Recently, a client called to see if I was available to speak at a company meeting that she was organizing in 2012. The objective of the meeting, she told me, was to drive a stronger sense of engagement within the company as a whole.
“Sure,” I replied, “this sounds like the perfect situation for my program on Leadership Personal Branding.
“Oh, sorry!” the client responded immediately. “I probably didn’t make it clear enough. This meeting is for the entire company, not just management.”
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I hear this quite often. To a lot of folks, it seems that the word “Leader” means “Supervisor” or “Manager” and often relates only to those people in a company who have others reporting to them. And, in fact, most people who call us to inquire about the topic of Leadership Personal Branding are indeed focused on developing people at the mid-to-senior management level and above.
But, I see the word “leader” differently. I mean, think about it: If you aren’t successful at leading yourself, how can you possibly be successful at leading others?
To me, good leadership starts first and foremost with yourself. If you have the desire, discipline, and willpower, you can become an effective self-leader. And, once you are engaged in developing and leading yourself, you create a strong ‘leadership personal brand.’ That, in turn, places you in a prime spot to be tapped for increasingly greater levels of responsibility that may, or may not, end up with you leading others.
Agree? Disagree? I’d love to hear what you think!
As usual you are so right Brenda,you have opened my eyes in so many ways & this is yet another.I plan to start working with ALL of my team on Leadership! Any tips??? On another subject,I cant thank you enough for writing your amazing insightful book Smarter Branding.It makes so much sense and as we are using practises from it in our Day Spa businesses,our direction is becoming so much clearer.Thank you! Warm Regards Leanne
Thanks for your note, Leanne,and for your kind comments! For more suggestions about leadership at work, you might want to read some of the articles I’ve written on the topic. You can find them at https://brendabence.com/media-room/articles.php – just scroll to the bottom of the page and look for “Executive Coaching for Better Leadership Success.” You can browse the various article titles. Let me know what you think! All the best, and thanks for writing. Brenda