I’ve worked with entrepreneurs, professionals, business leaders and even students on building their personal brand. While most of them have understood the value of managing their personal brand, a lot of them got stuck in the first few steps of defining what their brand is today and what they needed to do to grow their brand.
How’d they get stuck? Lack of self-awareness.
It turns out most of us aren’t as self-aware as we think we are. In her book, Insight, Tasha Eurich shares that that 95% of people think they’re self-aware, but only 10–15% truly are.
So what does it mean to have self-awareness, and how can we really achieve it?
Our boys are taking Taekwondo classes, and they love it. Their Taekwondo master also offers a leadership class for the students. They get to learn lessons on how to lead others and how to lead themselves. I always listen in on the leadership class so it’s like I get to attend and learn for free. This week’s lesson was all about self-awareness.
Here’s an excerpt from their ATA Leadership book:
“It’s when we have the understanding of why things occur and how our actions (or inaction), decisions (or lack thereof), and even intentions affect ourselves and the world around us. Self awareness means you understand that every word you say, every action you take, even every thought you have, creates a ripple effect that touches everything around you.”ATA Leadership
I’ve understood, and preached the value of, self-awareness for years. But that’s something new that hit me that I hadn’t realized before. Self-awareness means understanding that there’s an effect to everything I do or say, and that effect ties into the level of influence I have on others.
If you want to successfully develop, manage and grow your personal brand it’s essential for you to understand and be self-aware of your gifts, strengths and unique abilities.
Without self-awareness on who you are as an individual and as a professional, how can you decide where you want to move forward in your career and what steps you need to take to get there? How will you gain confidence in understanding what your leadership, your clients and your team members need from you?
So how do you develop your self-awareness? A great place to start is with yourself (obviously!). Take some self assessments that’ll help you better understand your personality, your tendencies, your strengths, your weaknesses, your ability to relate to and work with others.
Some of my favorite self-assessments are:
Once you’ve gone through the process of self-reflection and self-assessment, you’ve got to hear from others. If you’re not already aware, you need to understand how everyone else perceives you. And you can’t just assume. You have to get real, concrete answers from people who will give you God’s honest truth.
The best people to ask are the ones who work and interact with you from various areas and levels. You’ll want to ask people that you report to – your leadership, your customers. You’ll want to ask your peers – your direct teammates, peer level contacts from other teams and areas you work with. You’ll want to ask the people that report to you – your executive admin, your direct reports, any agencies or freelancers that work for you.
The best way to do it is to ask for their help and give them some questions to answer about you. Give them time to think through the questions and answer them on their own. Then they can either send their answers back to you or sit down and meet with you to discuss and explain them.
Here’s some great questions to get them to answer:
- What is it that most enhances [YOUR NAME]’s presence, impact and influence?
- What is it that most detracts from [YOUR NAME]’s presence, impact and influence?
- What 2-3 specific changes would you recommend that would improve [YOUR NAME]’s presence, impact and influence?
- [YOUR NAME] is really effective at __________________, but would be even more effective if they __________________.
This can be a bit scary at first, but you have to recognize that any feedback you receive is a gift – a gift that will help you in recognizing how far along you are on your journey and what additional actions you need to take to get where you want to be.
Now compare the feedback you get from others to the information from your self assessments. What are some common themes? What are some disconnects? What attributes (positive or negative) do you have that can be used to develop your brand? What weak spots, or blind spots, do you have that can hinder your growth if left unchecked?
Then it’s time to put some action steps into place. Define the top three things you can work on over the next six months to grow your brand? Track how you’re improving in those key areas and then go through the self assessments and feedback assessments again.
When you continue this cycle, you’ll easily have a good gauge on what people perceive your personal brand is and what steps you need to take to ensure your brand matches where you want it to be.
