I want to qualify this statement by defining what I mean by leadership brand. It isn’t, as many may think about an individual leader’s brand (what I would call a personal brand) – what I refer to is what collectively the leaders within an organisation, from the executive team down, want to be known. It should be articulated in a clear and compelling way, ideally in one short statement, that supports and reinforces the organisation’s brand.
To use a well known and ubiquitous example, Apple is known for innovation and design, that's the brand; its leadership brand is creating new products and services outside the industry norms and everything and everyone within the business will be focused on making it happen. Indeed, one could argue that maintaining this is currently Apple's leadership team's biggest challenge...
Size or sector doesn’t matter either - it isn't just for the big players such as Apple. Of course, if yours is an organisation that employs people in the tens rather than the hundreds, then the process of establishing a compelling leadership brand maybe more straight forward and take less time to develop than an organisation that has several tiers of managers or stakeholders – that’s the theory anyway. It’s true to say that if a broad consensus doesn’t already exist then it can still be a time-consuming process!
Why is it important? It’s important because every senior manager member should be absolutely clear about the behaviours and the skills that will set your business apart from another and these should stem from the leadership identity (brand). Believe it or not, this isn’t as straight forward as it may sound. It’s surprising how aspects such as giving support to their team or encouraging innovation can vary widely dependent on the individual manager’s own definition and style.
Leaders with top leadership skills are 50% more likely to outperform revenue expectation and 80% more likely to outperform profit expectation than those with poor leadership skills, according to the Corporate Leadership Council’s Engagement Research Survey. Those are some pretty powerful percentages. While companies often spend a lot of time and money developing the leadership skills of their individual senior managers, they give very little attention to the collective skills of the senior management team as a whole. These companies may be missing a trick because the collective behaviours of the senior management team underpin the company’s reputation or brand.The vision and values of an organisation should form the basis, but it’s also about clearly defining what ‘good’ (and bad) looks like and then making sure that all of your managers understand this and start to embed it throughout the organisation. Designing your leadership development programme or activity, which has the leadership brand at its heart, will set the direction, tone and style. How effective it is will become clear from the experience of your employees and your customers. The simple fact is that leaders’ behaviour will affect the behaviour of employees – which will in turn impact customers because the reality is it’s your employees that your customers deal with on a day-to-day basis.
I would encourage all businesses to go through the process of developing a leadership brand – an initial strategy meeting can be the starting point and usually throws up some of the key areas that the business does well or not so well in. In my experience and from feedback from clients, the process itself helps gives the senior management team a renewed focus and clarity on what’s important and identifies the leadership development priorities.
How closely aligned is your leadership development activity to your organisational leadership brand?
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