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42 Articles

Self-Promotion, Without the Cringe

“PERSONAL BRANDING” has long been a cringeworthy term, smacking of superficial appearances and tasteless self-promotion. (Search for synonyms for “self-promotion” and you get words like “egotistical,” “arrogant,” “selfaggrandizing,” and “conceited.”) And yet we all recognize that professional success—particularly in a hypercompetitive world—often depends on getting others to appreciate the unique value that we bring to the table. In this issue, we’ve brought together HBR articles that recommend a more modern and nuanced approach to personal branding, one that emphasizes being authentic, honoring your values, building real relationships, and balancing visibility with humility. The process begins with introspection: an intentional examination of who you are, what your values are, what professional style makes you shine, and what kind of leader you want to be (see the first section, “Define Your Unique…

A New Approach to Building Your Personal Brand

MUCH OF PROFESSIONAL and personal success depends on persuading others to recog nize your value. You have to do this when you apply for jobs, ask for promotions, vie for leadership positions, or write your dating profile. For better or worse, in today’s world everyone is a brand, and you need to develop yours and get comfortable marketing it. Personal branding is an intentional, strategic practice in which you define and express your own value proposition. And though people have always carefully cultivated their public personas and reputations, online searching and social media have greatly expanded the potential audience for—and risks and rewards associated with—such efforts. Unfortunately, while we’d like to think that we’re in complete control of our personal brands, that’s rarely the case. As Jeff Bezos, the founder…

YOUR VALUE Success in all aspects of your life relies heavily on getting others to appreciate your unique value. Just as companies need to market their brands, professionals need to craft and promote their own personal brands as well. THE PROCESS The process includes defining your purpose, auditing your personal brand equity, constructing your personal narrative, embodying your brand, communicating your story, socializing your brand, and reevaluating and adjusting your brand. Throughout, consider your target audiences and what they need to hear to better understand you and the value you bring. THE PAYOFF Crafting your personal brand will increase your visibility, expand your network, and reveal capabilities that are unique to you.…

How to Develop Your Leadership Style

FEW THINGS ARE more frustrating for talented professionals than hitting a ceiling in their careers because they lack the appropriate leadership style. A boss senses that something is missing in a person’s tool kit but can’t put a finger on exactly what it is or how the person can improve. The boss says something like “You’re lacking important intangibles” or “You need more gravitas” but fails to provide specific advice or tools for improving. It is equally frustrating to watch people with mediocre technical skills move up the ladder quickly because they have an exceptional leadership style. Bosses defend such promotions by emphasizing the employees’ soft skills, calling them “poised,” “confident,” and “dynamic.” The truth is that these things matter: A great leadership style can make people appear more competent…

How to Develop Your Leadership Style

THE PROBLEM Bosses often sense that something is lacking in an employee’s tool kit but can’t put a finger on what it is. They say something like “You’re missing important intangibles” or “You need more gravitas” but fail to provide advice or guidance. THE RESEARCH What they’re talking about is leadership style. In every interaction, we send signals to others about our power and status. The more consistent we are in our signals, the more distinctive our style becomes. THE APPROACH This practical guide offers concrete advice for developing a dynamic and effective leadership style, including tips such as what volume and pace to use in your speech, whether to take notes in a meeting, and how and when to interrupt others.…

The Culture Effect

The interpretation of style markers can vary significantly by culture, context, and industry. A behavior that is considered a power marker in one situation may be considered attractive in another. For example: Eye contact: In the United States, making eye contact with managers senior to you is often seen as a marker of confidence. The same behavior in Brazil is seen as appropriately deferential (and not making eye contact is considered rude). In Japan, it is viewed as insubordinate and disrespectful. In all three contexts eye contact is a key marker of status, yet it is interpreted differently in each. Attire: How one dresses is a universal marker of status and influence. In some African countries wearing tribal dress is a power marker for both men and women. In the…

Should I Change My Last Name?

AMY GALLO: Something our former cohost, Nicole Torres, told us last year when we were talking about personal branding inspired this episode. NICOLE TORRES: As soon as you said, “personal branding,” here’s what I thought of: Women change their names and that affects their personal brand. How do you handle that decision? I’m at the time of my life when a lot of my friends are getting married. Some are changing their names, some are not, and we always have very interesting discussions about why or why not—and how that affects their professional lives. This is a big part of branding that women have to consider. GALLO: If you’re interested in getting married in the first place. Current numbers about how many women are making which decisions about their maiden names…

Should I Change My Last Name?

THE DILEMMA After building a career—crafting a professional reputation, making connections, publishing—the idea of changing your last name is consequential. When a major life event such as marriage raises that question, a woman has to consider how it will affect her personal brand. THE IMPACT A name change creates a variety of career and personal effects, including the need to reestablish yourself at work, feeling a loss (or gain) of identity or connection to family, and the logistical headache of making the change across personal, social, and work platforms. THE TRANSITION Strategies to support a successful transition include using a spreadsheet to stay organized and carefully timing announcements.…

1. What’s the Point of a Personal Brand?

ONE OF MY new coaching clients, Mike, a young manager in the finance industry with a prestigious MBA, was turned down for a promotion. When he asked his supervisor for a reason, his boss replied, “Because nobody knows you.” That came as a surprise to Mike, who’d received regular praise for his strong work ethic and good results. He thought everyone knew him in the small firm. In reality, the senior managers at the decision-making table had no idea what he stood for and who he was as a person. Mike made a mistake that many of us make early in our careers. We believe our efforts, education, or performance is enough to outcompete our colleagues and secure advancement opportunities. We overlook (or simply aren’t taught) the value of building…

2. How to Define, Develop, and Communicate Your Personal Brand

WHETHER YOU LIKE it or not, you’re building a personal brand. Your personal brand is the combination of your skills, the values you present, and the impression you leave on others. While actively building your personal brand may seem like a selfish endeavor, it’s far from it. It’s an empowering choice. Doing so can give you control over your professional development, network, career, and overall well-being. It can even make you more visible—and therefore, more satisfied—in your current job. As with anything in your career, however, building your brand isn’t a onetime thing. It will take time and effort, and it requires consistent upkeep. Thankfully, there are actions you can take daily to help you define, develop, and communicate your personal brand. Define Your Brand It’s impossible to have a…

3. How to Build Your Personal Brand at Work

WORKING HARD HAS always kept me busy. As a college student, I took on two internships at once, only to find out neither company was hiring upon my graduation. In my first job at a big tech company, I went the extra mile to exceed my quarterly goals, only to be laid off three years later; despite my efforts, my position was made redundant. Once I landed on my feet at a telecommunications organization, the head of my department assigned a major project to me. Sadly, my boss was moved to another team, and the new leader completely dropped it. In all of these stories, I was so absorbed in my day-to-day tasks, so eager to meet expectations, that I had no time to think about my personal brand. Each…

4. Approach Your Personal Brand Like a Project Manager

BY NOW, MOST professionals recognize the value of having a strong personal brand. After all, if you’re not associated with particular concepts or strengths or characteristics or viewpoints, then you’re probably invisible inside your organization. That might be fine for where you are now, but if you want to advance, you need to distinguish yourself in some way. Conversely, if you have a strong personal brand, people often seek you out for opportunities or want to work with you specifically. A strong personal brand is a form of career insurance. But many of us feel we are too busy to give sustained thought or focus to cultivating a strong personal brand, even if we know it would be beneficial in the long term. Amid the crush of meetings, emails, and…

5. What Kind of Leader Do You Want to Be?

IT’S THE QUESTION missing from so much of leadership development: “What kind of leader do you want to be?” We facilitate and encourage self-awareness among up-and-coming leaders, get them to map their journeys so far, share knowledge and ideas, and help them acquire new skills and adopt new behaviors. But we don’t focus strongly enough on arguably the most central components to successful leadership: leadership intent (the kind of leader you want to be) and impact (the legacy you want to leave). I call these two components, combined, your “leadership footprint.” In my experience, many have thought about their leadership footprint at some point, but few have defined it clearly enough to guide their behavior and evaluate their “success.” Of those who have, fewer give it regular consideration—letting it guide…

5. What Kind of Leader Do You Want to Be?

6. How to Find, Define, and Use Your Values

WHAT ARE YOUR values? As a career coach, when I ask my clients this question, I usually get one of two answers. They say either “I’ve never actually thought about that” or “Oh, easy. These are my values.” After more conversations, the first group often realizes that they do have some ideas about their values, and the second group realizes that their values are mostly just a list of words without substance. Both reactions are valid—it’s not easy to have clarity around your values. After all, the importance of identifying and using them isn’t emphasized in our society. Most of us aren’t taught how to do this type of self-reflection in school. You probably won’t be asked to identify your values for any job. And your employer will probably never…

6. How to Find, Define, and Use Your Values

The New Rules of Executive Presence

ASPIRING LEADERS HAVE long been told that to be considered for senior management roles, especially those in the C-suite, they must demonstrate “executive presence” (EP). In most corporate settings, that has traditionally boiled down to three attributes: gravitas, strong communication skills, and the “right” appearance. But what exactly constitutes EP now? After a decade marked by tumultuous economic, cultural, and technological change (think climate threats; the Covid-19 pandemic; war in Europe and the Middle East; the #MeToo, Black Lives Matter, and LGBTQ+ rights movements; worsening political divides; and the rise of Zoom, Instagram, and other online platforms), how have expectations about ideal leadership traits changed? Surveys I conducted in 2012 and in 2022 tell a story of significant shifts embedded within continuity (see the exhibit “Redefining Executive Presence”). The 2012…

The New Rules of Executive Presence

THAT WAS THEN… In 2012, C-suite leaders ranked three traits as most important to executive presence: gravitas, communication skills, and the “right” appearance. A reexamination of the concept in 2022 (under the backdrop of a global pandemic, war in Europe and the Middle East, social movements, and the continued rise of online platforms) unsurprisingly revealed a new ranking. THIS IS NOW… Current leaders instead value inclusiveness, authenticity, respect for others, and diversity most highly. Aspiring leaders should focus on developing in these areas, and executives whose leadership style neatly matches the old profile cannot rest on their laurels; they must stretch themselves in new ways to meet evolving expectations. THE GOOD NEWS This new model is highly learnable. While leadership still requires a confident, decisive, polished, and commanding persona, this…

Step into the Spotlight

AMY GALLO: We’re going to talk about ways to raise our visibility at work—because opportunities come to us when people in power see us and know what we’re up to. But visibility’s tricky: It can be uncomfortable, especially for women who have been taught that their work should speak for itself, that they shouldn’t brag or draw the spotlight to themselves. Muriel Maignan Wilkins was our guest expert. Muriel’s a managing partner and cofounder of Paravis Partners, a consulting firm that helps people develop leadership skills. She cowrote the book Own the Room. AMANDA KERSEY: We wanted to have a conversation about workplace visibility because we know it can advance our careers, but until recently, I didn’t really know how one thing led to the other. I’m hoping we can…

Step into the Spotlight

THE PROBLEM To invite career opportunities, you must make yourself visible to those with the power to grant them. Unfortunately, many women find visibility uncomfortable and avoid seeking the spotlight. WHY IT HAPPENS Research has shown that women may eschew taking an assertive style as individualistic and self-promoting—not just inauthentic but ineffective. They fear facing backlash because seeking visibility doesn’t reconcile with expectations of feminine norms. WHAT TO DO First, know your purpose behind seeking visibility. Second, prepare: Think about exactly what you will say and do when you have it. Finally, put yourself physically “at the table”—look at everyone in the room, and engage.…

Make Yourself an Expert

I DON’T KNOW what we’d do without him!” That’s what an executive in a Fortune 100 company recently told us about a brilliant project leader. We’ve heard the same sentiment expressed about many highly skilled specialists during the hundred-plus interviews we’ve conducted as part of our research into knowledge use and sharing. In organizations large and small, including NASA, the U.S. Forest Service, SAP, and Raytheon, managers spoke of their dependence on colleagues who have “deep smarts”—business-critical expertise, built up through years of experience, which helps them make wise, swift decisions about both strategy and tactics. These mavens may be top salespeople, technical wizards, risk managers, or operations troubleshooters, but they are all the “go-to” people for a given type of knowledge in their organizations. Because deep smarts are mostly…

Make Yourself an Expert

THE GO-TOS Organizations rely on them—go-to people with deep smarts: business-critical expertise that facilitates wise and swift strategic and tactical decisions, the result of years of experience. Most of that knowledge is in experts’ heads, posing a problem for the organization that loses its go-to and for anyone who wants to become the go-to without putting in all that time. PULLING DEEP SMARTS To become indispensible, the authors advise that you unearth from the expert the essential skills that make this person effective. But that will get you only so far, as experts are not always aware of their skills. To help “pull” deep smarts from another, follow the OPPTY process: observation, practice, partnering and joint problem solving, and taking responsibility. THE TRANSFER This method works best with close proximity…

Tools for Building Deep Smarts

Action Plan Becoming an expert begins with deciding whom you will acquire knowledge from and how. Here is an excerpt from a step-by-step plan drawn up by Melissa, a high-potential sales rep in the beverage industry who aspires to become her firm’s in-house whiz at distribution. Her chosen mentor is George, a general manager at her company who is the “go-to” guy in that area. OBSERVATION Immediate Goal (2 Months) Learn how to evaluate distributors by studying retail stores they service. To-Do Visit five stores with George, and record what he notices. PRACTICE Short-term Goal (6 Months) Learn how to evaluate our firm’s performance from the distributors’ point of view. To-Do Interview three distributors in region, asking about three things we do better and three things we do worse than…

1. Choose Courage over Confidence

HAVE YOU EVER shied away from taking on a role or opportunity because you didn’t feel confident enough? Perhaps your inner critic told you that you weren’t ready or capable enough, or that you didn’t have enough experience. Perhaps the voice in your head asked: Why me? If you can relate, you’re among the majority of women with whom I’ve worked. I recently asked more than 120 women from areas including the U.S., the UK, Australia, Georgia, Italy, India, Jamaica, and Bermuda: “If you’ve ever avoided risks, what factors and reasons contributed to this?” More than 70% reported that self-doubt—not having enough belief in themselves, their capabilities, or their skills—was a driving factor. As one high-profile executive says: “Every day I doubt myself. I doubt that I am good enough…

1. Choose Courage over Confidence

2. How to Self-Promote (When You Don’t Like to Self-Promote)

WHEN NEW LEADERS pursue career advancement, they often defer to their managers to sell their “readiness” to the organization. This is a mistake. When you do this, you hand over any control you have in the promotion process, increasing the chances of your strengths and wins going unnoticed. To rise through the ranks, you must be proactive and build the business case for your own career progression. In other words, you must get comfortable with self-promotion. Self-promotion refers to communicating your interests, abilities, or achievements to others with the goal of enhancing your professional reputation (or your personal brand), gaining visibility, and improving your career prospects. Even though it’s sometimes perceived as a taboo, selfpromotion can help you move up the ladder. As a marketing executive with more than 20…

2. How to Self-Promote (When You Don’t Like to Self-Promote)

3. How to Self-Promote—Without Sounding Self-Centered

IMAGINE MEETING AN important executive at a networking event. You’re keen to make a good impression. You have some recent accomplishments that you would really like to share, but you worry about coming across as a self-centered braggart. On the other hand, you don’t want to let this opportunity to share your accomplishments slip past you. What should you do? Self-promotion often poses a dilemma: Talking about your accomplishments can make you appear more competent and capable, but it can also make you seem less warm, less friendly, and more selfish. In contrast, being self-deprecating, deflecting credit, or sharing setbacks can make you seem more approachable but also less competent. What can you do to create a great overall impression—projecting both competence and warmth? In new research, we identify a…

3. How to Self-Promote—Without Sounding Self-Centered

4. What to Do When Your Boss Won’t Advocate for You

HAVING A GREAT boss is a potentially life-changing gift. Having a bad boss can cause a lot of drama, headaches, and stress. While it’s easy to love the great bosses and flee the bad ones, there’s one kind of boss who is much less straightforward to navigate: the boss who doesn’t advocate for you. You might not even know that you have one. Most advocacy happens behind the scenes and in conversations to which you yourself are not privy. As the adage goes, 80% of what’s said about you is said when you’re not in the room. Nonadvocating bosses can refuse to bring up your name favorably in conversations about promotion. They can withhold critical developmental feedback and stunt your growth. And they can even overtly undermine you and attempt…

4. What to Do When Your Boss Won’t Advocate for You

5. How to Tell Your Story on LinkedIn

YOUR LINKEDIN PAGE is often the centerpiece of your online career persona, yet most of us barely consider what we’re offering there. We serve up a motley buffet of achievements, experiences, identities, missions, and passions for readers to shovel through. Or we go the other way and set a sparse table with only the four basic food groups: name, current job, previous experience, and education. The first approach overwhelms the reader—employer, investor, client, or ally—and the second leaves them starved for information and less likely to connect. The opportunity is lost and we all go hungry. No matter how great you are in a role, if you can’t articulate your value, it’s that much harder to gain the sponsorship you need to move into the leadership positions you seek. With…

5. How to Tell Your Story on LinkedIn

6. How Women Can Develop—and Promote—Their Personal Brand

WE ALL KNOW developing a personal brand is valuable, because a strong reputation can put you on the radar for exciting career opportunities. When your true talents are understood, it’s far more likely you’ll be tapped for relevant and interesting assignments—and it helps you stand out in a field of competitors. Research by Sylvia Ann Hewlett at the Center for Talent Innovation shows that cultivating your personal brand is one of the best ways to attract a sponsor—and professionals with sponsors are 23% more likely than their peers to be promoted. Your brand is also a powerful hedge against professional misfortune. If there are layoffs or cutbacks at your company, being recognized in your field makes it far more likely that you’ll be snapped up quickly by another firm. But…

7. Building Social Capital When You Work Remotely

WHILE GARNERING SOCIAL capital has always been essential to internal corporate collaboration, it has become even more critical for every hybrid employee, remote-working person, or solo entrepreneur today. Simply having the skills to do a particular job is no longer sufficient because our hybrid offices have made many people invisible. Your ability to partner with team members, make an impression, network in your industry, and stay ripe for opportunities depends on the strength of your professional relationships and communication skills. Just like any other currency, social capital can be earned, invested, and spent. When it comes to your professional longevity, there is no greater fortune than your worth in social capital. So how much do you have in your bank? What Social Capital Is and How I Leveraged It Earning…

7. Building Social Capital When You Work Remotely

8. The Guru’s Guide to Creating Thought Leadership

HOW DO YOU produce an idea that changes the way people think and work? This was one of the key questions that Tom Davenport, Larry Prusak, and I set out to answer a decade ago in our book, What’s the Big Idea? Creating and Capitalizing on the Best New Management Thinking (Harvard Business Review Press, 2023). Part of our initial response was to rank management gurus according to the measurable influence of their ideas; we were the first researchers to use scholarly methods to do so. We also analyzed the top 50 ranked HBR articles of all time (by reprint sales). Gurus adapt, build on, and reshuffle preexisting ideas into a package that appeals to managers today, but also sprinkle in new case examples that align with the current zeitgeist. The…

8. The Guru’s Guide to Creating Thought Leadership

9. A Guide to Being a Great Panelist

BEING A PANELIST offers advantages that extend beyond the appreciative applause of the audience. It’s a chance to showcase your expertise, network with your professional community, contribute to industry dialogue, and build your reputation as a thought leader. If you perform well, your colleagues may begin to see you as a go-to resource on the topic of discussion. The positive exposure can help you attract potential teammates and, depending on your field, clients or partners. So, how can you make the most of this special opportunity? The strategies outlined below can help you prepare and perform to the best of your abilities. In Advance When you’re invited to join a panel, the first thing you should do is make sure it aligns with your goals. Ask yourself: Am I passionate…

9. A Guide to Being a Great Panelist

10. How to Make Sure Your Book Gets Read

ENTREPRENEURS HAVE long known that writing a book is a great marketing tool for their business. And increasingly professionals who work inside organizations also recognize the power of publishing to advance their careers and distinguish themselves from the pack. Of course, writing the book is only the start. The competition is vast, including not just commercially published works but also the million-plus self-published books released each year. The essential next step is launching your book successfully, so it has a chance to be seen by your target audience. In today’s crowded media environment, hiring a PR firm and crossing your fingers isn’t enough. Authors need to take charge of their own promotional process. As I’ve discovered in the course of launching three books over the past six years, the strategies…

10. How to Make Sure Your Book Gets Read

11. Why Leaders Should Be Open About Their Flaws

IN THE LATE 1980s, Canon ran a commercial with professional tennis player Andre Agassi that launched an infamous slogan: Image Is Everything. For many years leaders of all respects have embraced that sentiment, doing everything they could to come across as powerful, strong, and flawless. Yet, recent research has found that effective leadership isn’t about always being perfect but about being genuine. When followers believe their leaders are acting as their authentic selves, they experience greater well-being, trust the organization more, perform better, work harder, and make more-ethical decisions. However, breaking out of the “Image Is Everything” mindset is difficult, and leaders often find it challenging to come across as authentic. Our research finds that one reason leaders struggle is because they frequently choose to present their strengths and intentionally…

11. Why Leaders Should Be Open About Their Flaws

Reinventing Your Personal Brand

YOU’VE WORKED LONG and hard, sacrificing to build a solid reputation. When you’re out of the room, you know what they’re saying: He’s an innovative marketer. She’s a terrific patent lawyer. He knows everything about the Latvian export market. But what if you now want to rebrand yourself? People reinvent themselves all the time—to take on a new challenge, shift into more-meaningful work, or rebut perceptions that have hindered their career progress. Sometimes the changes are major (a financial services manager moves into retail, a venture capitalist becomes a life coach). Sometimes the rebranding is subtle, as for an executive who wants to advance but needs to overcome the knock that he’s “not good with numbers.” Taking control of your personal brand may mean the difference between an unfulfilling job…

THE CHALLENGE People use career changes to reinvent themselves all the time, but it’s important to manage one’s brand in such transitions. Doing so can spell the difference between a bungled change and a successful one. MANAGE YOUR BRAND There are five key steps in any personal rebranding: 1. Define your destination and acquire the necessary skills. 2. Craft a unique selling proposition and distinguish yourself by leveraging your points of difference. 3. Develop a narrative that describes your transition in terms of the value it offers others. 4. Reintroduce yourself, using digital media and seizing opportunities to showcase your capabilities. 5. Prove your worth by establishing and promoting your track record. THE NEW YOU Traces of your old brand may linger, but a carefully considered strategy and the ability…

Why Career Transition Is So Hard

TODAY PEOPLE AT all stages of their careers are asking themselves profound ques tions about the kind of work they do, how much of it they want to do, and the place it occupies in their lives. We’re asking ourselves these questions in part because fewer and fewer of us conceive of life as having the three “traditional” stages: a short early stage devoted to learning, a long middle stage dedicated to work, and a later stage devoted to enjoying one’s golden years. Instead, with growing frequency, we’re alternating between changing jobs and careers, pursuing opportunities for education, and making time for periods of rest and restoration. This isn’t a midlife-crisis type of questioning that flares up at a certain age and gets resolved once and for all. The accelerated…

Why Career Transition Is So Hard

CAREER TRANSITIONS While career transitions can yield big benefits, they can be emotionally challenging, involving feelings of loss, insecurity, and confusion. THE APPROACH To navigate these challenges effectively, a more iterative approach to career reinvention is needed. Instead of rigidly planning every step, embrace uncertainty and exploration. While unpleasant, this mind shift can be made easier by diverging and delaying (experimenting with different possibilities), exploiting and exploring (balancing current responsibilities with new opportunities), and bridging and bonding (building and nurturing relationships with those who can help with your transition). THE BENEFITS Reinventing yourself effectively—and often—can allow you to pursue new opportunities and skills, make time for periods of rest and relaxation, and shift your role as new technologies reshape the business world. ONGOING STORY By embracing these strategies and fostering…

1. Your Personal Brand Needs a Refresh. Here’s Where to Start

FUNDAMENTALLY, BRANDS fessional decisions, such as whether to hire you, promote you, engage you for coaching or services, and so on. That’s why it can be so challenging when your per sonal brand has fallen out-of-date. Take Eva, for instance. She’s a digital marketer with more than 10 years of experience managing creative teams in global enterprises and startups. She’s good at what she does but doesn’t find it stimulating anymore, help people make choices—and that’s true whether we’re talking about products, objects, or humans. When it comes to personal brands, those choices may involve high-stakes proso she applies to a variety of roles that align with her current aspirations. But she never hears back from anyone—perhaps, she realizes a bit too late, because her long-ignored LinkedIn profile showcases skills and…

2. Take Ownership of Your Future Self

IN HIS TED TALK “The Psychology of Your Future Self,” Harvard psychologist Daniel Gilbert explains a bias that almost all of us have: We tend to think that the person we are today is the person we will always be. Most people, when asked if they are the same person they were 10 years ago, will say no, but we have a much harder time seeing potential for change in the future. Gilbert and others call this the “end of history illusion.” Despite awareness that our past self is clearly different from our present self, we tend to think that who we are right now is the “real” and “finished” version of ourselves, and our future self will be basically the same as who we are today. Gilbert puts it…

2. Take Ownership of Your Future Self

3. When Your Colleagues Have an Outdated Perception of You

TEN YEARS AGO, Tasha* was the seventh employee at her medical software startup, having been hired as an administrative assistant to the chief sales officer. Today, she manages a team of eight salespeople collectively responsible for $22 million in revenue. When the chief sales officer announced his retirement recently, Tasha expected to be considered for the role. Instead, the CEO announced an external search, stating that there were no qualified internal candidates. Tasha was hurt and angry, recognizing a harsh reality she’d long suspected: “I’m seen as I was, not as I am.” If you’re a reliable, longterm employee like Tasha who still wants to grow in your career but is feeling trapped by old perceptions, you’re not alone. As executive coaches, we’ve worked with many professionals who’ve accelerated their…

3. When Your Colleagues Have an Outdated Perception of You

4. How to Reshape Your Leadership Brand as You Start a New Role

HARALD WAS DELIGHTED when he was promoted to head of supply chain at a global food products company. Originally from Germany, he built his career in the automobile industry before being hired to turn around the food product company’s manufacturing operations. He led a successful turnaround by replacing almost all the leadership team, restructuring and outsourcing production, and cutting head count by 20%. In his new role, Harald would be responsible for the entire supply chain in the company’s biggest and most profitable region. However, the people Harald would lead in his new role were, understandably, apprehensive about his arrival. The supply chain organization, they beyou lieved, was performing well; certainly it did not require a turnaround. Harald’s success in transforming manufacturing operations had shaped his reputation for being impatient,…

5. How to Rebrand Yourself as Creative When You’re Not Perceived That Way

THE CONTEMPORARY business world lauds those who are seen as creative. Innovators such as Elon Musk and Jony Ive have become household names. Yet, for many of us, despite our best efforts to be recognized as creative thinkers, our coworkers ignore our suggestions in meetings and our bosses rebuff our pitches. If your colleagues have already formed an opinion of you as technically competent but a little staid, it’s going to take a lot to change their minds and get them to listen—a situation that’s especially true for women, who, research suggests, are often unfairly viewed as less creative than men. Before you can change anyone’s opinion of you, you need to ensure they start taking notice. You won’t get anywhere with subtlety; a few creative flourishes will be easily…

5. How to Rebrand Yourself as Creative When You’re Not Perceived That Way

Executive Summaries

THE NEW RULES OF EXECUTIVE PRESENCE PAGE 50 Define Your Unique Brand A New Approach to Building Your Personal Brand Jill Avery and Rachel Greenwald | page 10 For better or worse, in today’s world everyone is a brand. Whether you’re applying for a job, asking for a promotion, or writing a dating profile, your success will depend on getting others to recognize your value. So you need to get comfortable marketing yourself. In this article a branding thought leader and a professional dating coach present a guide to creating your personal brand. It’s an intentional, strategic practice in which you craft and express your own value proposition, and it involves seven steps: (1) Define your purpose by exploring your mission, passion, and strengths, and thinking about whom you want…

Executive Summaries

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