Your Brand of Leadership
Your Brand of Leadership
As other organizations start to copy the Levi product, so it becomes even more important that the Levi brand is protected so that the public can recognize the brand name and find it from the mass of jeans for sale.
Protecting the brand is an important part of doing business in this day and age. It takes years to build a brand but it is very easy to lose the credibility of that brand and undo years of hard work. The key is being able to convey the message to the consumer that this brand stands for something and that the brand is consistent.
There are three levels of perceived value to a brand. Level one is the external perceived value by the consumer. Level two is the way the organization backs up that value by what it delivers. The third level is the way the business operates within itself towards that value.
We perceive that McDonald’s is a place to have quick food that is tasty. That is our perception of the brand. Level two is our experience when we buy the food. Does it live up to our expectation? Level three is what the organization is doing to ensure that our experience is sustained at all times. What do we hear about the brand from other places? For example, if we hear that the company treats it’s people poorly, then that perception can affect our experience with the brand.
The company’s values underpin the brand. In other words they are the values that ensure we behave in accordance with the brand.
Is leadership any different?
People have a perception of the leadership. That perception is supported by the interaction they have with the leadership. They also have a further perception based on how they see and hear others being affected by the leadership.
As a leader we are ‘a brand’ because the way we deal with our people says something about our leadership style. Our style is bureaucratic, arrogant or supportive, approachable or any other brand label we give it by our actions. People perceive that brand and then start to confirm it through their experiences. They also look for the evidence that supports their perception by listening and watching other people and their experiences.
As leaders we have a big responsibility to ensure that our brand is clearly understood and that we align our values with the company values. A mismatch of those values can ultimately undermine the brand of the business. For example, we expect the Police to be honest and reliable. What if one of the Sergeants is not honest and reliable? Can this undermine the perception of the Police as a brand of honesty and reliability? Of course it will. What if you worked for Virgin and discovered that the managers didn’t really care about what the customer thought? Would that impact our perception of the brand? Of course it would.
Anyone in a leadership role has a responsibility to ensure that they uphold the brand and live within the values of the organization. The expression commonly used is “walk-the-talk”. I think it is beyond walking the talk and it requires living the talk. If anyone in an organization wants to see what the values of the organization look like, then they should be able to look at people in leadership positions and see those values in action. They should see a living, breathing, walking, talking personification of those values.
More and more we are seeing the brand being people. We only need to look at Richard Branson to see how a person can become a brand. The Virgin brand has been built on the Branson brand. It is only in recent years that Virgin has started to be a brand in its own right.
The truth is; people prefer to buy people, long before they buy the product or service. So it is with leadership. People buy the person before they buy the brand. Maybe it is their knowledge, their charisma, their personality that people warm to that provides the basis for the leadership style or brand to be developed.
Paul Bridle
Leadership Methodologist
Your Brand of Leadership - To learn more about this author, visit Paul Bridle's Website.
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Of course, in modern times the ‘brand’ is a sign that it originated from someone. For example, Levi has their brand on their jeans and although we buy the jeans, Levi owns the brand name on them. That brand name is a signal to us that the jeans are of a certain quality or standard and so we are drawn to the brand. Levi is asking us to choose their product over anyone else’s. So the ownership for that brand is at the heart of Levi’s business.
As other organizations start to copy the Levi product, so it becomes even more important that the Levi brand is protected so that the public can recognize the brand name and find it from the mass of jeans for sale.
Protecting the brand is an important part of doing business in this day and age. It takes years to build a brand but it is very easy to lose the credibility of that brand and undo years of hard work. The key is being able to convey the message to the consumer that this brand stands for something and that the brand is consistent.
There are three levels of perceived value to a brand. Level one is the external perceived value by the consumer. Level two is the way the organization backs up that value by what it delivers. The third level is the way the business operates within itself towards that value.
We perceive that McDonald’s is a place to have quick food that is tasty. That is our perception of the brand. Level two is our experience when we buy the food. Does it live up to our expectation? Level three is what the organization is doing to ensure that our experience is sustained at all times. What do we hear about the brand from other places? For example, if we hear that the company treats it’s people poorly, then that perception can affect our experience with the brand.
The company’s values underpin the brand. In other words they are the values that ensure we behave in accordance with the brand.
Is leadership any different?
People have a perception of the leadership. That perception is supported by the interaction they have with the leadership. They also have a further perception based on how they see and hear others being affected by the leadership.
As a leader we are ‘a brand’ because the way we deal with our people says something about our leadership style. Our style is bureaucratic, arrogant or supportive, approachable or any other brand label we give it by our actions. People perceive that brand and then start to confirm it through their experiences. They also look for the evidence that supports their perception by listening and watching other people and their experiences.
As leaders we have a big responsibility to ensure that our brand is clearly understood and that we align our values with the company values. A mismatch of those values can ultimately undermine the brand of the business. For example, we expect the Police to be honest and reliable. What if one of the Sergeants is not honest and reliable? Can this undermine the perception of the Police as a brand of honesty and reliability? Of course it will. What if you worked for Virgin and discovered that the managers didn’t really care about what the customer thought? Would that impact our perception of the brand? Of course it would.
Anyone in a leadership role has a responsibility to ensure that they uphold the brand and live within the values of the organization. The expression commonly used is “walk-the-talk”. I think it is beyond walking the talk and it requires living the talk. If anyone in an organization wants to see what the values of the organization look like, then they should be able to look at people in leadership positions and see those values in action. They should see a living, breathing, walking, talking personification of those values.
More and more we are seeing the brand being people. We only need to look at Richard Branson to see how a person can become a brand. The Virgin brand has been built on the Branson brand. It is only in recent years that Virgin has started to be a brand in its own right.
The truth is; people prefer to buy people, long before they buy the product or service. So it is with leadership. People buy the person before they buy the brand. Maybe it is their knowledge, their charisma, their personality that people warm to that provides the basis for the leadership style or brand to be developed.
Paul Bridle
Leadership Methodologist
Your Brand of Leadership - To learn more about this author, visit Paul Bridle's Website.
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Kim CastleWith nearly two decades in the advertising and design business, with clients like Domino's Pizza, General Motors, Direct TV, Pedigree, Wolfgang Puck, Higher Octave Music, Hollywood Celebrity Products, Disney, and Paramount, as well as thousands of entrepreneurs around the world define, structure, communicate, and position their business for greater profits, BrandU(R) co-creators Kim Castle and W. Vito Montone discovered that entrepreneurs could experience the same power that big brands command for a fraction of the cost with the world's only process-based results-drive Integral approach to business creation. BrandU(R) is helping entrepreneurs grow with the power of extreme clarity from idea...to brand...to market(TM) and helping one million entrepreneurs become successful and whole so that they can make a difference in the world. Are you one of them? If you want to experience clarity all the way to the bank(TM), get started now at http://www.brandu.com. - Visit Kim Castle's Website |
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Dianne CramptonDianne Crampton is an executive leadership coach, team culture consultant, author and president of TIGERS Success Series, Inc. Dianne has been helping CEO's and Executives connect their employees to their core values and goals for over 20 years using the trademarked TIGERS team culture process, which stands for trust, interdependence, genuineness, empathy, risk and success. To download a free white paper on behaviors that build strong teams and behaviors that will predictably tear them down go here. Dianne's contribution to the 2010 Pfeiffer Consulting Journal (an imprint of John Wiley and Sons Publishers) entitled TIGERS Hearted Teams is available in November 2009. Her new book TIGERS Among Us: 5 Winning Business Team Cultures And Why, Three Creeks Publishing will release in March 2010. To receive publishing discounts, subscribe to the free TigerTracks Newsletter here. - Visit Dianne Crampton's Website |
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