It’s a brand new work and business world. And we do mean “brand.” Everyone has a personal brand, whether they like the concept or loathe it. It’s inescapable. It used to be that only large businesses worried about branding. To thrive, they had to distinguish their company from the competition.

This meant carving out a niche based on competitive advantages and specific corporate attributes. They crafted and maintained a strategic brand - a unique, useful promise to current and prospective customers - to gain brand equity and loyalty. This was business, after all.

Today, branding occurs at the individual level. But do you want to make a woman feel uncomfortable? Just ask about her strengths. It’s no stereotype: Studies show that women are notoriously bad at promoting their personal brands.

One study, from employee search firm ISR, attributes this trait to the high value women place on relationships and communities. Women don’t speak about their strengths, the reasoning goes, because they don’t want to alienate people who are less successful.

Whatever its cause, this hesitance to self-promote hurts women’s careers. In today’s competitive world the people most vocal about their accomplishments are the ones most likely to get ahead. And by downplaying their accomplishments and deflecting praise onto others, women act like their own worst enemies.

As a former executive and as a business relationship building and personal branding expert working with many women business owners and professionals, I see this behaviour all the time. I’ve also heard countless excuses for why women avoid communicating their own personal brands. Another expert, Kelly Watson, identified the following four excuses which she dubbed as the four myths of self-promotion:

The Bitch Myth - “Self promotion will make me look arrogant.”
Not all self-promotion is shameless. Sometimes it’s essential to a successful career, whether that means reminding a boss of your achievements or publicising the 10th anniversary of your business. But many women have trouble making the distinction between shameless bragging and smart promotion.

The Princess Myth- “If I’m good enough, people will hear about it.”
This myth originates from fairy tales where the princess waits for her knight to arrive and sweep her off her feet. Generations of girls have heard this story. Many grow up believing it’s true. If you work hard and wait patiently enough, someone will eventually notice.

Unfortunately, this only applies to fairy tales. In the corporate world most people are juggling too many responsibilities to notice what others are doing well. This goes double for people with the authority to give promotions and pay raises. And for business owners, simply waiting for the right customers to appear is a recipe for failure. The world is too full of competition for businesses to stay solvent without good promotion. Survival depends upon taking action to get noticed.

The Friends and Family Myth - “Others should talk about my accomplishments, not me.”
Some women assume that others with promote them by spreading positive word of mouth. While word of mouth is a great form of promotion, relying word of mouth without influencing they key messages can be counter productive.

Let’s face it- no one is more passionate about your work than you. No one else knows the depth of your experience and expertise. And no one can elaborate on your unique skills as convincingly as you can. By delegating promotion of your personal brand to others, you’re taking away your best opportunity to demonstrate your value.

The Martyr Myth - “You can’t control what people think anyway.”
When promotion your personal brand makes you feel uncomfortable, it can be tempting to take a “why bother?” attitude. After all, people form their first impressions before you even say a word, so there’s no sense trying to change their minds … right? Wrong!

The Bottom Line

The myths you believe often mask a deeper insecurity about the value you place on what you have to offer. If you don’t fully believe in yourself, you’ll naturally resist stepping into the spotlight. This resistance, plus generations of conditioning to be humble and stand on the sidelines, has left many women unprepared for today’s ultra-competitive business world. To discover and communicate your is not about being fake

Copyright 2010 by Karl Smith
This article may be copied or republished with the following credit:
“By Karl Smith, Founder of Business Networking South Africa , Cape Town, South Africa. +27 (0) 71 444 2210 karl@businessnetworkingsouthafrica.co.za “ www@businessnetworkingsouthafrica.co.za ”

“Very impressive , demanding and straight to the point. Focus on reality and what is to be instilled in all great managers, excellent Karl, worth the time”

My new keynote “Relationships for Leadership and Management Success” launched in Cape Town last month received accolades. Most of the feedback underlined the “passion” the audience has experienced during this presentation. Why was I able to speak with passion in offering them a step-by-step process to build profitable relationships? The answer is simple! I have burnt my fingers because of my fundamental belief that people are worthy of trust. I remain convinced that all people are worthy of trust but I learned one needs to be aware of understanding the kind of person you are dealing with and looking at their track record before you just jump into the relationship. Stephen M.R Covey calls it a balance between your ability to analyse risk -good business judgment- and good people judgment - including instinct and intuition. Allow me to focus my attention on “trust and micro-management”. I have always been an opponent to micro-management because micro-managers can only take their companies as far as they themselves take them. They run the risk of driving away their best and most talented people.

In business management, micro-management is a management style where a manager closely observes or controls the work of his or her subordinates or employees. Micro managing may make you feel in control but in reality you are only hurting yourself and the company. It only limits an employee’s ability to be innovative and creative.

Signs of micro-management: What follows are some signs that you might be a micro-manager - or have one on your hands. In general, micro-managers:
• Resist delegating;
• Immerse themselves in overseeing the projects of others;
• Start by correcting tiny details instead of looking at the big picture;
• Take back delegated work before it is finished if they find a mistake in it; and
• Discourage others from making decisions without consulting them.

When a manager, director or other executive tries to micro manage every person and every project, productivity is lost. There is simply no way around it. An effective manager is responsible for multiple projects and many people. When he tries to exert too much influence over too many things, he can’t help but to lose focus on the bigger picture. As attention becomes focused on one aspect of the business, the inter- relationships and integration of projects become lost in the fog, or worse, on-going complementary projects are changed, and forced to fit with the project the manager is detailing. The higher the level of management, the more dangerous this becomes. If a CEO or COO becomes obsessed with production issues, he may loosen his grasp on things like sales and marketing or operations. By the time he fixes the production issue the point has become moot because sales have dried up. .

So now you’ve identified micro-managerial tendencies and seen why they’re bad. What can you do if you know you’re exhibiting such behaviours - the best way to build healthier relationships with employees may be the most direct: Talk to them. It might take several conversations to convince them that you’re serious about change. Getting frank feedback from employees is the hard part. This means giving your employees the leeway, encouragement – and resources to succeed. Focus first on the ones with the most potential, and learn to delegate effectively to them. If you lack trust in your employees remember the statement - “Employees won’t start trusting you until you start trusting them”.

Why don’t you drop me a mail via karl@businessnetworkingsouthafrica.co.za to tell me about your challenge to build trust?