Personal branding is a collective impact of values, beliefs, and associations that define how people perceive you. It is also the art of gaining, maintaining, and nurturing a reputation around your identity, it has a lot to do with the authenticity of one’s overall personality and how unique one feels in it. A strong personal brand can open doors to new opportunities while establishing a formidable presence among peers and organizations. It is an endorser of reliability as a high-quality individual and helps connect with like-minded people. But female professionals face a unique set of challenges while creating a personal brand like the “likability conundrum”, the gender norms and stereotypes of being docile, agreeable, and nurturing, so much so that when they make a tough call or strongly abide by their principles or opinions, they are looked upon with a stink eye and berated for being too “aggressive” or “bossy”.
Defining Values and Purpose
The first step starts with your core value, strengths and USP’s that make you unique and stand out among peers, identifying your core values and banking on them is half battle won, understand what sets you apart and how you can leverage these qualities to add value to your organization. Start clearly, by jotting down what you want to be known for and back it up with why you feel so strongly about it, this will set the stage for deeper excavation. Being vocal in verbal and non-verbal expressions like formal dressing, manner of speaking, poise, and self-presentation are ways of expression and go a long way in portraying self-perception, vision, and self-awareness that are often attributed to a strong brand-like character. Ask yourself the 4 what’s and 2 how’s to develop a value proposition. The first four will answer who you are and what you should be focusing on while the other two will drive the purpose for the end goal of personal branding.
What do I care about?
What are my values?
What do I want people to know about me?
What makes me so special?
How do I want to define myself?
How do I provide value to others?
Bank on your strengths
Before creating a brand persona for yourself, it is crucial to understand your strengths such as education, awards, certifications and achievements, personal and professional networks, and also your emotional intelligence. Position yourself along the image you want to project onto others and reinforce it by strategically planning your career goals. This helps provide a basis and chart a roadmap to fill the gaps between where you are and where you want to be. Being loud and vocal about your efforts publicly is equally important because if you are not communicating, somebody else will come and fill those gaps. Being true to our ethics and value principles outlines our integrity and how people around us perceive us, having a higher moral compass towards work and oneself builds a better brand. One piece of advice would be to look for an internal mentor with whom you can share your aspirations and receive genuine feedback in return. Honest feedback from a mentor is a great way to refine and improve existing skills.
Create your brand statement
Creating your brand statement is like writing your own story, you are the author, and you decide what to say in it, by controlling the narrative you reduce the chances of opportunities being lost. For instance, women coming back from a maternity break are considered to be rusty in their skill sets as they have not grown during the break, to tackle this make a thorough note of the skillsets, achievements, projects, and key deliverables you had before the maternity break and on the other hand the job role you hold right now, this will define the gap between the two and how both can be linked or the gap bridged. We must track our achievements along the way to be self-aware and continue to stand up for ourselves.
Keeping clear vision and enhancing visibility
This approach requires one to move out of her comfort zone and leverage her networking skills in personal life as well as professionally. Invest in personal development and connect with influential people in your field by joining industry events, professional groups and engaging with them regarding your aligned vision. The networking quotient is important and it can be achieved by engaging in cross-team communication and cultivating relationships with marketing and social media teams as well, you can organically promote the company’s products and services smartly to align your aspirations with the company’s image. Creating content for yourself to market your accomplishments is a double-edged sword as it fulfils the purpose of actively expressing oneself on a public platform while also inspiring others to create a personal brand for themselves as well. Demonstrate leadership by empowering others and supporting your colleagues, creating a positive and collaborative work environment. Ensure your personal brand is consistently reflected in your behavior, communication, and online presence.
Lastly, personal branding for a woman is an ethically challenging feat as Strong character traits are often assaulted by morbid stereotypes; it requires her to be true to her values, morals, and beliefs and completely honest to her vision, ambition, and perceptions. Personal branding, like any other branding, is a consistent and recurring effort, one has to make sure to come back to it and build on it every day till the vision is achieved, the real task to maintain the reputation, nurture it, and inspire others to follow the same begins there.
Building a personal brand at work is vital for career advancement and establishing oneself as a credible and influential professional. By focusing on these strategies, women can effectively build a strong personal brand at work, enhancing their career prospects and professional growth.
Shared by: Ms. Sakshi Pal,
HR Head – India, Techwave
