‘Growing and Maintaining a Personal Brand as a Charity Leader’- Charity Leaders’ Exchange Report

 

#personalbrand

Do you want to learn more about how you can have a good personal brand as a charity leader?

If  so, go here to download our report (you will need to sign up as a member with the Charity Leaders’ Exchange).

This is a subject that is becoming increasingly important in our professional lives, but is seemingly little discussed in the charity sector. The report includes insights from our recent evening Seminar.

An issue we tackled head on at the seminar is that some people feel that ‘personal branding’ is only for people who have big egos and that charity leaders should be focusing on championing the brand of the charity they serve, not their own. I hope that the report convinces you that ego isn’t part of the equation: personal branding is about deciding who you are and your values and communicating it to others in an authentic, human way.

Many people work for particular charities precisely because their values chime with the aims of those charities. If their values didn’t chime, they would be likely either to loathe their jobs or to not be an effective advocate of the work of their organisation.

I also hope that the report convinces you that you don’t really choose to have a personal brand: everyone has one, even more so in our online age.

Even if you choose to be offline as much as possible, that is making a statement about your values and priorities: that is your brand too.

If you don’t take control of your personal brand, you run the risk of being misinterpreted, misunderstood and misrepresented. If you do take control, you can use your personal brand to amplify your effectiveness, support your career and weather professional storms when they loom into view. Your personal brand is something that you can work on and develop your whole life.

The report outlines and explains five tips to help you get your personal brand on track: be authentic, be consistent, be focused, be supportive and be patient. I hope that they are useful to you.

I happen to find personal branding a fascinating subject: while I don’t expect everyone to share my interest I do think it is worth you giving it a bit of consideration and deciding how you could use it to have a positive impact on your life.

To see some of the comments from the branding debate online and to offer your own views, please use the hashtag #personalbrand on Twitter. You can find the Charity Leaders’ Exchange Twitter account here.