Encouraging your key employees to actively take steps to manage and raise their profile in the world at large can only be good.
It is good for them in that it raises their own confidence, supports their long term career plans and is the perfect acknowledgment of the hard word and effort they have put in to get where they are.
But it is also good for the organisation in that their respected professional reputation can only reflect well on the organisation and in turn attract more skilled and talented professionals to the company.
However, encouraging them to actively take steps to promote their profile isn’t always straight forward. Many of us have been brought up to feel that attracting attention is somehow bratty or vain and this is hard conditioning to go against.
However, it is far from impossible, and supporting your people in this can be worth the effort. We have noticed that the process is twofold:
1. Rediscover your knowledge
The first step is actually comprehending how much you really do know about your field, which can go right back to University education. Watching people fully understand how much of an expert they really are, and how their own knowledge can be sought after and respected, is incredibly satisfying.
But rediscovering knowledge also means uncovering gaps in that knowledge and may mean more education, reading, training or experience. If you are courting a more public profile then you really need to have the foundations to back this up and allow yourself to feel comfortable in your knowledge.
By the end of this process, participants are usually feeling empowered and ready and excited to move onto the next stage.
2. Profile-building
Here we start to build a profile by taking action. This will be different for everyone. In some cases it can be stepping up the social media to forge a reputation as a thought leader or connector.
In others it might be translating experience into articles for professional publications or even landing a column on an industry related website. Others may thrive on personal interaction and making connections, and may offer their skills to a charity, or even working their way into leadership in that charity, satisfying, stimulating and rewarding.
Taking time to think and plan through what and how you would like your professional reputation to look like, and considering who you can make that happen, can be incredibly empowering.
And an organisation that nurtures and helps create these public respected figures is very subtly promoting itself through them, and has to be one of the most effective forms of PR an organisation can undertake, as well as being a pure Win Win situation for everyone.
Paula Gardner is founder and chief executive of consultancy, The Reputation Professionals, which helps senior personnel raise their professional profile and reputation.
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