Personal Branding 4 – No Bragging Please

“If you don’t speak about your triumphs, they may get ignored or get mis-attributed. How to do this right?”

Personal branding, a concept that is 20+ years old is important irrespective of your position in the organization. In the previous module on personal branding I have presented a strong case on why personal branding has to go hand in hand with competence.

Then there is the question that a Coachee asked me ‘You tell me to project my personal brand, but isn’t it just like bragging?’.

Oxford dictionary says that bragging is ‘…to talk too proudly about something you own or something you have done’.

There is bragging and there is humble bragging, its cousin. In either form bragging is bad. And even though Mohamad Ali has said ‘It is not bragging if you can back it up’, I feel bragging is not the way to go if you want to build an authentic personal brand.

This does not mean that you should be quiet about your achievements. If you don’t speak about your triumphs, they may get ignored or get mis-attributed. How to do this right? There are few simple rules to follow.

First we should be proud of our successes. They did not come easy. You had to work hard, think outside the box etc etc. Next we should be strategic when it comes to speaking about them. No point speaking about how you scored a century in your college cricket match when discussing sponsorship deal with an IPL team. Be sure when to speak about your triumphs. And when you speak, speak loudly. So simple rule is be proud, loud and strategic when you are speaking of your triumphs.

Yet another way to speak about your achievements is to not just take them as personal successes but to present them as team effort. Remember most achievements in corporate life are a result of team effort. When you present the product success as the work done by your team, you end up sharing the spotlight. And also get seen as a generous boss who is willing to give up on the glory [There is this wonderful episode from Dr APJ Abdul Kalam’s life where he speaks about his boss and mentor Dr Satish Dhawan. How Dr Dhawan took the failure upon himself while pushing Dr Kalam to the front when the rocket launch was successful].

Finally a little bit of self deprecatory humour will ensure that your proud words will not get classified as ‘bragging’. A touch of levity will make you sound more likeable and authentic.  

If we can find our own sweet spot we will be able to talk about our successes without sounding like a braggart. And speaking of our achievements is an important  way of building our personal brand.

Author – Ambi Parameswaran, CFI Coach