy, you will leave a mark to remember.

In becoming an achiever people don't see the hard work, dedication, disappointment and sacrifice, all they see is the story that comes out of your effort. I may not be the big brand in the business I am in but I have the tenacity & will power, which enables people to see what is above the iceberg regardless of the struggles says Margaret Kubwalo- Chaika PHD

Maintain consistency

Being consistent is very similar to having a narrow focus, it is much easier to get recognized for one topic if you consistently create content and brand voice around it. Ensure that your personal brand promise stays consistent without fail, let your audience be able to pick up your identify without to look for it. Do not underestimate very tiny inconsistences because that can affect the brand effectiveness. In all this consistency is key whatever type of branding you are creating or championing.

Establish a positive impact

Always remember you are your brand, no matter what your current job is, what project you happen to be working on at any one time or whatever the priority happens to be today, always keep in mind the impact you leave on others and remember all we have is our own reputation and that's our brand. Burn the bridges and hop on others too and grow the community around your brand. Keep a positive attitude and help others, this will help in the growth of your brand in the long run.

In conclusion

Follow examples, navigating the new normal requires learning from others who have already turned their pages. This requires a complete makeover to the digital pages and when you get to the next page be able to learn from others that already migrated from the traditional way of positioning their brand, ensure your brand is well positioned in order to maintain its leadership. People who are interested in personal brand leadership ensure they move with times, they start to market themselves like the influential people that they look up to every day, go online and learn from individual locally and internationally who have managed to position their leading brands.