Petty Branding: Lessons from a Leadership Misstep
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Description
Sometimes you slip up and don’t show up in the way you want. Consistently showing up in excellence is a bedrock of my personal brand and one of the things I pride myself on. But when a new leader arrived within an organization I was collaborating with, for a variety of reasons, my behavior didn’t show my brand in the best light. After reflecting on what happened, I want to share some key takeaways that can help you strive to do better if you find yourself in a similar situation.
In this episode, which is part 2 of the 3 part series of the Branding Room Only podcast, you’ll hear a little about my experience and the impactful lessons I learned from it (Listen to Part 1 here). I’ll reveal how you can reflect the brand you want to present to the world by comparing what I did with what I should have done.
Chapters
1:15 - How petty new leadership turned an organization (and the way I usually present myself) on its head
3:40 - Key things that can impact how you show up professionally
6:36 - How I showed up versus how I should have shown up
9:08 - Quick summary of lessons learned and a sneak peek at part three of the series
Mentioned In Petty Branding: Lessons from a Leadership Misstep
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Sponsor for this episode
This episode is brought to you by PGE Consulting Group LLC.
PGE Consulting Group LLC is dedicated to providing a practical hybrid of professional development training and diversity solutions. From speaking to consulting to programming and more, all services and resources are carefully tailored for each partner. Paula Edgar’s distinct expertise helps engage attendees and create lasting change for her clients.
To learn more about Paula and her services, go to www.paulaedgar.com or contact her at info@paulaedgar.com, and follow Paula Edgar and the PGE Consulting Group LLC on LinkedIn.
Transcript
Welcome to The Branding Room Only Podcast where we share career stories, strategies, and lessons learned on how industry leaders and influencers have built their personal brands. Now, let's get started with the show.
Hi, all, and welcome back to The Branding Room. I'm your host, Paula Edgar, of Branding Room Only. Thank you again for joining me for part two of our series on Petty Branding.
You will recall if you listened to the last episode that I delved into what Petty Branding is and I shared some examples. If you have not had a chance to listen, please go back and listen to that episode. This is a three-part series.
For today, I'll be sharing a personal story of when I didn't show up in my brand the way that I normally do, and the lessons that I've learned from that experience. Many of you know that I pride myself on having a strong brand, really focusing on excellence and showing up, really cheerful, and determined to get the job done in all that I do.
But in this scenario, I did not do that. As a reminder—let me go ahead and set the scene—this is a situation where I've been working with an organization and was involved in a series of deep initiatives.
I had worked really closely with the previous leader who was visionary, collaborative, and really incredibly effective. This person was able to build bridges and have an impact in multiple ways that we hadn't even conceptualized when we started our collaboration with each other. Together, we, along with others, implemented numerous successful programs.
Well, as it happened, that leader moved on to another opportunity, and eventually a new leader stepped in. So, naturally, I was ready to continue the collaboration efforts and to build on the existing successes that had already really shown themselves to be worthy and impactful, but things took an unexpected turn.
When the new leader arrived, as I mentioned in the previous podcast episode, they conducted a very, very brief listening tour, if you could even call it that. The feedback that they received, as well as their want to really make a name for themselves that led them to make some sweeping changes instead of building on the existing foundation that already existed, they decided they were going to dismantle everything that we had worked on.
This included discarding successful programs, severing relationships with key collaborators and stakeholders, and simply implementing their own initiatives. Now, when you come into a new organization where you are leading a new initiative, it often is you want to show that you have your own impact, but I'm a big believer in building on those successes rather than tearing everything down.
The decision that this leader made was essentially petty branding in action. The new leaders seem more focused on making their mark and asserting their authority than on understanding the value and the stakeholders that were already in place.
This approach reflected multiple personal motives over strategic needs, and it really was a lot of ego-driven decisions, as highlighted in the previous PETTY acronym. I'd give you that baseline already, but let me tell you about how I showed up in a way that I am not exactly happy with myself.
When I reflect on this experience, there were several takeaways. I can give myself a little bit of grace and let you know that I was tired on the day of the meeting in which all of the new initiatives that were going to be done and the fact that we were going to be sunsetting many old initiatives that would have been successful, was relayed. My takeaway first is that fatigue and frustration can significantly impact how we show up professionally.
I think it's important, I often talk about wellness when it comes to your brand that we get our sleep, make sure we are trying to maintain at least a little below the peak in terms of our physical and mental wellness, and then just have the self-awareness to know that it's crucial to recognize that we're not our personal best and take steps to manage our emotions and our responses when we're not.
Oftentimes, we have to show up when we are not fully rested or fully fed, et cetera. That's one. Secondly, the fact that I was so personally, and professionally intertwined in the work and impact of the previous leader as a prime collaborator, made me more resistant to change.
I was not showing up open to what could be. I was very much open to what could be going forward, but not that there was going to be essentially a taking away of all of the things that we had previously worked on.
Another takeaway is that while it is important to be deeply invested in our work, obviously, excellence is the core of building a great brand, it's also important when we are building our brand to think about flexibility and being open to new directions and leadership styles.
Third, because this new leader’s approach was a clear example of what I call petty branding, focusing on dismantling everything that we had already built, the focus for them was to disrupt successful initiatives.
But what that did was not just stop things that were working and were beneficial to the organization, but also erode the trust and the morale of the stakeholders that were still there, who had all collaborated on what had been done before by the previous leader.
It highlighted the need when you're building your brand and not to have petty branding to think about the importance of strategic decision-making over personal motives, which is hard.
Again, I understand the ego piece of wanting to come in and really have an immediate impact, but that doesn't have to be done by dismantling the things that were done before.
Let's go ahead and revisit what that PETTY acronym was and maybe add another layer of meaning to it based on this new experience that I'm sharing with you. The P is for Professionalism.
Always maintaining a professional demeanor, regardless of circumstances, although it might be hard. My behavior in this case was a lesson of what happens when we let our professionalism slip because of whatever the issues are and I laid them all out recently.
But not cool. Not good for your brand. E is for Ego check. Important to keep your personal ego in check and to prioritize the greater good. In this case, both the new leader as well as I did not lead the organization forward. We led with ego-driven reactions. For me and my accountability here, it was not helpful.
The T, the first T, is for a Timeout. When you're having a moment, take that moment to pause and reflect before reacting. In reflecting on how I showed up, I should have absolutely taken a step back to cool down before responding. Maybe I shouldn't have even gone to the meeting because I knew that I was tired and not in a place of being open.
The next T is for Tolerance. Again, showing tolerance and respect for a new perspective, initiatives, innovation, and leadership styles. I lacked tolerance for the new leaders' approach to the situation.
Again, I can be accountable for that. It was not my best showing, but in reflecting on this, definitely it was not tolerant. Then similar to the tolerance, the Y here is for Yield.
It's important to know when to yield and to adapt to new directions and changes. Sometimes stepping back is not what we want to do, but it is the best move for the situation.
If I had just taken a moment to cool down, like I said before, thought about what this person's perspective was, and maybe found another way to communicate what I was feeling, it may have been better in this situation.
Even as somebody who talks about personal branding all the time, what I want to share with you is I am being very vulnerable here and telling you I had a brand slip-up.
This experience still sits with me years later as a humbling reminder that we all have moments in our profession and our brand where we don't show up as our best selves. The key is to learn from these experiences and strive to do better the next time.
To summarize, one, the lessons learned, self-awareness, and accountability. Being aware of your emotional state and taking responsibility for your actions. Number two, balancing personal investment with professionalism.
It's important to care deeply about the work that you have done, but also remain open to change and adaptable to change because it's really the only thing we can rely on. There's going to be a change. It may not be the way you want it, but we do have to navigate and be resilient in the change as it comes to us.
My therapist, as I also always mentioned, says that growth begins where comfort ends. In this case, I was definitely uncomfortable. I certainly grew, but it was not my best showing.
The other thing is the value of support systems. In part three of Petty Branding, I'll be talking to you about how I was able to quickly get to self-awareness with the help of a colleague, and support systems can really be helpful in having you understand when you're not showing up the way that you intend or want.
Then also recognize when it has nothing to do with you, recognizing petty branding. When someone is making decisions based on their personal motives rather than the strategic needs of the organization or the collective, it can help you to reflect and maybe be more strategic about how to navigate with them versus just doing what I did here and really being resistant and getting even angry in this sense.
I want to thank you for joining me for part two of my Petty Branding series and really thinking about one, how the leader showed up, and two, how I then showed up. Then in the next episode, we will discuss how a colleague helped me navigate the situation and how their feedback played a crucial role in me realigning my actions with my brand.
As always, I'd love to hear from you. Have you ever found yourself in a situation where you didn't show up the way that you wanted to show up? How did you handle it? What was the situation? How did you handle it?
I'd love for you to shoot me an email at info@paulaedgar.com or send me a note on LinkedIn, or you can use the Ask Paula link on my website. As always with this episode and everyone going forward please like, download, share, and rate this podcast with friends, family, colleagues, and anyone who you think needs to hear it.
Maybe somebody who didn't show it well in a recent meeting or somebody who themselves is a petty brander and you want to show them a little bit of how they could have done differently.
Stay tuned for Part 3, where we'll be continuing to explore Petty Branding and the importance of having a supportive network. Bye, y'all. Talk soon.
