As part of any leadership journey it is becoming clear that time spent tending to our authentic personal brand is increasingly important in these uncertain times.

Brene Brown  has become known for her perspective shifting vulnerability research and talks. Millions of people have been inspired by her assertion ‘if you’re criticizing from a place where you’re not also putting yourself on the line, I’m not interested in your feedback.” This stance was inspired by Teddy Roosevelt’s 1910 address:

It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, who comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; but who does actually strive to do the deeds; who knows great enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly.

Exploring Personal Brand

There is, arguably, great courage and tenacity that comes with really representing who we truly are in the workplace.

One of our core beliefs at Aspire is that everyone is different. Key to our success is our dedicated belief to this and the utmost respect and unconditional regard we hold fundamentally for our delegates and also for ourselves. We strive, regularly, to reflect on how we do this and how we ensure our strengths as leaders are nurtured and realised in order to create a learning space where our delegates, likewise, feel safe to do so.

Every month, we meet as a team for an ‘Aspire Day’. Yes, this does always include a lot of nice food consumption, lots of coffee and lots of laughter.

Something else always happens too. A shift of some sort, be it of perception, new learning or understanding.

In our recent ‘Aspire Day’, we built on the inspiring work our trainers Thulasi Mohanadas and Sally Orrock shared with us around developing our strengths. (See Thulasi’s blog on strengths). In a mission to take this further and explore our trainers’ personal brand, Matteo Trevisan and I set up the opportunities for us to explore the questions:

• What do I stand for?
• What parts of me show up in Aspire?
• Are any parts polarized?
• What other parts would benefit from showing up?
• How can we go beyond what we think is possible?

Matteo gave us all the chance to find the answers by guiding us through an evocative ‘Internal Family Systems’ visualisation.

Put simply, this is a chance to gently explore which parts of us are immediately present in our day to day lives and which parts of us have become hidden over time.

For me, one of these hidden parts was the fearless risk taker who would throw herself into anything and not worry about ‘getting it wrong’ or ‘making a mistake’. A part of me which over the years has been overshadowed and pushed back into the undergrowth by a number of influences and circumstances.

Authenticity in uncertain times

It has been argued that we live in ‘VUCA’ (volatile, uncertain, complex and ambiguous) times.

Who we thought we should be in the work place, the stories we have been told about ‘good’ versions of leaders, managers and colleagues no longer seem to resonate.

Now more than ever, we need to be open to subversion. We need to be ok with challenging the norm.

Going back to Teddy Roosevelt’s offering, we need to be in the arena showing up as our true selves.

By choosing which parts of us we want to illuminate in our roles we not only allow our strengths to shine, we also feel that great sense of satisfaction that comes from being our true selves.

We strive to do this at Aspire and we focus on connecting with each other and our clients in a way that truly sets  apart.  Often people comment that the training ‘was not what they expected… in a good way’.

This is our value of subversion in action. All of our trainers are on this tricky journey of showing up authentically as themselves in the training room. What happens is the creation of a safe, inspiring and active learning space where trainer and delegate alike go on a journey of discovery.

It is such an honour for us here at Aspire, that we get to experience this every day and tending to

 our authenticity and our  ‘personal brand’ landscape is essential for us to continue on a day to day basis.