Focusing too much on your personal brand is likely to have unintended consequences.
The latest evidence suggests that it’s time to rethink the approach.
3-minute read
Here’s a question that we often put to graduates on the leadership induction programme at a large consulting firm: What are the characteristics you would notice about someone who has a first-rate personal brand?
You can probably predict the typical responses: They hold themselves with confidence; people notice when they walk in the room; when they speak, people listen; they can talk confidently to people at all levels of the business. Participants are fluent in coming up with a list of attributes that tend to share the same flavour.
Western-typical business cultures
When we repeat this exercise among leaders at all levels, at least in Western-typical business cultures, responses are similar. They cluster on what might be described as the superficially charismatic side of the ledger.
So, what’s missing?
Well, that would be immediately apparent to Haru Yamada, of Georgetown University, the sociolinguist and author of Kiku, The Japanese Art of Good Listening. It’s not that leaders in the West are entirely alien to the idea of listening. The piece about active listening is now almost a staple on many leadership development courses. But Yamada’s point is that, in the West, good listening is less likely to be deeply ingrained as an essential skill, to be actively cultivated over a lifetime of practice.
Humility and vulnerability
The irony is that having a manager who listens repeatedly emerges as one of the primary drivers of employee engagement. (Threshold/ YouGov 2025) What’s more recent studies in healthcare show that leaders who listen, while displaying humility and vulnerability, foster the sort of psychological safety that leads to improved learning and decision-making. (Pack et al 2022.)
When we listen generously to others we set aside ego, quieten the instinct to impress and focus attention on others.
A brand-savvy generation
Gen Z are the most brand literate and media-savvy generation in history. They understand that the bigger and stronger the brand, the more it commands a share of our hearts and of our wallets. And the most powerful brands consistently transmit a cool and invincible image.
And this is the problem with the personal brand mindset. It puts the implied emphasis on that which is externally directed and superficially admirable.
Seeking admiration
The evidence is mounting… excessive focus on seeking the admiration or approval of others is inimical to psychological wellbeing. Far from making us more confident it makes us more anxious and unhappy. In the psychologist’s jargon, a tendency to focus on the way in which others see us correlates with greater social anxiety, and inversely correlates with a sense of self-worth. And young women are particularly susceptible. (Sobhani et al, 2025)
The ‘Anxious Generation’
It’s no coincidence that the generation that has come of age in the world of social media, is what social psychologist and author, Jonathan Haidt, calls the ‘Anxious Generation.’
Now, I can hear the objection: This is not what we’re focusing on when we talk about personal brand. It’s a fair point. But we do need to be careful about the signals we are sending. Gen Z graduates, now entering the workplace, have grown up in a landscape of heavily curated brand images of influencers and celebrities.
What can I do for others?
If we want to project confidence and inner strength, perhaps we need to invert the conventional assumptions about what builds a personal brand; and with apologies to JFK, to ask not what others think of me, but what I can do for others.
This leads me to one of my favourite pieces of research.
Underprivileged or first-generation students entering university tend to have a worryingly high dropout rate. They are often more than academically capable. The issue is more about something known as ‘culture shock.’ They feel that they don’t fit into the culture. Confidence suffers, and relatively small setbacks become increasingly salient; confirmation that they don’t belong.
Self-aggrandizing affirmations make things worse
Encouraging these students to try-out self-aggrandizing affirmations didn’t work. In fact, it wasn’t simply that it didn’t work, it was actually shown to be counterproductive. Telling ourselves how fabulous, smart or talented we are, when we have doubts at a deeper layer, tends to lead to mental dissonance. Our minds focus on the gap.
Researchers Gregory Walton and Geoffrey Cohen identified something striking that did work. In a landmark study, a brief “social belonging” exercise was shown to improve grades and halve the racial achievement gap.
Students spent a few minutes writing about something that was genuinely important to them (family, relationships, creativity, faith, purpose). This simple act made them mentally stronger. In a major study, first-generation students who completed the exercise earned higher grades and narrowed the social-class achievement gap.
Identity stabilization
The write-about-what-you-value exercise has been replicated numerous times with remarkable results. Shifting the focus from what people think of us, to what we can do for others, creates what social psychologists call “identity stabilization.”
Eleanor Roosevelt said, “No one can make you feel inferior without your consent.” We now also know that no one can make you feel inferior when you are true to your values.
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