However, when you put ‘leadership’ and ‘brand’ together it becomes a different story because a successful leadership brand actually connects employee actions with what customers’ want and it starts at the leadership level…

More and more, there has been a blurring of the edges between organisational brand and reputation, and attracting and keeping the best people because having a strong, positive brand and reputation will make people want to work for you. However, there appears to have been little focus given to leadership brand in the collective sense. I find this surprising because the leadership of an organisation is intrinsically linked with what differentiates one business from another. After all, the leaders of a business are responsible not only for driving the strategy and direction of the organisation, but the senior team will also set the tone for the culture of that organisation. And culture is one of the few things that will shape the behaviours for both customer and employee satisfaction and retention.

This notion becomes even more interesting when you look at the concept of leadership brand – particularly because to develop a compelling leadership brand that becomes an organic ‘living and breathing’ entity, both the classically defined ‘Marketing’ and ‘HR’ aspect have to meet in the middle and become one. If you asked an experienced professional from either specialism, their response will be the same: of course there is an absolute need for Marketing and HR to have a joined-up, collaborative approach. The reality however can sometimes be a bit different.

Having worked over the years with big corporate organisations as well as medium-sized businesses in many different sectors, as with all things, my experience is that some organisations are better at this than others. Bigger organisations tend to have the processes and frameworks in place that will very closely guide on what can be done with the organisation’s brand – particularly the visual identity. Whilst necessary, these very processes can restrict creativity and innovation because of the different stakeholders involved, all with a different perspective, and the time that is taken to go through an ‘approval’ process.

On the other hand, the flexibility that smaller organisations have can mean that the responsibilities of different departments are not defined enough and so everyone is trying to take ownership and responsibility for high-profile projects, particularly when the lead sponsor is the CEO or one of the senior team!

So my answer to the question is no, organisational brand can’t survive without leadership brand and vice versa. Both are interdependent and actually it’s those organisations that truly recognise and act upon this that are most likely to be in a stronger position than their competitors. By developing a leadership brand that identifies the collective leadership behaviours to deliver on the organisational brand ‘promise’, it is these organisations that will meet and exceed customer expectations, achieve market growth and ultimately bottom-line profit.