{"id":896412,"date":"2020-11-25T09:23:49","date_gmt":"2020-11-25T08:23:49","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.ie.edu\/insights\/?post_type=articles&p=896412"},"modified":"2022-02-18T12:23:38","modified_gmt":"2022-02-18T11:23:38","slug":"the-armor-of-a-personal-brand-for-women-leaders","status":"publish","type":"articles","link":"https:\/\/www.ie.edu\/insights\/articles\/the-armor-of-a-personal-brand-for-women-leaders\/","title":{"rendered":"The Armor of a Personal Brand for Women Leaders"},"featured_media":897157,"template":"","meta":{"_has_post_settings":[]},"schools":[29],"areas":[537],"subjects":[415],"class_list":["post-896412","articles","type-articles","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","schools-business-school","areas-branding","subjects-diversity"],"custom-fields":{"wpcf-article-leadin":["Female leaders often have to walk the tightrope between moving up the ladder and being liked. Professor Gabriela Salinas<\/a> explains how a strong personal brand built on respect can enable women to overcome short-term unpopularity and achieve their long-term goals."],"wpcf-article-body":["Developing a strong personal brand is essential for every professional who wants to stay relevant -- whether she or he is looking for work or new projects, aiming for a promotion, or leading a team towards a goal. When a professional\u2019s intentions and values are consistent, and what they can bring to the table is clear, their influence amongst peers and colleagues grows, projects are accomplished, and leadership takes shape. The ever evolving process of building one\u2019s personal brand is particularly important for those working in the gig economy (a direction in which we are all more or less headed) and during times of instability (for example, the current environment.)\r\n\r\nHowever, a personal brand is not one size fits all<\/a> and the process of developing one can pose specific challenges for women. It is unnecessary to detail the ways in which women with strong personal brands \u2013 like Hillary Clinton and Oprah Winfrey and Margaret Thatcher \u2013 have been labeled as aggressive, opportunistic, and bossy. Being clear, strong minded, and decisive is imperative to success for a leader, but for those who also happen to be female, there is another success factor, which can be somewhat counterproductive, and that is likeability (aka the L-Factor.)\r\n\r\nAs Sheryl Sandberg described in her widely read, if not widely accepted book, Lean In: Women, Work, and the Will to Lead<\/em>, the higher a woman climbs the ladder \u2013 whether it be professional or political \u2013 the more difficulty she tends to have with the L-Factor. Basically, she begins to start leaking popularity. It is the opposite for men. Sandberg writes, \"Success and likeability are positively correlated for men and negatively for women. When a man is successful, he is liked by both men and women. When a woman is successful, people of both genders like her less.\"\r\n\r\nUnconscious gender bias has been around for a while. In \u201cHoward vs Heidi,\u201d MBA students were given a case study of an actual entrepreneur who happened to be both successful and a woman.\u00a0 Half of the students were told the entrepreneur\u2019s name was Heidi Roizen (the entrepreneur\u2019s actual name), and the other half were provided with the fictional name Howard. When asked to rate the protagonist of the case study, the students rated Heidi and Howard equally competent, but found Heidi selfish and not the type of person you\u2019d want to work for or hire.\r\n\r\nGender expectations indicate that women should be warm, protective, and agreeable \u2013 and self-promotion does not align with these gender expectations. When a man self-promotes, he is usually considered confident, strong, or reliable.\r\n\r\nTo get around this dilemma of bias and gender expectation, women leaders must endeavor to let go of the need to be liked when leading people. This is not easy for a variety of reasons and the desire to be liked is obviously complicated, but regardless of where the need comes from, a strong personal brand can help women stay focused on their long term goals. This is because, in order to create a strong personal brand, one must do the hard work of clearly defining one\u2019s personal goals and values, and align them. This authenticity of self enables leaders \u2013 both women and men \u2013 to keep their objective front and center and makes decisions that might sometimes be unpopular. The armor of a personal brand is particularly helpful to women because female leaders tend to spend more time fighting that short-term focused and whimsical L-Factor.\r\n\r\nMore than a decade ago, Paul Arden wrote in his book Whatever You Think, Think the Opposite<\/em> the story of \"Steady Eddie\" and \"Reckless Erica.\" \"Steady Eddie\" represented the risk-averse corporate employee who rises quickly in his youth because he is nice and obedient. But when the time comes to hire a Managing Director, Eddie is discarded because, while he is a good employee, he does not innovate and does not have a public profile. At fifty years of age, he is fired. He didn't make it to the top of his career ladder even though, technically, he didn\u2019t do anything wrong. Of course, that's exactly the problem, he didn\u2019t really do anything. Steady Eddie did not take enough risks.\r\n\r\nOn the other side of the character spectrum, \"Reckless Erica\" is a creative professional who recently started working in an agency. She\u2019s sometimes irritating but is also enthusiastic and good at generating ideas \u2013 many ideas that are indeed impossible to implement, but there are some that do work and get the justified attention of her colleagues. Erica is eventually fired, but has no trouble finding a new job because many people remember the good idea (amongst all the others) that she generated during her tenure at her previous employer. The cycle repeats several times and by 40 she is a well-known and respected professional in her industry. Why? Because she had the guts to be different and she took enough risks that some good ideas stuck.\r\n\r\nThis story illustrates the difference between \"respect\" and \"love.\" Everyone loved Eddie, but it didn't help him create a sustainable position. Not everyone loved Erica, but everyone respected her. While respect is more difficult to earn and involves taking more risks, it is a stable and stronger platform on which to build a personal brand.\r\n\r\nAnother example of a leader (who is also a woman) with a personal brand built on respect is that of Chancellor Angela Merkel. Her public approval has varied markedly with different decisions made in the exercise of their functions. Yet Merkel, regardless of the polls, has remained true to her vision of a united and inclusive Europe, losing approval points with many decisions she made to implement this vision. She chose to stick with what she believed in over momentary popularity, and this earned her respect, and thus wielded her more influence in the long run. There are no shortcuts in this regard.\r\n\r\n\"\"<\/a>\r\n

Figure 1. Angela Merkel's public approval over time<\/em><\/p>\r\n

Source: Developed by author<\/em><\/p>\r\nThe British economist John Kay believes that our goals are best achieved indirectly because, at least usually, the current environment is uncertain and the effects of our actions depend on the reactions of others and objectives are multi-dimensional. It is essential to consider this concept when building a personal brand because it helps us understand, as Merkel does, that if we want to be respected in the long run, we must also accept the short term loss of popularity points. The road to respect is longer, but as Margaret Thatcher \u2013 another strong but not particularly liked leader \u2013 used to say: \"If you set out to be popular, you will be willing to compromise on anything at any time and you will achieve nothing.\"<\/em>\r\n\r\nBeing a leader is a complicated and constantly changing endeavor \u2013 and that holds true for the manager of a project team, the head of a department, a c-level executive, and the leader of a nation. It is difficult and important work to manage likeability and respect, short-term objectives and long-term goals. The key is deciding where to place relevance at the appropriate time. When focusing on likeability in the short term, leaders find themselves caught up in a popularity contest. But when the L-Factor is a long-term leadership quality, it translates into respect because employees or supporters trust the leader to make decisions for the good of everyone, not just themselves. For women developing a strong personal brand, it\u2019s important to not get mired by the desire to be liked at every turn, but to focus on long-term likability because this is what makes sustained and impactful leadership possible.\r\n\r\n \r\n\r\n\u00a9 IE Insights."],"wpcf-article-extract-enable":["1"],"wpcf-article-extract":["Female leaders often have to walk the tightrope between moving up the ladder and being liked. Professor Gabriela Salinas<\/a> explains how a strong personal brand built on respect can enable women to achieve their long-term goals and overcome short-term unpopularity."]},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ie.edu\/insights\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/articles\/896412","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ie.edu\/insights\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/articles"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ie.edu\/insights\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/articles"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ie.edu\/insights\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/897157"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ie.edu\/insights\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=896412"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"schools","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ie.edu\/insights\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/schools?post=896412"},{"taxonomy":"areas","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ie.edu\/insights\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/areas?post=896412"},{"taxonomy":"subjects","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ie.edu\/insights\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/subjects?post=896412"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}