Before you can leverage your brand qualities, it’s smart to take a step back and examine what they are first. That way, you lean in with your greatest strengths, power up your executive presence, and own the room. By studying your personal brand, you can enhance your strengths and diminish weaknesses. It also helps you to advance your skills, leadership competencies, and your team role. So, when it’s time to be visible, you know what you need to bring to leverage your brand qualities and own the room.
Let’s have a look at ingredients to ‘bake’ a great brand. Three are invisible to the naked eye, and one is.
Measure Out Your Main Ingredients: Leadership Competencies
Leaders who show up well understand what drives their leadership style. Among many various leadership competencies, you will have several. Each one plays to a different element of your personality. So, when people experience your top leadership competencies, they come away with evidence of your brand.
Say that people know your leadership style as inspiring, visioning, and relating. These may not be all the leadership competencies you own. But, these are the ones people most associate with you. As you interact with people, it’s important to give them this experience. It confirms to them what they believe to be true of you, and advances your personal brand.
Stir in Your Strengths
If leadership competencies sound uninspiring or boring, remember that you don’t have a solid brand without them. Those aren’t the only ingredients that go into ‘baking’ a great brand. Your strengths add flavor and depth to your brand. So, let’s say you are tenacious. People will associate that with your inspiring leadership competency. Likewise, great people skills and relationship abilities support your relating leadership competency.
Strengths get into the nitty gritty of what makes you tick. Most likely, you couldn’t turn them off if you tried. Your strengths are what come most naturally to you. You can give that energy away freely, and it seems like those strengths are in endless supply. I see strengths like gifts. Take time out to realize and appreciate yours as brand qualities to leverage.
Add Your Aura of Charisma
Charisma is a form of attractiveness, but it’s not about looks or anything physical. It’s more about likability and captivating people with your presence. If you associate this with part of the baking process, it’s like how your kitchen takes on an aura when a cake is in the oven. The cake’s aroma comes out of the oven and overtakes the room. The smell fills you with anticipation to experience the cake with all your senses.
Anyone can have charisma, but it needs to emanate like the aroma of a cake when it’s in the oven. Leadership competencies and strengths – like a cake’s spices and basic ingredients – play a big role in creating your aura. With the right ingredients in place, it’s pretty easy to have charisma. You have to have enough confidence to be fearless and you can own the room.
Top It Off with How You Show Up
Your appearance might seem like a cake’s decoration. But, do you like an undressed cake? Even simple ingredients, like whipped cream and strawberries, can transform an angel food cake. It might be the best angel food cake, but plain on its own, will be boring to eat. No second servings for anyone. So, take my word for it and don’t show up like an undressed cake!
Matching your visible appearance to your invisible substance leverages your qualities. This is how you own the room. Yes, one look is all it takes. Most people don’t connect dressing with intention to embodying your key qualities. This helps you connect to your higher purpose, to focus on the goal of your interaction and to serve others.
In Conclusion
The way you show up is the prism through which you draw people in to your presence. They feel your charisma, immediately know one of your core strengths and sense the way you lead.
One of my consulting specialties is studying your brand. We do this together so you leverage your qualities and own the room. To read more about how I can help, go here. Or, schedule a gratis 30-minute call with me and we can talk it over.
