Hi There!
Everyone has a personal brand, and it is shaping their career.
Whether you are aware or not, whether you intentionally crafted one or not, your personal brand is speaking loud about you, and influencing your career success.
Career success depends on your felt impact - how the world perceives the value you create.
To ensure the world sees and feels the impact you create, you need to shape Perception proactively. This requires an authentic Presence, an effective Personal Brand, and strategic Communication
Your Personal Brand is one of the Activators of Career Success. You don't want to leave it to chance.
Now on to 5 Ideas To Unleash Your Leadership and Career This Week
How To Help Others Give You Better Feedback
"Many people struggle with the feedback they receive - not because they are not open to feedback, but because they are unable to make sense of it, let alone do anything with it."
Stakeholders, even those who have your best interests at heart, will often give you vague and non-actionable feedback.
In this short post, I show you how to help others give you better feedback by asking for specifics, helping them articulate their point of view, and testing your understanding by replaying what you heard.
RELATED: How to Decide When to Coach and When to Direct
6 Harsh Truths That Will Make You A Better Person
"...the moment you came into the world, you became part of a system designed purely to see to people's needs...Either you will go about the task of seeing to those needs by learning a unique set of skills, __or the world will reject you__, no matter how inoffensive and courteous you are."
Most of us believe that our success is determined by how good we are or how talented we are. That is why success eludes most of us
In this essay (Warning: strong language and swearing) Jason Pargin writes about six harsh truths that will make you a better person. This includes gems like "The world only cares about what it can get from you", "You hate yourself because you don't do anything", and "Everything inside you will fight improvement".
RELATED: How To Like A Job You Hate
Control in an Age of Empowerment
"A fundamental problem facing managers in the 1990s is how to exercise adequate control in organizations that demand flexibility, innovation, and creativity. Competitive businesses with demanding and informed customers must rely on employee initiative to seek out opportunities and respond to customers’ needs. But pursuing some opportunities can expose businesses to excessive risk or invite behaviors that can damage a company’s integrity.”
Talking about Control seems odd in an environment where leaders are urged to empower people to encourage adaptability, innovation, and creativity that businesses need for surviving and thriving. Yet, in certain situations, it is not just desirable but critical!
In this article from 1995 (which is still very relevant), Robert Simons speaks about control in an age of empowerment including. Besides the diagnostic control systems that we are most familiar with, he introduces three other systems - belief systems, boundary systems, and interactive control systems, that help manage risk without adversely affecting empowerment, innovation and creativity.
RELATED: How to Receive Feedback the Right Way
The Downside of Being Highly Connected
" We found that highly connected employees were less likely to speak up about highly sensitive and personal matters... less likely to be satisfied with their work-life balance... less likely to think that their workload allowed them to achieve an acceptable work-life balance"
Much has been said about the advantages of being well connected in the workplace. However, as a rule, too much of anything.
In this article Ethan Burris and his co-authors speak about the potential downsides of being a very highly connected employee. The biggest impact, according to the article, seems to be on the individual's work-life balance
RELATED: Why developing your people starts with you
How To Influence Decision-makers
"by making a small investment in learning to influence decision makers, you can make a large, positive difference for the future of your organization"
Most "experts" invest years and put in a lot of effort into being knowledgeable and current in their field. However, all this knowledge cannot be gainfully put to use unless they learn to sell their ideas.
In this article, Marshall Goldsmith shares tips on how to influence decision-makers. The tips include striving to win the big battles, expecting decision-makers to be imperfect, and accepting that the decision is theirs to make.
Influencing is integral to leading.
Whether you influence ethically and authentically depends on the goal, and how you persuade others to join you in achieving it. Both the ends and means matter.
When you are not transparent about the goal and don’t provide the information people need to decide for themselves, it is no longer influence, but manipulation.
If your goals are self-serving, and impact others negatively, including those you enrol to help you - you are not influencing ethically.
If your goal, or the means you adopt to persuade others, don’t align with your values and principles, you are not influencing authentically.
As a leader, Your success is directly linked to your ability to influence others.
Your impact and legacy depend on how ethically and authentically you influence others.
Until next time!
Narayan
PS : When you are ready, here are some ways in which I can help you work on your skills so that you can create greater impact for your organisation, for your team, and on your own career.
1. Join the Unleash Your Leadership Community to be part of a community of like-minded professionals to learn new skills, get support from peers on your challenges, and learn by helping others address their challenges.
2. Sign up to Unleash Your Leadership Masterclasses be notified of workshops I conduct regularly. Topics include Career Success Strategies, Personal Branding, Strategic Communication, Delivering Through Others, and many more...
3. Work with me privately. If you’d like to explore how we can work together 1-on-1 to Unleash Your Leadership or Career for faster growth and greater fulfilment at work — Click Here
