I absolutely loved the conversation we had with Karen Tiber-Leland. Now, I find myself noticing what people are wearing and determining how it impacts my impression! What I found most compelling about her conversation is the requirement for leaders to be on Linked-In and working on their brand. As someone who does not do a lot of social media, I think I was in the same boat as many other skeptical classmates. However, I think this opens up the door to a true leadership mindset that is worth exploring, and that is flexible growth.
Whether they like it or not, leaders are required to adapt to an ever-changing landscape. In my own line of work, I have witnessed many of my veteran co-workers react poorly to change. As I grow in my career, I think I understand why. We spend so much of our career constantly needing to learn and keep up with the demand of business. Then, we fill up all of our free time with other responsibilities, because it helps us to display our leadership prowess. However, we do not give ourselves enough time to look towards the future because we are always struggling to keep up with the present. As leaders, it is important to constantly adapt and learn so that we always stay relevant. In Karen’s said, we need to make time for social media and displaying our personal brand for the world to see. I imagine that many leaders have struggled to understand why it is important. However, as Karen’s research shows, it is critical in this age to share our brand in the way she presented. It is likely that in another twenty years, the way to share our brand will be completely different than it is today!
For me personally, I think this flexible branding is what causes leaders to become this ‘Jack of All Trades’ that we talked about in class. Leaders require diverse skill sets and becoming an expert in one area could make it really challenging to go far. What happens if the area we are an expert in becomes obsolete in five or ten years? Do we wait for the times to change before we go out and seek the opportunity to learn something new? I think having limited knowledge in multiple areas makes it easy to pick new skills up and drop old necessary skills. It gives us flexibility.
Interestingly enough, I have written a lot in my personal journals about being a ‘Jack of All Trades’ so I appreciated hearing it brought up in class. I looked back on something I wrote on September 17, 2020. “But the question [I ask myself]: why do I seek to be this Jack of All Trades? I think I recognized that the more skills I have leads me to interact with more people. The more people I interact with, the more people I get to learn from.” Adding in what I have learned in this class with 2020 Connor, I get to expand my network and share my brand based on the number of skills that I can add to my portfolio.
Comments:
Classmate:
Connor,
Yet another great post. I liked your sentence “Whether they like it or not, leaders are required to adapt to an ever-changing landscape.”
Even trend setters in fashion make incremental changes to the image they project to their followers, with all the basic ingredients complying with the current landscape. Similarly, leaders must “bend with the wind” so to speak. Be it in keeping up with current norms of what is acceptable to ask a job applicant in an interview, what is appropriate to say in an office setting etc. Leaders must also project and adapt to external influence on organizational culture. Being isolated for the “ever-changing landscape” as you refer to it, may create issues as it did to a ride-sharing company in recent memory.
Classmate:
Great discussion guys! I thought I might share a personal experience with personal brand building.
Several years ago, I went through a fairly tumultuous phase at my work. I had taken a new job in another business unit. Shortly into my tenure, there was significant turnover at the President level in the business unit. This lead to some significant changes in the business unit as the new President wanted to bring in his own guys. So in preparation for the upcoming changes, I enrolled in a company outplace program. The program focused on the same topic that Karen, building my own brand. I hadn’t been in a job search type situation for over a decade so needless to say, I was awestruck at the “new normal”. I learned about building my own web page, using Linked In, blogging and even aspects of starting my own business. The brand building piece was particularly interesting and I learned how big of a tool Linked In can be. I started building my network on Linked In and have found it to be useful in a number of professional situations.
As I look back now, I didn’t end up changing jobs or companies, but the concepts I learned have stuck with me. Linked In really is kind of a window into what you might bring to a company. As Karen stated, the look, the structure, etc. all say a little bit about you.
Classmate:
Connor,
I couldn’t agree with you more with your comment about “many of my veteran co-workers react poorly to change”, as I have seen this a lot myself. I believe one of the hardest parts of being a successful leader is finding the balance between consistency yet staying ‘recent’. I believe it’s very easy to get comfortable and believe you have everything figured out, then you suddenly find yourself out of touch with the current times. I guess a question I have for you is: how do you stay current? How do you update your leadership software?
Me: I think about it all the time. I empathize with my veteran co-workers, because I have seen my flexibility becoming slightly more rigid. That being said, awareness really helps me. My desire to be a jack of all trade and fear of no longer being useful is probably my motivator. Because of this combination, I am always eager to learn new things. The more I learn, the more that I am able to tie things together. I really resonated with Design Thinking last semester because it brought this to light. What happens if an improv student starts to look at engineering processes? True innovation occurs. I am so driven by Innovation that I love to find ways to improve the things that I work on. I think by doing that, I get to learn new skills constantly.
Classmate:
Connor,
I completely agree with you, as we have to adapt to a new norm that is the social media era. LinkedIn has become one of the most important social media platform for businesses and world organizations. People have to be flexible to other organizations changing landscapes and adapt to the new norm. We should not fear change and continue to improve and develop as time goes on to catch up with our changing surroundings.
Classmate:
Interesting post. I think you had an accurate assessment of why people in the VA resist change. Basically people are busy learning and doing the job, however I think it is better to stop and make changes that make sense so that the work is more efficient moving forward. I am a Portfolio Manager for the Bureau of Reclamation and this is my job. Additionally I write policies and procedures, and I have found it is really easy to conflict with another policy or procedures, which then confuses people, therefore I have found less is more. I just write the minimum requirements and guidance, so that people have more flexibility to do what makes sense in each situation. Clear and concise language is also more likely to be read and followed.
