Leading Her Introvert Way: Conversations about executive leadership, career growth, business and mindset for mid-life Black women.

58: Your Introvert Way Is Better: JumpStart Your Executive Career With A Killer Leadership Brand

• Nicole Bryan • Episode 58

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What if your leadership potential was waiting to be unlocked with just a few key strategies? Discover the transformative power of a well-defined personal leadership brand, especially if you're an introverted woman aiming for senior or executive roles. This episode promises to equip you with the tools needed to refine your leadership brand and propel your career forward.



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Speaker 1:

Hi, Lady Leader, and welcome to the Leading Her Way podcast. This podcast is for you if you are an introverted woman who is looking to become the best leader she can possibly be and who is also looking to elevate and advance her career into the senior leader and executive level ranks. Leader and executive level ranks. My name is Dr Nicole Bryan and it is my sincere honor and privilege to host this podcast as a safe and open space where we get to talk about all things introverted and female and leadership. I am so glad that you're here today because we have a special treat.

Speaker 1:

A few months ago, I did a LinkedIn Live and it was all about how to create your personal leadership brand. Now we've talked on the podcast a few times in previous episodes about Leadership Brand, but this LinkedIn Live was so cool and so effective. I got a ton of direct messages from women who attended and who watched a replay, and the feedback was so positive and so strong that I felt that I wanted to bring it to the podcast and share it directly with you. So, without further ado, let's jump in.

Speaker 2:

All right. So welcome, first of all, and thank you for joining me. Welcome to today's live. I'm Dr Nicole Bryan. I will be your host for the next 30 minutes or so, and I do have a confession, which you may have guessed from the description of today's event, and my confession is that I am an introvert, and not just an introvert, but I describe myself as an Uber introvert. Not that I'm picking you up in a car or taking you somewhere, but I mean, if there was a introversion loyalty program, I probably have VIP status. I'm not sure if you are an introvert or those who are, who may be listening in the replay, are introverts, but I just wanted to kind of put that out there. I have dedicated my entire career to identifying, developing and supporting leaders around the world to become even better leaders, so I've had the honor of heading up talent and leadership development work for organizations like Citibank and Philip Morris and T Rowe Price, and I've spent a lifetime empowering introverted women and helping them navigate the path to leadership and their executive level without having to shout to be heard or without having to code switch. Welcome, julia. So today we're going to explore something that transforms not just how the world sees you in your career, but how you see yourself in the world of leadership.

Speaker 2:

Now, before we dive in, just a few things I want to mention about logistics. The first is I'm going to save the last few minutes of today's session for questions. So please jot down whatever questions you have so when you're ready, at the end of our conversation, you can raise your hand and come to the audio stage. I will say that one of the things that I love and enjoy about these types of settings is that they're very intimate and it allows, I think, more interaction. So if there's specific things about your specific situation that you want to bring to the table and have us talk about it, please feel free to do so. We likely won't have many environments like this where we'll be able to have that level of dialogue. The second logistic is that, since the audio lives don't have built in chat rooms, I'm probably going to ask a couple of questions and ask you to respond by using your emoji. So at the bottom of your screen you will likely see a react button. Should have a smiley face. If you hover your mouse over that, it'll bring up a couple of emojis. So when I ask a couple of questions and you have an answer, you'll be able to use those to kind of respond.

Speaker 2:

Okay, so let's jump in and start our conversation about personal leadership brands. My goal for you this evening is for you to leave our conversation understanding how important your personal leadership brand is to the success of advancing your career, especially if you aspire to senior leadership and you're an introvert. The second goal for me for this evening is to have you leave with specific things you can do to start working on your brand to reach your career goals. Now, as we get into things, I 100% invite you to take anything and everything we discuss, make whatever adjustments you need for your individual situation and then act on it. And anything that we talk about tonight that doesn't apply to you, just leave it here. Everything that all the tips, strategies, the situations that I might describe may not all apply to you, and that's okay, all right. So the first question I have for you is do you currently have a leadership brand? If you currently have a leadership brand, put a heart if it's yes and put a hand up if it's no. So do you currently have a leadership brand? Okay, so Julia, I think, is saying yes, she has a leadership brand. Okay, great, I don't think Balaji is actually. Either you can't find the button or you may not have a response, and that's okay. Here's the deal. Whether you know it or not, today you have a leadership brand, and that leadership brand is actually more powerful than you think.

Speaker 2:

Now. Some of us have a brand, but we don't know exactly what it is. Others of us think we know what our brand is, but the truth is that it's actually very different than how we are actually showing up every day. And then there's some of us who know exactly what our brand is today, but we want to change it. And then, finally, the last group. Some of us has a brand and we like it, but we're questioning whether it's enough to get us where we want to go in our careers, our ultimate career goals. But no matter what group you're in, the brand framework that I want to share with you today is one that will apply. So let's start first just making sure we're level setting on what a leadership brand is.

Speaker 2:

So a leadership brand conveys your identity and distinctiveness as a leader. It communicates the value that you offer. If you have the wrong leadership brand for the position you have or the position you want, then your work is not having the impact that it could and you're definitely not going to achieve the career goals or the higher level role that you are aspiring to. A strong personal brand allows all that's powerful and effective about your leadership to become known to your colleagues, your direct reports, other senior leaders within the organization, and it helps you generate maximum value. So, with that said, I will also take a minute just to say a brand is different than a reputation. So your personal brand is different than a reputation. So your personal brand is different than a reputation. A reputation is something that you gain over time, but it's passive. You are not proactively or intentionally, I should say doing things to build your reputation With a brand. A personal leadership brand is something where you are intentionally trying to build it, to shape it, to continuously evolve it. You are trying to align how you think, your actions, your behaviors, everything, even the projects that you work with, to this brand that you want to establish what you want to be known for. It's a very proactive and intentional effort. Many people use reputation and leadership brand interchangeably, but the truth is that they are related, but they are not the same thing.

Speaker 2:

Now that we've talked about a brand and what the definition is. Let's jump in and talk about brand as an acronym. So my framework that I wanted to share with you this evening, and it's basically your roadmap from going from unseen and underappreciated to being recognized and rewarded as a leader. So as we go through the brand framework, I'm going to actually give real life examples as well. I'll probably use one of my clients, tricia, as a case study, because I think it'll just help it come more alive as we talk.

Speaker 2:

So the first letter B is an acronym for brand. So the first initial B stands for begin with, self-reflection. As mid-career professionals at this stage in our career, I think we all realize and understand that being self-aware is like a foundational element of being a good leader. And so, with self-reflection starting with that as part of your brand, building your brand, reflecting on what makes you you, so you can think about the achievements that you're proud of and this isn't really about patting yourself on the back. It's really about understanding who you are. So it's not necessarily the actual achievement but more so the why behind the achievement.

Speaker 2:

So B stands for begin with self-reflection and it's really about self-reflecting on why you've taken certain actions in your career why you are most proud of certain things in your career, certain situations, certain accomplishments, because that gets to the core of who you are.

Speaker 2:

When you think about your brand, it's less about what you do and more about the who and the why. So let's take my client, trish, for example. So Trish is a very accomplished assistant vice president in a large organization. The organization makes $5 billion in revenue and is about 30,000 people across the organization. So Trish is an AVP and very, very accomplished. She has multiple degrees, tons of certifications, and so when we started working together, my question to her was it's great that you have all the education, all the degrees, but what about your brand do those degrees stand for? Is it about you being able to say, yes, I have this MBA and I'm very proud of it, but why are you continuously going for these things? For her, it was more so that she felt, as a woman, she needed these degrees to support her stature within the organization. There's no judgment. I'm not saying that that's right or wrong, but that was her why, and it's important to understand that, because that is what drives her. That's a piece of what drives her. That's a part of her brand. Another piece of her brand, as she self-reflected, was that she is a very strong advocate, not just for herself but for others. And when I say strong advocate, I mean that she can be very, very assertive, which is not necessarily an adjective that many female introverts are assigned essentially. So for her she was a very, very strong advocate. When we reflected on why she was a very strong advocate, she actually that it went back to her childhood in terms of growing up in a big family and always having to fight for whatever little piece that she could get right For her parents' attention, for limited dessert, whatever it was, and she's used that as a strength of hers throughout her career to be able to advocate for herself, as a strength of hers throughout her career to be able to advocate for herself.

Speaker 2:

When we talk about self-reflection, like I said, it's not necessarily the what but the why, because it's the why that really ties to what you value and how you show up, and you got to be able to understand those connections. So B that's begin with self-reflection. The next letter is R, which is recognizing your strengths, and not only recognizing your strengths but ask others what your strengths are. So one of the things that many women that I work with suffer from is that they don't necessarily truly understand how others perceive them, don't necessarily truly understand how others perceive them, so the brand that they think that they are carrying and the brand that they are trying to intentionally build somehow misses the mark, and so one of the steps that I always encourage people to do is actually to ask other people.

Speaker 2:

You know what you believe your strengths are, but do other people believe you have those same strengths or do they see you differently? This is very different from you know your annual or semi annual performance review feedback. This is specifically feedback about your brand, and so this is where you can get curious right Ident, identify your strengths, but you also reach out to others and ask them. So you can ask questions like what strengths do you see in me, or describe my brand in one or two adjectives or, even more simply, what's the first thing that comes to mind when you think of me? I would encourage you to ask this of your boss.

Speaker 2:

If you have a good relationship with your boss, your direct reports, your peers, people who are in your team but you trust to be honest with you, it will be very interesting to be able to see if there is commonality in responses. Or, in some cases, I've found that people tend to show up differently depending on who they're interacting with, so sometimes your boss will have a completely different perspective on your brand than your direct reports, than your peers, etc. Which is not something that you want. You want to make sure that you have a kind of a unified presence that you are portraying as you show up on the job on a day-to-day basis.

Speaker 2:

I mean essentially, it's like collecting pieces of a puzzle, and when we put it all together, we want to make sure that what everyone is seeing reveals the full picture of who you are as a leader. You don't want your brand to be disjointed in any way. Okay, so that's. We talked about B and we talked about R. Now we're moving on to A, which is articulate your vision and align your career goals. Basically, what you want here is that you want to make sure your leadership brand supports your vision and your career goals.

Speaker 2:

What's the leadership role that you are desiring to attain? And if you are not trying, if you're not at a stage in your career where you're trying to move up or move on to something different, your leadership brand and having a strong leadership brand can serve you extremely well in your current role as well. It's really about what are you trying to accomplish. So how does your leadership brand support the vision that you have for yourself or the goals that you have for yourself? A common mistake is having yourself or trying to establish a leadership brand for yourself, but it's totally misaligned with what you ultimately want.

Speaker 2:

An example, just going back to Trish, is that she ultimately wanted a. She wants to become a vice president, right, and she wanted to become a vice president in HR and as an AVP. What she was doing was she was leveraging her education. She was being very intellectual, but she was, and she was also very hands on. But the thing about how she was showing up was she was so studious and so intellectual that many of her internal clients and her peers weren't able to see her and understand her Right Like they saw that she was extremely smart, but there was a disconnect between her being smart and applying what she's learning on the job, and so people really respected her for her intellect, but they found it difficult actually working with her on a day to day because they felt like she was speaking over their heads and they also did not see her actually getting the work done. They found that she theorized about the work but not actually delivered on the work. If you can think about going from that or having a brand that is described that way and then trying to seek a more senior position, many people will not support that, because you're not delivering in the way that we need you to in your current position and people have an idea of you or see you as someone who's really intellectual but not someone who actually gets the job done. So you want to make sure that you're able to not only articulate what your vision is, what your next step is going to be, but you want to make sure that you align your brand intentionally with where you are trying to go or what you are trying to accomplish. So that's B, that's R, that's A is network authentically. And I'm not going to spend a lot of time here because next week Thursday, I'm hosting another live where I'm going to do a deep dive about how to network inside your organization and in this acronym of brand stands for networking authentically. Right, it's about building connections inside your organization that matter. And the reason why I'm talking about inside your organization is because so many of us already know about networking outside of our organization. But when you are seeking a promotion or when you are seeking to be more effective in your current role or the next role that you acquire within your company, building connections inside your organization are really, really important. Okay, I'm not going to spend a lot of time, I'm going to move on.

Speaker 2:

Moving on to D, which is deliver consistently. Now, delivering consistently, that is about performing. Going back to the example that I was just talking about with Trish, who she was really a good thought partner, but not necessarily a good executor, and her role at the time required both D in terms of deliver consistently means that if you are not performing, if you are not delivering on what is required for you in your current role, nothing else matters. People are not going to be able to see any potential, people are not going to be able to envision you in a different role. People will not be willing to support you doing different things If you are not, at this moment, delivering what you are supposed to be doing for the organization.

Speaker 2:

Now that sounds like common sense, but again, a lot of us get so focused on thinking about where we want to go in the future and, frankly, some of us have a sense of entitlement, meaning we may have done great work in the past and we want our just due, and the just due is not coming fast enough. So we start, sometimes knowingly, sometimes unknowingly, letting our current performance fail us, we take our eye off the ball and if and when that happens, all of the other credibility goes by the wayside. So the last letter here, in terms of D, means to continue to deliver consistently, because if you let that slip, then all the other work is meaningless. Okay, so let me reiterate Brand as the acronym. The first one, b, is begin with self-reflection. R means is for recognizing your strengths and ask others how they see you and your brand. The third is A articulate your vision and align your career goals.

Speaker 1:

The fourth is network authentically, and then the which I'm going to do a whole session about next week Thursday, and then D deliver consistently.

Speaker 2:

That is the model, that is the acronym, okay. So, with that said, I do think it's important for us to remember that, having a leadership brand, you already have one, whether you recognize it or not. But the good thing, what I love most about having a leadership brand, is that you can continuously evolve it. No matter what it is today, you have an opportunity to make it better. And the second thing is that it is an intentional change, which means that we get to set the pace. We get to strategically think about what we want our brand to be and then align our thoughts, our actions and how we show up with it.

Speaker 1:

So, lady leader, what did you think? Was it as good as I told you it would be? Listen, leadership brand cannot be underestimated. To do so would be to do it at your peril. So if you are a introverted woman who is looking to build her leadership brand, or who already has a brand and is looking to rebrand herself to be effective in your current role, to elevate yourself to the next level of leadership, or to start using your leadership brand proactively to secure your executive seat, then I would encourage you to stop putting off moving forward.

Speaker 1:

Stop putting off getting your promotion. Stop waiting for your company to tap you on the shoulder or your boss to tell you it's time, or for anyone else, for that matter, to tell you you are ready. It is your moment. Right now is your moment to go after your executive leadership dreams. Go ahead and book a sales call with me so we can have a conversation about what it is that you want for yourself and how I can help you get there. The link to book the call is in the show notes, or you can go to my LinkedIn profile in my feature sections and click there. I cannot wait to talk to you and to learn all about your background, your career and your aspirations and, more importantly, to be your strategic thought partner and your cheerleader and ensure that you accomplish your goals. Until next time, lady leader, keep leading your introvert way.

Speaker 2:

That's a wrap for this episode of leading her way. Thanks for tuning in. If you have thoughts, questions or ideas for future topics, connect and send me a message on linkedin and if you enjoyed today's episode, subscribe. And please take a minute to write a quick review on apple podcast. Your review will help spread the word to other ambitious females so they know they're not alone and that this podcast is a community of support for all of us leading her way to the top.

Speaker 2:

Remember your leadership is needed, your leadership is powerful, so lead boldly Until next time.