- [Narrator] A common misconception I like to address
when discussing career growth is the idea
that personal brand is only public facing.
More often than not individuals interested
in building a personal brand focus heavily on their public
or external brand, but not much thought or energy is given
to their internal brand,
the brand being built based on their interactions
in the workplace.
The same holds true for security leaders and their teams.
Sure, the company you work for likely has a corporate brand
and may even have a marketing team tasked
with driving the brand awareness as a competitive strategy.
That's the external brand.
At the company level,
I consider internal brand synonymous with company culture.
Externally, customers, prospects,
partners and competitors will have their perspective
on the value and attractiveness of the corporate brand
but internally, what do employees think
of the company and its leadership?
Do they feel valued?
Do they believe in the company's mission
and understand their role and its success?
These are all great things to think about
within your own teams.
In the hiring and recruiting world,
you and your team are a sub-brand of the corporate brand.
While your team's brand should absolutely align with
and be reflective of the corporate brand,
there should be a few key differentiators
specific to you as a leader and your team
that encourages people to want to work with you.
Similarly, from an internal perspective,
you and your team are a sub-brand of the corporate culture
and the same logic regarding differentiators applies.
I've seen great success attracting and retaining talent
by focusing on both my brand as a leader
and the brand of my team.
Personally, I strive to be the type of leader
I'd want to follow.
And within the teams I lead, I foster an inclusive culture
full of opportunities for growth,
visibility and advancement
backed by the necessary support, of course.
Not only has this approach helped me attract talent
when I have hiring needs,
it has organically generated a talent pipeline
by drawing in candidates genuinely excited
to take advantage of what they perceive
to be a great opportunity.
As for strategy, externally,
while I realize some companies and their leadership
prefer not to have a large public presence
or digital footprint, if you're in a position
where you can be visible, be visible.
Become an influencer.
Share your thoughts on the skills gap.
What's working for you?
What's not working so well?
Talk about team wins.
Get loud about your new hires
and how excited you are to have them on your team.
Make every effort to humanize highly technical job roles
that can sometimes feel out of reach
for newcomers to the industry.
And then, internally create a mission statement,
get your team excited
and make them feel like they're part of something great.
This will go a long way to boost morale
and obtain employee buy-in.
And if you really nail it,
they'll begin bringing talent to you.
Who wouldn't want to feel like
they're a part of something meaningful?
And selfishly, the more you pour into your team,
the more motivated they'll feel to drive the mission forward
which leads us to our last topic,
return on investment.