By Prabhakar Mundkur
It’s not only fashion that is about trends. Trends is an affliction that affects management thinking as well. And the latest trend is to talk about personal branding. The well-known management magazines are writing long articles about it. Other general gurus on branding are writing books on it. Why even the Harvard Business Review made it their cover story for the May-June issue of 2023. And here is the surprise. The article is written by a Jill Avery, a branding thought leader, and Racheal Greenwald a dating coach and a professional matchmaker author of the book ‘Find a husband after 35’. So if that doesn’t prove it is trending what does? After all, the HBR is considered the mother of all management journals. And their definition of purpose is what we were taught in the marketing kindergarten class for branding.
For a particular target person or group of people, I will make a difference by offering the unique, memorable, and meaningful value you want to provide…
• HBR May-June 2023 issue
But isn’t this just a another extension of the branding? Have the personal coaches and marketing gurus just discovered a new revenue stream? I certainly think so. After all it is quite easy to do. Transfer all you know about branding to people, especially people in positions of importance. And everyone is jumping into it, not just marketing gurus but personal coaches as well.
The question I would like to ask is whether great CEOs don’t become great brands automatically. After all I would hate to think that Steve Jobs was focussing his entire life on creating a personal brand. I think he was focussing on following his passion, making great products and leading Apple into becoming a great company.
The brand Steve Jobs just happened as a result of what he was doing.
Or take Jack Welch for example. Welch was Chair and CEO of General Motors from 1981 to 2001. He closed factories, laid off workers and pursued the vision of a fast growing company in a slow growth economy. Of course he wrote books and did a lot of public speaking. And became one of the greatest management thinkers and leaders of the last century. Jack Welch, the brand, became what it is because of what he did. Not because he was focussing on becoming a brand.
Jeff Bezos said: “Your brand is what people are saying when you are not in the room”. Well said. But I really wonder if Jeff Bezos was planning his entire personal branding strategy to achieve that. He was focussing on creating a great brand called Amazon that the world would acknowledge as a great brand. The rest just happened automatically.
In conclusion, I would like to submit that becoming a great leader and creating a great company or product will make you a great personal brand without much thinking or effort or trying to create your own personal brand proposition. It is hard to believe that the great leaders of our time were writing out by writing personal value propositions, auditing their personal brand equity or constructing their personal brand narrative.
Do your best. The brand will follow.