We all have favorite brands. The logos we recognize instantly, a jingle always in our head, or a familiar taste and we can instantly name the company. But what does it mean to have a brand or be a brand?
Simply put, a brand is the way a company, organization, or individual is perceived by those who experience it. It is the recognizable feeling a product or business evokes. Brands live in our minds. They live in the minds of everyone who experiences them: employees, investors, the media, and, perhaps most importantly, customers.
Think about your most recent purchase. Why did you choose it? Was it because you had past experiences with it? Did it make you feel a certain way? Or maybe you stayed away from a brand because of a previous bad experience.
Look down at your phone. What type of phone is it? And why did you buy that exact model? When you think about it, it’s just a phone that makes calls, allows you to text, surf the web, and read. Any phone on the market can do that. But why did we choose the brand we have? Why do we repeatedly buy the same phone over, and over, and over again? It’s the brand!
Jeff Bezos said it best, "Your brand is what people say about you when you leave the room."
And then it hit me. What about for leaders?
What is my leadership brand? This is the question we need to be asking ourselves.
What is it that we want people to say about us and our leadership abilities when we leave the room? This is such a simple concept. Your leadership brand is not what you say, but what you do.
Now some might say they don’t care what people say about them or their leadership brand. But guess what? That stance is a leadership brand.
The point is, everyone has a leadership brand whether you realize it or not. Every day, team members are thinking and talking about your brand. They notice what you are doing, how you are doing it, and whether or not they want to follow you.
Once you begin exploring your leadership brand, you are on your way to becoming the leader you are meant to be.
Until next time…I’m Marty, make every minute count.
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