Spend a few moments considering the reputations of people you know. Some have a reputation for great technical ability, some for excellent project delivery – perhaps some have a reputation for late task completion or poor punctuality. What do you have a reputation for?
A reputation is a promise. It tells someone what they can expect when they deal with you. Importantly, it’s a promise that’s created not by your words, but by your actions. It’s your personal brand – your personal marketing. When someone recommends you, it’s based on your reputation.
In the same way that successful businesses actively manage their brand, you should actively manage your reputation – it will take you wherever you want to go in your career.
So how do you manage your reputation?
-
What do you want your reputation to be? Do you want to be known for your leadership; for being hard-line and decisive or being a compassionate, consensus-style project manager? Do you want a reputation for being an excellent communicator, a reputation for being responsive, proactive or well organized? Write down the elements that will make up your ‘brand’.
-
What are you doing about it? What specific things can you do – every day – to build your reputation through your actions? How will you conduct yourself – what will you change? Write this down too, so you can do these actions every day.
-
What are you doing (or not doing) that’s undermining your reputation? If you want a reputation for strong leadership, but procrastinate about decisions, your actions are actually giving you a reputation for weak leadership. Remember doing nothing still contributes to your reputation – but it won’t be the reputation you want.
-
How are you monitoring your reputation? It’s a good reality check if you can find someone who will be honest with you.
My suggestion is to take the daily actions you come up with and add them to your leading indicator checklist. That way you’ll quickly incorporate effective reputation-building actions into your routine.
You’ll be surprised at how quickly you can build the reputation you want by simply managing it actively and giving it a little focus every day. Remember, no action is still an action!
What will you do today to build your reputation?
Related Posts
Effective project managers live in the future
How many projects are too many?
Getting the jump on your day – identifying your key activities
I agree on reputation being your personal brand. However I find it hard to craft it freely. Our reputation is built on our characters. Some people are predestined to become great leaders so building their leadership glory comes fairly easy. For others, that’s a barrier they can’t pass.
One of my colleagues no matter how hard she tried didn’t feel well being hard-line and decisive. Even when she knew it would be the best way she preferred to play soft and look for a consensus. That’s because of her character.
I think the best thing we can do is to strenghten our natural abilities and build our reputation over them. First it usually works well and should be fairly easy. Second it won’t make us feeling uncomfortable since we that way we’re aligned with our characters.