In the 21st century multi-faceted corporation, managing your professional image amid increased variety ought to be a deliberate exercise by which you become the author of your own identity. HBS professor Laura Morgan Roberts says if you aren't managing your own professional image, others are. She proposes a strategic, proactive approach to managing your image consisting of the following steps:
- Identify your ideal state.
- What are the core competencies and character traits you want people to associate with you?
- Which of your social identities do you want to emphasize and incorporate into your workplace interactions, and which would you rather minimize?
- Assess your current image, culture, and audience.
- What are the expectations for professionalism?
- How do others currently perceive you?
- Conduct a cost-benefit analysis for image change.
- Do you care about others' perceptions of you?
- Are you capable of changing your image?
- Are the benefits worth the costs? (Cognitive, psychological, emotional, physical effort)
- Use strategic self-presentation to manage impressions and change your image.
- Employ appropriate traditional and social identity-based impression management strategies.
- Pay attention to the balancing act?build credibility while maintaining authenticity.
- Manage the effort you invest in the process.
- Monitoring others' perceptions of you
- Monitoring your own behavior
- Strategic self-disclosure
- Preoccupation with proving worth and legitimacy
This is not unlike any branding exercise. The novelty could be in self-awareness informed by such an exercise.
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