Your Reputation is Vital to your Success
The Importance of your Reputation
This month I’d like to share with you four insights that has me revisiting the vital importance of being aware of one’s personal and professional reputation.
1) Self-confidence versus arrogance. Self-confidence enhances one’s leadership capabilities, but don’t let arrogance and an inflated ego burn you and your organization to the ground. It takes self-confidence, determination and a healthy ego for a leader to be successful.
However, there are limitations on arrogance and egotistical behaviour. As your organization grows, and the necessity for you to build a team of great leaders becomes more important, ego and arrogance will detract from everything you’ve worked so hard to build.
When leaders have to tell and/or show others how smart they are, one begins to question those leaders’ capabilities, self-confidence, and authenticity and whether or not to be associated with them and their organizations.
2) Value other people’s time as you value your own.
• If you’re going to be late for an appointment, be sure to provide ample notice of your delay.
• If you decide not to show up for an interview or business meeting, be sure to at least communicate that to the other party.
Reputations can be enhanced and/or destroyed based on how others speak of their interactions with you. The business community is much smaller than it was a decade ago with leaders communicating on various social media platforms. Word spreads quickly.
3) Take the first step and don’t stop there. A personal peer group is one of the most powerful first steps in gaining wisdom and advice that will help you grow as a leader. You join a peer group to be able to face the truth so you’re able to stay grounded, continue learning and gain valuable advice from others who care about your well-being and success. A well-structured peer group comprised of great leaders is not a place to brag, be pompous or strut one’s stuff. Nor is it a place to hide behind the facts and/or truth. It is a place for the sharing of personal and professional challenges and self-reflection which leads to self-awareness and accelerated growth.
4) Warren Buffett famously said, “It takes 20 years to build a reputation and 5 minutes to ruin it. If you think about that you’ll do things differently.” One only needs to read the daily news headlines to appreciate the gravity and fragility of leaders’ reputations. Leaders need to embody the key values of respect, integrity, authenticity, competence, and commitment to build and maintain their reputations.
Leon.