In today’s minisode, we kick off our new series on How to Think Like a CEO. We're going to start off with one of the most important topics in business, and that’s how to build a personal brand and why it is so important.

I want to start with a bit of a story. We had on the podcast a while ago, Stirling Mortlock, the former captain of the Australian rugby team, the Wallabies. Stirling was a really energetic guy, he would lift the whole team, even as a young guy in his early twenties.

One day he got to training and he was just flat, just didn't have the energy. And George Gregan, who at that time was the Wallaby captain, came over to him and said, “Hey, Stirling, what's going on, mate?” Stirling replied, “I'm just really tired. I’m just flat today.” And Gregan said to him, “Mate, that's all good and well, but everyone's watching and the whole team is flat out here because you don't have the right energy level.”

What Stirlo realised in that moment was that people were always watching. He was always on show.

Why is an executive personal brand so important?

It’s the same as a leader. Every single time you turn on a Zoom, every single time you walk into a meeting room, every single time you send an email, you’re being watched and a judgement is being made about you, good, bad, indifferent. Think about a time when you got an email from someone you like or don't like. You read it with a filter from past experience with that individual. And this is what a personal brand can do for you. People have a bias for, against or indifferent about you.

I love the saying, “Your reputation enters the room before you do.” Think about what it's like waiting for someone else to walk into a meeting room. You already have thoughts. “Oh, here they come.” Or, “Oh yes, here they come.”

Warren Buffett was quoted as saying, “It can take 20 years to build a reputation and 20 seconds to ruin it.” So, a positive brand can mean opportunities. It can mean ease, like a lack of resistance when you're trying to get results. It can mean a lot of fun, and it could actually mean health. It can mean more wealth for you as you'd probably get promoted faster. So a good positive brand has an endless list of positive outcomes for you and your family.

On the other hand, a negative brand can mean a toxic life at work. It can mean resistance. It can mean stress, emails at all times of the day or night, events out of your control, promotions or moves being rejected, projects being deprioritised. All these things can happen if you've got that negative personal brand.

Principle 1: Professional services firm of one

In my book, Chief Maker, we talk about that as a leader or as an executive, you are a professional services firm of one. What I mean by that is say that you go to market for a candidate to come and fill a role in your business. Even if it’s a full-time employee, they should be seen as a professional services firm of one because they are solving the business problem or service you need performed. So it is no different to outsourcing that task to a company or consultant.

And when you go and work with any professional services firm, be it accountants, lawyers, coders, you go to one that you know, you like, and you trust.

And so as an employee, if you want someone else to keep selecting you to play big roles and to get things done, you have to have a good reputation as a professional services firm of one. You should view yourself as that, and then your peers, your boss, your internal stakeholders, well, they're your customers. You go the extra mile for them to do a fantastic job.

That doesn't mean slaving and doing all the stuff that maybe they should be doing. It might well mean helping them or holding them accountable, giving them feedback or helping them to do their job better. That is actually what a great chief would do in that moment. And that actually builds a better reputation than not helping that person achieve at work.

Principle 2: Working at level (plus one)

Recently, I did a webinar with Daniel Hunter, who's the CEO of Business New South Wales. Dan reminded us all on this webinar that your number one team is the top team you're in. So if you're on the Executive team and you're the General Counsel, your number one team is not the Legal team, it's the Executive team. If you're in Sales and you're the Area Manager for Sydney or New South Wales, your top team is the National Sales team. That is us working up at level and building our personal brand and indicating to your peers and stakeholders that the results of the top team are more important than the results of your own.

Track records are never built on your own – and if they are, I guarantee you there's a flow-on effect of negative consequences later. You make a little move one day and you have no idea how that might come back and hit you two, three years later, when you're not in the room and someone who you accidentally wronged, has an opportunity to return serve. Or you're going for a job three years later, and you don't realise that one of the people on that selection panel is someone who you just did something to a couple of years ago, and they weren't impressed. You didn't behave well in a situation, or they think you’re unreliable or you simply didn't do a good job or it wasn't quality. So, Chief, you're always on show and your reputation is always going up or down.

Principle 3: Conflict resolution is a brand enhancer

A few years ago, we had Antonia Mercorelli, CEO of the REIQ, on The Inner Chief podcast. Antonia became an expert at leaning into conflict across a business so her personal brand became someone who wasn't just an observer of conflict, but someone who solved conflict, because she went in with curiosity and to understand and to get a resolution quickly. And that is a great gift if you can give that to people. It is a reputation or a personal brand booster and you will find that people will start to magnetically come to you to help them with their problems.

However, every time you sit back and let bad behaviour, poor performance or poor relationships between stakeholders fester, that can have tremendously bad consequences to your brand.

A quick audit of your personal brand

This is how chiefs think. Look at yourself quite objectively and take a harsher lens than normal and ask yourself:

• Am I likeable? Am I a nice person to do business with?
• Am I reliable? Let's just say you are really good at your job, but you go missing all the time, right? You don't turn up to meetings, you're really slow on replying.
• Am I capable? Am I performing my job to the best of my ability? Can I do the job to a really good level?

If you’re not answering these with any certainty and in the affirmative, your reputation and your brand just plummets, especially if you consider all three simultaneously.

Principle 4: meetings are your performance theatre

We have covered this on previous episodes about the high performance life cycle, P2R2 (Prepare, Perform, Recover, Review) that meetings are the performance theatre of executives. Every time you turn up to a meeting, you’re being watched.

I see people, even today, they're slovenly dressed, there's light behind them, you can't see them, there’s washing in the background of their home office. There’s a noise in the background or their speaker isn’t working properly or they're not paying attention.

Chief, in that moment, people are drawing conclusions and your brand is being built around that. You know what it's like when someone else presents poorly to you. You're immediately thinking, “Wow, what's wrong? Why aren't they putting the energy into this? Why aren't they fully present? Why aren't they ready? Why aren't they honouring me and my time by being ready for this and being switched on?” 

So meetings are the performance theatre executives. It is a huge place. It plays a massive part in you building a personal brand. 

So, Chief, there's all the information and the key mindsets I've taken from CEOs and executives for 15 years about personal branding.

Do the audit – am I likeable, reliable, and capable? You could even take it a step further and build yourself a really simple 360 degree feedback using SurveyMonkey. Just ask a few simple questions like:

1. “What am I good at that you really appreciate?”
2. “What are three words that describe my personal brand around the business?
3. “What is one thing I could do to really improve my performance and reputation?” 

If you sent that around to about 10 or 15 people in the business, I guarantee that you would get some quality data to help you understand your reputation. And that would be a valuable exercise for you.

Deal hope,

Greg