Leaders who consistently present their authentic selves can help their employees stay engaged.
The problem of “quiet quitting”—really just a new name for the perennial business concern of employee disengagement—has been talked about intensely for a few months. Fortunately, doing executive personal branding can help you keep your team members enthusiastic about their work.
Executive Personal Branding Builds Leader Consistency
In August, Harvard Business Review published an article with a pointed headline: “Quiet Quitting Is About Bad Bosses, Not Bad Employees.” The article’s authors have been conducting 360-degree leadership assessments for decades, regularly asking people to rate whether their “work environment is a place where people want to go the extra mile.” To better understand the current phenomenon of quiet quitting, they looked at their data to try to answer this question: “What makes the difference for those who view work as a day prison and others who feel that it gives them meaning and purpose?”
By taking this new look at their data, the researchers found that the No. 1 behavior that helped employees stay engaged was when they trusted their leaders. A key element in building that trust is consistency.
“In addition to being totally honest,” the authors write, “leaders need to deliver on what they promise. Most leaders believe they are more consistent than others perceive them.”
Try this exercise. Consider the various places you are asked to talk about or demonstrate who you are and why you serve.
You might get asked in the proverbial elevator. You will write about your purpose for your LinkedIn profile and your CV. You also demonstrate what you stand for when you make a presentation. Where else?
Now, be honest with yourself: In all of these situations, are you consistent about who you are, what you believe in and why you serve? I don’t mean do you use exactly the same words to describe your mission. After all, what you’ll write on LinkedIn will be different from what you say in front of your team. But do you get across the same message about yourself? And is it directly linked to your unique genius?
This is where executive personal branding comes in. Leaders who have gone through the time-proven ETA™ process from Revealing Genius have excavated who they are and their unique purpose for serving. They know how to tell others about their brand effectively and consistently because they have taken the step to affirm their brand so they believe in it with conviction.
Executive personal branding helps leaders know the why of their own service, making it easier to connect their purpose to the overall corporate mission—and to help team members feel their work also has meaning and purpose.
Understand Yourself, Understand Your Team Members
Going through the three steps of the ETA process–excavate, tell and affirm–not only helps leaders discern their own brands but also can tune them into learning what their employees value and their employees’ purpose. Taking the conversation down to the level of purpose can help leaders match what employees care about to business goals at the individual, team and organizational levels.
A recent article from DDI says, “Leaders are responsible for building motivation and dedication in their team members, often by sharing a vision of the organization’s or team’s purpose. And leaders should share this vision and purpose with their teams with authenticity and energy!”
Working with many executives in healthcare and other industries, I have seen how leaders who know their own purpose—their own executive personal brands—are better able to connect themselves and their team members to the overall goals.
The DDI article continues by saying, “It’s a leader’s job to keep the pulse on their team’s engagement and understand sources of motivation for each team member. Leaders should be aware and courageous in asking questions, demonstrating they care and are listening.”
By going through the ETA process, leaders gain first-hand knowledge of and experience with a wide variety of tools and techniques for understanding their own genius. They can share these with their employees. I get excited about the potential for personal growth—and thereby team and organizational growth—that comes from everyone excavating, telling and affirming their unique genius. Talk about alignment!
Interested in creating or refreshing your executive personal brand as an antidote to quiet quitting? (You’ll also reap a whole host of other benefits!) Please join us for our complimentary Excavate Your Brand webinar or submit an application to enroll in our 7-Day Summit cohort, exclusively for healthcare executives.
If you’re like many leaders and prefer one-on-one coaching, we’d love to hear from you too. Our most popular engagement includes 12 sessions and a confidential “executive rebrand,” including the development of your customized brand framework which is then applied to two brand assets such as a CV, LinkedIn profile, TED Talk or website content.
