5

Living Your Company’s Brand

For a brand to be successful and effective, it’s important to live it every day. That can be a challenge when you find yourself living it in an environment that regularly throws unexpected challenges in your path, requires you to make decisions quickly, and pushes all the buttons you aim to control by living your brand.

Nowhere is that more pronounced than in the workplace.

Everyone experiences pressure at work, at least some of the time. Bosses make unreasonable demands on your time. Coworkers slack off just when your team’s deadline approaches. Office mates grind on your nerves. Your employees behave disrespectfully. The coffeemaker breaks down just as you begin your overtime shift.

If you’re truly living your brand, none of that will tempt you to deviate from your best self.

Even during off hours, good employees experience a certain amount of pressure to live up to not only to their own stellar brands, but to the company’s brand as well. As an employee, you are a brand ambassador for your employer, even though that may not be part of your job description.

For example, if you get a job at your favorite clothing store and you start wearing that store’s clothes all the time, you’re letting everyone you meet know that you love what you’re selling. If you can’t stop talking to friends and family about how much fun you’re having with a project at work or how much you like your coworkers, you’re plugging your company, which could lead others to apply to work there or to trust that business’s products.

But every time you complain about work, make a snarky comment about your boss, or roll your eyes when someone points out a flaw in your company’s product, you send a message to the people you’re with: My company isn’t living up to its brand. That’s not OK. More and more, companies rely on their employees not only to create, live, and sell personal brands that are compatible with the company’s mission and vision, but to behave as ambassadors of that mission and vision even when they’re off the clock.

Part of this new focus on employees’ personal brands comes from a shift in consumer behavior. Potential customers are using social media more than ever to learn about products and to check out who else is using them. They want to know what people like them are saying about those products and about the company that makes them. They certainly want to know if celebrities like the Kardashians like the products and the company. And they want to know that the company’s own employees stand behind their employers and their employers’ brands.

If you’re talking smack about your company to the other parents at your kid’s soccer game on Saturday, you could be turning off potential customers.

If you include your employer’s name on your social media profiles and then post photos of yourself in a way that could be construed as inappropriate, racist, or sexist, you could be giving potential customers the impression that your company endorses your behavior.

Companies know that, too, and some are starting to adopt policies restricting what employees may post on their personal social media. If you identify yourself as an employee of one of these companies, you have to watch what you say about your job, your colleagues, and the business.

Your personal brand and the way you live it—in your social and home life, on social media, and with your coworkers in the workplace—influence your company’s ability to live up to its own brand. In short, if people like your personal brand, they tend to like your employer’s brand, too.

Not only are some companies encouraging their employees to create, live, and sell personal brands that reflect well on the organization—they are hiring trainers to help the workers achieve that.

I’ve worked with multiple companies that have asked me to help their employees create personal brands that both the employees and their companies can be proud of.

The companies themselves were going through a rebranding and wanted their employees—all of them, not just the sales staff or the public-facing executives—to rebrand as well. I helped the employees understand how what they do and say, even outside of work, reflects on their employers.

I helped them become ambassadors for their companies.

As we will see in Chapter 6, business owners are swiftly dismissing employees who go off brand in public. They don’t keep employees who behave badly in public, especially when those bad acts—however out of character for the employee—are captured on video and posted all over social media or the nightly news.

So when you plan your personal brand, take some time to evaluate how it might reflect on your employer. And if you face an opportunity to go off brand—to have a little fun, to promote a controversial cause, or to take an uncharacteristic action—think first about whether what you’re about to do could make you or your employer look bad.

Sure, it takes a bit of the spontaneity out of life. Consistency always does. Living your brand means staying on brand. And staying on brand simply means honoring the tough decisions you made during the thoughtful process of creating your brand in the first place.

MORE THAN AN EMPLOYEE

When I lived in Washington, DC, a few years ago, I had a conversation with a very public-facing broadcaster, Shawn Anderson, who had thoughtfully planned a personal brand that took into account the considerable influence his behavior could have on the reputation of the radio station where he works.

Shawn is the afternoon drive-time anchor for WTOP Radio in Washington, DC, one of the largest, most successful all-news radio stations in the country. He has worked there for more than 25 years, and it’s no accident that he has never needed to explain his behavior to his bosses.

That’s because he never goes off brand, at least outside of the comfort of his home, family, and closest friends.

When Shawn refers to his personal brand, he calls it “Shawn Anderson.” The Shawn Anderson brand is professional. It has a big voice. It’s up to date on news, politics, sports, and pop culture. It’s friendly to strangers, grateful to listeners, and happy to “hold court” when friends of friends corner him at parties because they’re thrilled to meet him and talk with him.

Shawn Anderson is upbeat and alert at all times. He’s quick on his feet. He responds to criticism with curiosity and gratitude. He carefully guards his political opinions so nobody who listens to him on the radio will suspect him of bias. He doesn’t criticize newsmakers. He limits his contribution to conversations to the facts. He answers, “What do you think?” with the facts he knows about both sides. It’s a good conversation, but you’ll always walk away without knowing which side he’s on.

Shawn refers to Shawn Anderson as “me, plus 10 percent.” I love that. It perfectly encapsulates what living your brand means: you, plus 10 percent. Always “on.” Always at your best. I’ve embraced that description as part of my own personal brand: My Dr. Cindy brand is me, plus 10 percent.

When Shawn can’t sustain that extra 10 percent, he stays home.

So do I. So should you.

If Shawn feels he’s not up to being Shawn Anderson on a Saturday and he’s expected at an optional social gathering, he declines the invitation.

When Shawn Anderson shows up, you get Shawn Anderson. He shows up as exactly what you would expect if you listen to him on WTOP: smart, well informed, unbiased, upbeat, happy, and grateful.

Regular Shawn is authentically all those things. But some days, he’s just tired. Sometimes he needs a quiet day. Every now and then he needs to chill in front of the TV and watch three football games in a row.

We all need to do that. We need to take care of ourselves. That’s what he does on those days. In the process, he protects his brand. He doesn’t put himself in a public situation on a day when Shawn Anderson needs to be just Shawn.

You’ll get this once you start living your brand, day in and day out. That extra 10 percent can exhaust you, even if you live an authentic, natural brand.

By living the Shawn Anderson brand in public, and by staying out of the public eye on the rare occasions when he doesn’t feel he can give that extra 10 percent, Shawn is protecting his company as much as himself.

His fans expect Shawn Anderson when they see him. And his company expects Shawn Anderson to be an ambassador for the radio station.

Work and life are intertwined for all of us, not just for public figures. Our personal brand really isn’t just personal. It’s a reflection of who we are in the context of what we do for a living.

Follow this stellar example as you practice living your own brand. Commit to it, live it, and protect it—even if that means taking a day off from it, very privately, every now and then.

MANAGERS VERSUS LEADERS

Shawn is a great example of a leader who lives his brand. He’s not a manager at work; he’s considered “talent.” But he’s a leader because he sees the big picture, he is influential with the public and his coworkers, and he recognizes the importance of inspiring and motivating those around him.

A manager can be a leader, and a leader can be a manager. But branding yourself as a leader or printing the title on your business card doesn’t make you one, especially if you don’t truly understand the difference between management and leadership.

To live your “leader” brand, learn that difference: Managers focus on process, and leaders focus on people. Learning the difference will help you, as a manager, sell your brand as a leader while still getting your work done as a manager.

•   Leadership is about big ideas and the big picture. Managers focus on right now and next week, but leaders anticipate next year. What is happening now is rarely as important as what’s coming next. Leaders don’t let the future catch them off guard.

•   Leaders inspire innovative thinking even under difficult circumstances. When the pandemic sent employees home to work remotely, managers drilled down to the nuts, bolts, and tactics that employees would need to work effectively. Leaders stepped up to energize and engage their work teams—which at the time included employees who were resistant, depressed, anxious, and grieving—and led by example.

•   Good leaders accept that employees are human beings with fears, emotions, and after-hours responsibilities. Goals and objectives, sales charts, strategic plans, and vision statements are all critical to success. But those are built on the capabilities and limitations of human beings. Leaders tap into their employees’ value and uniqueness in order to inspire them to do their best work.

Do you brand yourself as a leader but focus more on your role as manager? Even if you are an employee with no “manager” or “leader” title at work, your brand as an informal leader will solidify as you show your great influence on others as a motivator and visionary.

Live your leadership brand every day. It will help you be the best leader you can be, even as you get into the nitty-gritty of your management responsibilities.

MANAGER MISBRANDS

Simply knowing what the role of a manager is won’t make you a good one. Sometimes you need to know what not to do in order to create, live, and sell your perfect work brand. Here are some common brands that managers don’t realize they’re selling.

The Barker

Everyone has met one of these. It could be a boss, a parent, a coworker, or even a teenager who volunteers to chair the prom committee at school.

The barker, as they say, “barks” orders. The barker tells you what to do, often without explanation. This manager has a vertical communication style: The orders come from the top down without room for bottom-up feedback or even questions. The barker doesn’t consider the feelings of employees and doesn’t attempt to get buy-in from the people who do the work, even though they might know a better way to do it than the barker insists upon.

The barker often doesn’t know—or perhaps doesn’t care about—the impact this kind of dictatorial style has on the people on the receiving end. This manager might feel she has a right to command others to do what she says. She probably believes her brand is “strong, authoritative, in charge.”

As you know, however, a brand is only as strong as the perception others have of it. And her employees very likely have branded her as “mean, bossy, harsh, and unfair.”

Barking orders is no way to make a sale. Would you ever return to your favorite ice cream parlor if your server barked at you when you placed your order? Part of a manager’s job is to clearly communicate what needs to get done, train the employees who will do the work, answer questions from those who need clarity, and motivate the team to do its best. That’s how to sell employees on doing what you ask.

The barker’s brand certainly is not “good manager” or “good motivator.” Her orders often result in half-hearted work or mistakes born of confusion.

If this manager is hoping to sell her employees on doing a good job, she’s definitely barking up the wrong tree.

The Best Friend

Bosses, parents, teachers, and others who manage other people sometimes adopt the attitude that the more their teams, children, or students like them, the better they will perform.

That’s true to a point. People often respond to an empathetic, collaborative manager by working their best to make him proud. Most people return the respect and trust their manager shows them.

However, good managers balance a healthy give-and-take with employees with a clear boundary that leaves no question about who is in charge. A good leader’s brand, no matter how kind and understanding he is to the people who work for him, includes “authority.”

That authority fades when a boss goes too far to get his employees to like him. It’s hard for a supervisor to maintain an “I’m in charge” brand when he also sells himself as their best friend.

This can happen if you get promoted to team leader over a group you have worked with for a while and know well. It’s hard to go from peer to manager when you’re used to hanging out with your teammates after work, drinking with them, confiding in them, or even getting into trouble with them.

It’s hard to go from buddy to boss—or at least to an effective boss—when the people you now supervise used to be your best friends.

The tendency is to believe you can have both: close friendships with your employees and authority over them. The best-friend manager quickly discovers that he has to sacrifice something: authority or friendship. One of those brands inevitably suffers once the manager has to hold his after-work friends accountable at work.

Getting promoted over the heads of their existing friends isn’t the only way managers wind up with the unsustainable brand of best-friend manager. Sometimes they create it deliberately so their employees will like them.

An example: Matt’s favorite part of his job as a college professor is the relationships he forges with his students. Matt’s teaching style is hands-on and collaborative. He loves to teach a concept or a process, and then work side by side with his students as they complete a project that requires them to use the skills they have learned.

Often that means he works late into the evenings with the students. He springs for pizza if they work past dinnertime. He takes breaks with them. The students bond with each other and with him.

He invites students to call him Matt. He gives them his mobile number so they can call or text him any time with questions about their assignments. He tells them about his weekends with his family. He understands when they have trouble finishing their work on time. In short, he treats them as friends.

Or he used to. One semester, nearly all the students who finished Matt’s freshman course enrolled next in the more advanced sophomore section, which he also taught, because they enjoyed the first class so much. A few weeks in, Matt noticed that many of these students stopped meeting their deadlines or studying for quizzes. One even asked him for quiz questions in advance—a request, of course, that he denied.

Another student mentioned to him that the group figured Matt “would be cool” about late and missed assignments.

Matt asked her how they came to believe that.

“You’re Matt,” the student replied. “You’re like our cool uncle. We’re friends.”

Matt’s brand: “friend, fun, cool.”

Matt likes it that his students think of him that way. But he believes his brand is much more than that: “responsible adult, supervisor, educator.” He has a syllabus to follow and requirements for his students to meet to get course credit.

In fact, he’s not at all cool with late or missed assignments—except in an emergency.

But he sold the “cool uncle” brand at the expense of the “professor” brand, and the students bought into the fact that his brand did not include “disciplinarian” or “tough grader.”

He sold the wrong thing.

I’m not saying you can’t get to know the people you supervise or treat them in a friendly way. But it’s rarely possible for a manager to live his brand as an authority figure if he’s also trying to brand himself as everyone’s best friend.

Not sure which side you fall on? Ask your employees. Like Matt’s student, they’ll be happy to flatter you with their perception that you’re cool. You need to decide, at what cost?

A manager shouldn’t be selling friendship; he should be selling trust and respect.

The Pushover

A manager who shies away from conflict probably won’t be a manager for long.

I had a client who said yes to everything his employees asked him for: extended deadlines, extra days off, easier assignments.

This client thinks his brand is “casual” and “nice guy.” To his team, however, his brand is “pushover.”

His employees also have branded him as “wishy-washy” because no matter what objection or exception they ask for after he announces a decision, he’ll cater to it. He doesn’t defend or explain his decisions; he simply abandons them at the first hint of pushback from the staff.

His employees like him. Why wouldn’t they? But they don’t respect him. Why would they?

The Memo Maker

Good communication skills are the hallmark of any good manager. Good communication skills include the ability to talk to employees—both one-on-one and as a team.

To avoid suffering from a “pushover” brand, one of my clients promptly responded to every complaint, suggestion, and problem by emailing the full staff a long memo full of double exclamation points and passages highlighted in red. He did this almost daily.

If someone shared a problem involving an assignment or a coworker, this manager wrote a memo about it instead of talking it through with the employee. If an employee messed up and needed coaching or discipline, the manager wrote a memo about it—in general terms, without the employee’s name—so the whole staff could benefit from the answer.

The manager believed his brand was “responsive” and “nice guy.” His employees, on the other hand, considered him “impersonal” and his memos a joke.

His management style created a lot of unnecessary emergencies because he spent so much time sending emails that he couldn’t keep up with the ones he received. Plus his employees stopped reading his memos because they were long and treated every situation as if it were the most important matter of the day. And they didn’t feel like the manager had enough time or interest in them to talk to them face-to-face.

That manager’s brand created an inefficient work environment. It also ended his career as a manager.

The Fearmonger

Some managers mistake fear for respect, so they raise their voices, make threats, and belittle their employees.

One leader I heard about often says, “They should be afraid of me.”

Does fear translate into getting his employees to do what he wants them to do? Absolutely. They’re afraid not to. They’re also looking for new jobs and, more frequently, complaining about their boss to human resources.

Fear and respect are not the same thing. The fearmonger believes his brand is “respected,” but his employees perceive him as cruel. His behavior is breaking their spirits and sapping any sense of loyalty or passion they ever had for their jobs.

This leader doesn’t believe his employees will quit, but it’s only a matter of time.

The Imposer

One small business owner I know is so passionate about his vision and his work that he can’t tolerate any employee who doesn’t share it.

Granted, it’s affirming when the people who work for you are as committed to your company’s success as you are. But most of them probably aren’t willing to make as many sacrifices as the person who started the business.

This owner is frustrated when employees can’t work on weekends because they have family and social obligations. He once fired a hard worker who refused to work past 3 p.m., even though her shift started at 7 a.m. and she accepted the job, in part, so she would be able to be home in the afternoons with her school-age children.

This owner has branded himself as “passionate, visionary, and committed,” and there is no doubt he is all those things. But he expects his employees to alter their brands to suit his—and that’s unreasonable.

To them, his brand is “imposing, unreasonable, and unconcerned about us as people.”

The Micromanager

Micromanagers sell one thing to their employees: “I don’t trust you.”

If the only time your employees get to put their ideas into practice is when you’re on vacation, you’re holding them back.

Micromanagers do their employees’ work for them, or do it over because it’s never good enough. The micromanager believes her brand is “helpful.” Her employees perceive her brand as “control freak.”

And they believe their manager does not trust in their competence. She doesn’t trust them to get the job done. She doesn’t appreciate their talents.

That managerial brand is defeating. It makes employees feel like there’s no point in trying because there’s no way what they will do is correct. It makes them feel undervalued and even worthless.

When a manager asks for input and feedback and allows employees to spread their wings, on the other hand, she says to the staff: “I hired you because you’re smart and talented. I can’t wait to see what you do with this project.”

• • • • • • • • • •

Just as any employee needs to create and live a personal brand that reflects well on the company, so do managers and leaders.

If someone in a position of authority is living a brand that makes employees feel belittled, undervalued, unproductive, or unhappy, those workers are likely to believe the company supports that position as well.

If you are a manager or leader—or if you aspire to those positions—make yourself a role model for your employees. Create and live a brand that they can respect and even emulate.

All employees, including managers and leaders, need to be ambassadors for the company—and not just with people outside of the company. They need to represent the company’s values and mission with their own employees so those workers will feel proud and happy to work there.