Executive Branding:
Creating a Personal Leadership Brand
By Karen Lam, Principal Consultant, Compass International, LLC

In a world full of white noise and confused messaging, how can executives communicate with impact and integrity? Very simply: through personal branding. Executive coach and communications trainer Karen Lam explores how personal branding for leaders can increase mindshare among key audiences as much as branding for products can increase market share.

The chief executive of your company probably gives speeches, conducts media and analyst interviews, and goes on countless visits to customers and partners. What rate of return do these communication activities generate? What tangible impact do your CEO’s communication efforts have on your company’s bottom line?

Return on Communication

Benefits of Personal Branding

The Personal Branding Process

Step One: Consider the Corporate Brand
Step Two: Articulate Your Personal Brand
Step Three: Adjust Your Brand
Step Four: Live Your Brand

Successful Leader Brands

Return on Communication

In other words, what is your CEO’s rate of Return on Communication? Building on the familiar measurement of ROI (Return on Investment), high ROC (Return on Communication) means that with every interaction, the speaker:

	meets one or more strategic communication objectives (e.g. changes perceptions, leads to action, informs or persuades)
	delivers clear messages that the audience understands and remembers
	enhances or reinforces his/her personal brand as well as the company’s brand

Executive branding is one effective way to ensure that Return on Communication is high – namely that time and money spent on the communication effort actually translates into the desired business outcome.

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Personal Branding

The problem is that senior executives often communicate without making much of an impression. While they may do a decent job, they remain undifferentiated from other speakers in their market space. They stay out of trouble but don’t actually say anything memorable. Or, they may be remembered for all the wrong reasons – a bad media quote, poor slides, annoying body language. Worst case: their communication is mistrusted and misinterpreted, achieving exactly the opposite of what they intend.

Personal branding for executives is a new solution to this problem, and offers us a fresh perspective on issues of leadership and communication. The business reasons for executive branding are clear: studies show that the CEO’s reputation accounts for around 50% of the overall reputation of the company1. This means that no company can afford to leave to chance the way that its CEO is perceived by the public.

Research also shows that the CEO’s personal brand has tremendous impact on employee loyalty and resilience. A brand can be defined as the premium that shareholders are willing to pay for the stock or the product. In tough times, the CEO’s personal brand often makes the difference between devoted employees and fair weather friends.

While we know a lot about how to brand companies and products, few methodologies exist to help leaders brand themselves. Why should leaders go to the trouble of branding themselves? Let’s look at what personal branding achieves for executives:

	Differentiation: A personal brand differentiates you from others – it enables you to stand out among your competition and therefore be more memorable.
	Consistency: A personal brand ensures that you are consistent – that is, reliably the same in most situations, which creates trust with key audiences. People know what to expect of you, and you communicate from the same platform regardless of circumstance, whether announcing good news or bad news.
	Clarity: When you have a brand, you stand for something. An executive’s personal brand leverages the power of clear non-verbal messages. It also helps you determine the verbal messages you want to convey.
	Authenticity: Lastly, personal branding allows a leader to speak with authenticity. Your personal brand communicates who you really are. When leaders speak with sincerity, they are much more persuasive than when they speak the party line. Communication feels effortless, not phony.

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The Personal Branding Process

As people, we already have a personal brand. What do people feel when you walk into the room? And what do you WANT them to feel? Successful branding makes the answers to these two questions coincide -- your key audiences think about you the way you want them to think.

The executive branding process that we explore here has four steps:

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Step One: Consider the Corporate Brand

The more senior the executive, the closer the fit needs to be between corporate brand and personal brand. CEOs should consider themselves an extension or an embodiment of the corporate brand. What does your corporate brand stand for? How does your CEO’s brand fit within it? If the branding does not fit, odds are that this CEO’s tenure will not be a lengthy one.

Conversely, some CEOs have star power and are extremely media-genic. In this case, the challenge is to ensure that the CEO’s personal brand contributes to the corporate brand rather than distracting from it. Personal branding should ensure that spotlight is put on the larger mission of the company, rather than on the personality of the CEO (who may after all leave the company).

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Step Two: Articulate Your Personal Brand

How do you articulate and identify your personal brand? Here we will explore a unique methodology using archetypes – the themes and stories that we find in art, literature, music and of course in business. Archetypes tell a story, and all business communication involves the telling of stories. An annual report, after all, is a story. A press release is a story. The utility of archetypes is that they tell the maximum story with a minimum of effort.

The theory of archetypes stems from the work of psychologist C. G. Jung. Jung theorized that we have all the archetypes within us in varying degrees. For the purposes of personal branding, it is helpful to focus on one or two major archetypes that explain our core motivation and strategies. Here are twelve common archetypes that we find in business. They are based on the work of Carol S. Pearson and Margaret Mark3:

Let’s look at some well-known examples. US President George W. Bush is arguably most effective when he takes on the Regular Guy persona. He is at his best when he can be unaffected and down-to-earth, one of us. He is ineffective when he tries to come across as the intellectual Sage. Al Gore, on the other hand, is probably a true Sage brand. His biggest mistake in the Bush-Gore election campaign was to downplay his intellectual capacity and curiosity. Because he was never truly himself, all the audiences noticed was his inability to relax and to connect with them. The ability to make each person in the audience feel individually spoken to and heard is the hallmark of a Lover brand – and Bill Clinton personified this to the extreme. Hillary Clinton, on the other hand, is a true Ruler brand – fully in control and gifted at creating structure and stability. While Ruler brands can be autocratic, highly evolved Rulers create space and exert appropriate leadership.

What about people in business? Apple Computer is an Outlaw brand (“Think Different”), and its CEO Steve Jobs is a Creator/Outlaw brand. The close alignment in this case between the company and its leader works extremely well. Another Outlaw brand with a flavor of Warrior is Hong Kong entrepreneur Richard Li, whose career has been built on taking risks and turning away from convention. Oracle Software is a Warrior brand, as is its CEO, Larry Ellison. Executives who work in healthcare may exemplify elements of the Caregiver brand.

What archetype is dominant for your company? What archetype is dominant for you as an individual? During the executive coaching process, we use assessment instruments and coaching questions to uncover an executive’s dominant archetype. This archetype forms the basis of his or her personal brand.

Contemplating your archetype is another way of asking questions such as these:

	What do you value above all else? (and therefore, what do you represent?)
	What is your call to action?
	What is your greatest fear?
	What is unique about you?
	What kind of story are you living?

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Step Three: Adjust Your Brand

Once you have articulated your brand, check for congruence. Ask other people, does this brand evoke you? You should get close to unanimous agreement from your key audiences. Is your brand aligned with your actions and words? For example, one CEO client of a technology company I worked with was refreshingly humble and took it upon himself to help set up the training room. Given that he was trying to incorporate more Ruler elements into his personal brand, my question to him was, “does this type of hands-on behavior enhance your Ruler branding?” In his case, the answer was clearly No. This is an example of an executive’s actions being out of alignment with his desired branding.

Are there conflicts within your archetypes? For example, if you have a strong Regular Guy streak, you probably believe in the equality of all people and fear standing out or being perceived as “putting on airs”. Does this belief prevent you from stepping fully into a Ruler role when your leadership calls for it? Or does the Lover aspect of your personality conflict with the Warrior’s need to achieve and master?

Finally, ask yourself, Is this really who I want to be? How can I aim even higher? What quirks and oddities of mine can I incorporate into my branding? Most of us spend our adult lives trying to conform. This is a chance to celebrate our uniqueness and differences.

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Step Four: Live Your Brand

As you implement your brand, you will find that you have some clear strengths and liabilities. Your brand WILL alienate some people, and from a branding point of view, that is a good thing. Strong brands don’t try to be all things to all people. In our personal and professional life, it takes courage to make that statement a reality.

Here is a strategy that we recommend to our executive clients. Your brand should be a strong “stake in the ground” -- the stronger the better. Each archetype presents both opportunities and traps. A Warrior leader can be very powerful, but may not create the most nurturing of work environments. A Creator leader can be invigorating to follow, but may not be the most structured of thinkers. The strategy should be to mitigate your liabilities by flexing your behavior to meet the needs of the people and groups who are important to your business.

For example, what archetypes are dominant among your key audiences? (e.g. your customers; your employees) If you deal frequently with Wall Street or financial audiences, quite likely you are dealing with Ruler archetypes. If you are not a Ruler brand yourself, you will need to learn strategies and skills to meet the needs of this constituency. Ruler communication behaviors are succinct, structured, and message-driven. Good Ruler communicators pause often (with no vocalized pauses such as “um”), and move deliberately, with few micro-movements.

By noticing your impact on your key audiences, and by stretching your skill set, you become a stronger, more flexible brand.

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Successful Leader Brands

Successful leaders who live and breathe their personal branding exercise a paradox. They are both deeply steeped in their own personal identities and deeply flexible toward their key audiences. Leaders who are good at both elements are authentic (true to themselves) and influential (powerful with others).

Leadership branding is a long-term process and one where a coach can greatly enhance your results. Remember, a brand is a promise, one that you make and fulfill, over and over. What promises are you and your company fulfilling? Fulfilling the business promise through effective communication – therein lies the true definition of high Return on Communication.

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