For this assignment, you will construct your Personal Leadership Brand Statement. Prepare your assignment by responding to the prompt below. Please save your file in .doc or .docx format.For

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Five Steps to Building Your Personal Leadership Brand by Dave Ulrich and Norm Smallwood

A NEWSLETTER FROM HARVARD BUSINESS SCHOOL PUBLISHING ARTICLE REPRINT NO. U0712A

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You have a personal leadership brand. But do you have the right one?

Th e question is not trivial. A leadership brand conveys your identity and distinctiveness

as a leader. It communicates the value you off er. 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 it could.

We use the term brand very deliberately. Acme Manufacturing can make the greatest widget in the world, but if few people know about the company or the widget—if neither has a strong brand—then that widget will generate little value. It’s the same thing with leaders. A strong personal leadership brand allows all that’s powerful and eff ective about your leadership to become known to your colleagues up, down, and across the organization, enabling you to generate maximum value.

In this article, which is adapted from our book Leadership Brand: Developing Customer-Focused Leaders to Drive Performance and Build Lasting Value (Harvard Business School Press, 2007), we will show you how to shape a personal leadership brand that showcases who you are and what you can do. Th e benefi t of consciously shaping a leadership brand is focus; when you know with utmost clarity what you want to be known for, it is easier to let go of the tasks and projects that do not let you deliver on that brand and to concentrate on activities that do.

1. DETERMINE THE RESULTS YOU WANT TO ACHIEVE IN THE NEXT YEAR

Th e fi rst thing you should do is ask yourself, “In the next 12 months, what are the major results I want to deliver at work?” Take into account the interests of these four groups:

n Customers: Identify customers who directly or indirectly receive value from the goods or services you produce. How can you add value for them?

n Investors: What do they want? What can you and your group do to meet their expectations?

n Employees: What employee outcomes do you seek: greater creativity, better collaboration, higher retention? What do your employees need from you?

n Th e organization: How can your team help the organization execute on its strategy?

We once worked with a very talented and hard- working executive we’ll call Judy. Her successful performance in several varied roles at her organization— she’d been an auditor, a process engineer, and a customer- service manager—earned her a promotion into a general manager position, in which she would be running one of the company’s largest businesses. To succeed at her fi rst large-scale leadership position and meet the complex set of expectations she would encounter in it, she knew she needed to become more deliberate about the way she led others. In short, she knew she needed a new leadership brand and turned to us for help in forging it.

On our advice, she reviewed overall customer retention, satisfaction, and revenue fi gures and called on three of the business’s largest customers to hear their thoughts on the division’s strengths and opportunities for improvement. She analyzed her division’s fi nancial performance over the previous years and thoroughly reviewed the fi nancial performance expected of it in the coming year. She met with small groups of employees and reviewed employee surveys and other data to assess how employees both inside and outside the division regarded it. Finally, she thought carefully about how her business could contribute more to the organization as a whole.

Notice that we advised Judy to begin by focusing on the expectations of those she was working to serve, rather than on what she identifi ed as her personal strengths. Leadership brand is outward focused; it is about delivering results. While identifying innate strengths is an important part of defi ning your leadership brand, the starting point is clarifying what is expected of you.

2. DECIDE WHAT YOU WISH TO BE KNOWN FOR

Given the context of the business results you want to achieve, consider how you wish to be perceived. From the chart below, pick the six descriptors that best capture what you want to be known for.

Possible attributes Accepting Accountable Action-oriented

Adaptable Agile Agreeable

Copyright © 2007 by Harvard Business School Publishing Corporation. All rights reserved.

Five Steps to Building Your Personal Leadership Brand by Dave Ulrich and Norm Smallwood

Building Your Leadership Brand continued

Analytical Approachable Assertive

Attentive Benevolent Bold

Bright Calm Caring

Charismatic Clever Collaborative

Committed Compassionate Competent

Concerned Confi dent Confrontative

Conscientious Considerate Consistent

Creative Curious Decisive

Dedicated Deliberate Dependable

Determined Diplomatic Disciplined

Driven Easygoing Effi cient

Emotional Energetic Enthusiastic

Even-tempered Fast Flexible

Focused Forgiving Friendly

Fun-loving Good listener Happy

Helpful Honest Hopeful

Humble Independent Innovative

Insightful Inspired Integrative

Intelligent Intimate Inventive

Kind Knowledgeable Lively

Logical Loving Loyal

Nurturing Optimistic Organized

Outgoing Passionate Patient

Peaceful Pensive Persistent

Personal Playful Pleasant

Polite Positive Pragmatic

Prepared Proactive Productive

Quality-oriented Reality-based Religious

Respectful Responsible Responsive

Results-oriented Satisfi ed Savvy

Self-confi dent Selfl ess Sensitive

Service-oriented Sincere Sociable

Straightforward Thorough Thoughtful

Tireless Tolerant Trusting

Trustworthy Unyielding Values-driven

Judy knew she was seen as technically profi cient and hardworking but somewhat aloof. Th ese traits, she realized, added up to a leadership brand that would not take her very far in her new role.

Working from our list, she picked six descriptors that balanced the qualities that came naturally to her with those that would be critical in her new position, and then she tested her choices by sharing them with her boss, her peers, and some of her most trusted subordinates. She simply asked them, “Are these the traits that someone in this general manager role should exhibit?” Th eir responses helped her refi ne her list to ultimately include:

n Collaborative n Deliberate n Independent

n Innovative n Results-oriented n Strategic

It is important to keep in mind that the list you put together may well require you to stretch yourself in new directions—that is fi ne. But be sure not to include in it traits that you do not believe you can ever truly exhibit. Judy, for instance, recognized that working collaboratively did not come naturally to her, but she felt it was in her power to do it eff ectively.

3. DEFINE YOUR IDENTITY Th e next step is to combine these six words into three two-word phrases that refl ect your desired identity. Th is exercise allows you to build a deeper, more complex description: not only what you want to be known for but also how you will probably have to act to get there. For example, calmly driven diff ers from tirelessly driven. Experimenting with the many combinations that you can make from your six chosen words helps you crystallize your personal leadership brand.

Judy combined the six descriptors into the following three phrases:

1. Independently innovative

2. Deliberately collaborative

3. Strategically results-oriented

Th is second list, which, like the fi rst she tested with several colleagues, neatly pulled together what came easily to Judy (“independently innovative” and “strategically results-oriented”) with what she could accomplish through disciplined eff ort (“deliberately collaborative”). Judy was satisfi ed that it aptly described both the kind of leader she was and the kind of leader she was becoming.

4. CONSTRUCT YOUR LEADERSHIP BRAND STATEMENT AND TEST IT

In this step, you pull everything together in a leadership brand statement that makes a “so that” connection between what you want to be known for (Steps 2 and 3) and your desired results (Step 1). Fill in the blanks:

I want to be known for being ______________ so that I can deliver __________.

Judy’s leadership brand statement read: “I want to be known for being independently innovative, deliberately collaborative, and strategically results-oriented so that I

4 HARVARD MANAGEMENT UPDATE | DECEMBER 2007

Building Your Leadership Brand continued

can deliver superior fi nancial outcomes for my business.” With your leadership brand statement draft ed, ask

the following questions to see if it needs to be refi ned:

n Is this the brand identity that best represents who I am and what I can do? If you lived this declaration of leadership, would you see yourself as successful? Are you willing to tell others that this is your personal leadership brand?

n Is this brand identity something that creates value in the eyes of my organization and key stakeholders? Is this something that is needed?

n What risks am I taking by exhibiting this brand? What will the brand keep you from understanding and doing? Th is is an important question—it can be tempting to choose a brand identity that supports organizational values but not your own personal values and strengths. For example, in many technology-oriented fi rms, technical know-how is valued over salesmanship or interpersonal strengths. It would be a mistake, however, even in such an organization, to disguise yourself as a technical leader if what really drives you is something else. Acknowledging the things your personal brand keeps you from understanding and doing helps you build a team that can compensate for areas that are not your strengths and actually increases your leadership effi cacy.

n Can I live this brand? Do you have the ability to translate the qualities you articulate in your leadership brand statement into day-to-day behavior? Can you make specifi c time commitments to live the leadership brand you espouse? Can you translate it into the decisions and choices you make?

Aft er going through this exercise, Judy was satisfi ed that she had craft ed a personal leadership brand that was appropriate for her new role and within her power to live into and make real.

5. MAKE YOUR BRAND IDENTITY REAL

Espoused but unlived brands create cynicism because they promise what they do not deliver. To ensure that the leadership brand you advertise is embodied in your day-to-day work, ask those around you. Do they see you as you wish to be seen? If you say you are fl exible and approachable, do others fi nd you so?

Aft er Judy defi ned her personal leadership brand, she shared it with others. She let people know that she was evolving as a leader and invited their feedback, especially on her eff orts at working collaboratively.

Six months into the job, Judy reported to us that she had achieved positive results overall. While she believed that the business could have reached some goals faster if she had relied solely on her own technical expertise in charting its course, she recognized that such success would have come at the cost of building a strong team. And a strong team it was: members identifi ed challenges with clarity, respected one another’s judgments, made hard decisions, and moved forward together.

Th e exercise of forging a leadership brand and the day- to-day discipline of making it real, Judy said, helped her stay focused on the most important challenges of her new role.

YOUR BRAND SHOULD EVOLVE

Your leadership brand isn’t static; it should evolve in response to the diff erent expectations you face at diff erent times in your career. In our work, we have seen that leaders with the self-awareness and the drive to evolve their leadership brands regularly are more likely to be successful over the long term—and to enjoy the journey more. u

Reprint # U0712A: To order a reprint of this article, call 800-668-6705

or 617-783-7474.

This article is adapted with the permission of Harvard Busi-

ness School Press from Leadership Brand: Developing Cus-

tomer-Focused Leaders to Drive Performance and Build Last-

ing Value, by Dave Ulrich and Norm Smallwood. Copyright ©

2007 Dave Ulrich and Norm Smallwood. All rights reserved.

Dave Ulrich is a professor of business at the University of

Michigan and cofounder of The RBL Group (www.rbl.net), a

consultancy in Provo, Utah. Norm Smallwood is cofounder of

The RBL Group and coauthor of fi ve books and many articles

on business strategy, organization, and leadership. They can

be reached at [email protected]

HARVARD MANAGEMENT UPDATE | DECEMBER 2007 5

RESOURCES

Leadership brand plays out very powerfully at the institu-

tional level, too. Companies with strong leadership brands

create deep pipelines of skilled managers and executives

and often enjoy a distinct competitive edge. To learn more

about organizational leadership brand, see our Harvard

Business Review article, “Building a Leadership Brand”

(July 2007, # R0707G), or our recently published book,

Leadership Brand: Developing Customer-Focused Leaders to

Drive Performance and Build Lasting Value (Harvard Busi-

ness School Press, 2007).