Over the past few months, I’ve met with several fellow writers who were either considering starting their own freelance businesses or had recently taken the plunge. In each instance, I found myself advising my friends that they needed to focus on distilling the essence of their own personal brand identities, and then use that information as a guide for focus and decision-making as they forge ahead. Today I found some very solid reinforcement of this idea in an article from the December issue of Harvard Management Update. The article entitled “Five Steps to Building Your Personal Leadership Brand” from Norm Smallwood, co-founder of The RBL Group, offers insights we all can apply… not only to help us optimize our business decision-making and practices, but also to help us become better leaders.
Mr. Smallwood is the coauthor of many books, including “Leadership Brand: Developing Customer-Focused Leaders to Drive Performance and Build Lasting Value” from Harvard Business School Press, which he wrote with Dave Ulrich. By referencing his story, you’ll have a to-the-point, informative, interactive article to guide you through the exercise of nailing-down your own leadership brand. In case you’re interested, here’s mine (feedback welcome!):
“I want to be known for being thoroughly diplomatic, and proactively inventive, thoughtful and effective, so that I can be a source of savvy communications counsel for anyone I meet.” – Roger Darnell, The Darnell Works Agency
