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Joyful moments with my daddy, Mr. Willard John Vital de Grandpré

Born to EDUCATE. Born to SERVE. Born to MENTOR. My father, Willard John Vital de Grandpré was a great man. His humility, empathy and service to others made him great. He was a Human Rights Giant, Community Servant and Family Man. He epitomized diversity and inclusiveness and was passionate about understanding people's roots, indigenous culture and socio-economic trajectories. He was not wealthy; yet content and rich with resources. He had a loving circle of family and friends and was an influencer who took an active role in improving the lives of others around him, always.


I endeavor to honor my father's legacy of servant leadership by sharing this story with the world. It is my intent to inspire others so that they will be proud of their roots and be inspired to live full and purposeful lives.


Family Roots


About the time President Thomas Jefferson purchased the Louisiana Territory from France in 1803, a young slave girl, Charlotte Dubuclet (given names), fell in love with and married a free mulatto man by the name of Carlos Vital de Grandpré. She was born in Africa (believed to be Senegal-Gambia region) and he was born in Havana, Cuba as reported to the U.S. Census Bureau in 1870 by their son, Charles Carlos Vital de Grandpré II. Charlotte was owned by and lived with the families: Darby/Dubuclet/Dauterive, on a plantation in St. Martinsville, LA. It is believed that Carlos, her spouse, may have migrated there to work as a sugar-cane cutter and carpenter.

The Vital de Grandpré's had a family of four children who all lived on the St. Martinsville, LA plantation: Rosalie, born in 1807; Charles Carlos II in 1810; Pierre Ulger in 1812; and Edward in circa 1816.


Unfortunately, the children were “not free born” because their mother, Charlotte, was a slave. Instead, their father, Carlos Vital de Grandpré, paid the owners $400.00 for the freedom of each one of their children which totaled $1,600 back in the early 1800s. In 1846, Charlotte must have been considered “a good and faithful servant” since she was manumitted (freed) by her owners who also gave her a donation of some neighboring property acreage at the same time. *


Emancipation


My father, Willard John Vital de Grandpré, is a direct descendant of Charles Carlos Vital de Grandpré II (son of Carlos and Charlotte Vital de Grandpré) who married Melanie Benoit about 1844. On July 23, 1813, Carlos Vital de Grandpré, a free mulatto, purchased his 2 1/2-year-old son, Charles Carlos II Vital de Grandpré, for the price of $400 from Claire Dubuclet.



The Arrival of Willard John Vital de Grandpré


On July 23, 1938, one hundred and twenty-five years (125) later to the date, my father, Willard John Vital Grandpré, was born to Dorsey Vital de Grandpré and Eva Bertrand in Welsh, LA and the African Diaspora smiled 😘. He had 8 siblings and was raised in a large loving family consisting of 4 sisters and four brothers.

Dorsey and Eva Bertrand Vital de Grandpré Parents of Willard John Vital de Grandpré

Hence, Willard John Vital de Grandpré was born to EDUCATE, born to SERVE, and born to MENTOR. He was the first in his family to have the opportunity to attend college and was recruited to attend a Historically Black College & University, Jarvis Christian College, under the “Fundamental Education” program. He was the first in his family to attend college and always remembers the first “family day” when his parents and some of his siblings visited him at Jarvis, and then returned when he graduated in 1961 with a Bachelor’s Degree in Integrated Social Sciences. He considered his time at Jarvis to be “some of the happiest days in his life".


Post College, Willard taught school in Welsh before attending training in New Mexico for a planned stint in Brazil with the Peace Corp. Although he did not serve in Brazil, he started learning Portuguese in preparation for the trip. Willard furthered his education in his field and successfully obtained the Master in Social Work from the University of Houston in 1976 and became a licensed Social Worker after receiving his Certification in Social Work. His political aspirations motivated him to run for Texas State Representative in the early 80s.


Servant Leadership

Willlard John Grandpré, Million Man March, 1995, Washington, D.C.

Willard had a passion for family, people, service, human rights and helping the poor. He stayed active in a number of community service organizations such as the National Black Social Workers Association, The Black Heritage Society, The Knights of Peter Claver and volunteered his time to feed the homeless and help others for over 5 decades. Accordingly, he was presented with the Good Samaritan Award in September 2007 by the St. Vincent de Paul Society for giving of his time, talent and treasures to console and care for the sick, poor and abandoned in the Houston community.





Willard John Vital de Grandpré, Martin Luther King, Jr. National Historical Park, June 2015

He was the founding President of the Black Heritage Society – worked in this capacity as President of the Board to honor the legacy of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. with a commemorative annual MLK Parade, along with a statue in MacGregor Park (1978-2021). He worked alongside, his friend, Mr. Ovide Duncantell, to start the movement of naming streets after MLK across the United States.


Willard John Vital de Grandpré, Martin Luther King, Jr. National Historical Park, June 2015


My beloved father, Willard John Vital, LMSW, passed on March 24, 2021, at the age of 82. When he passed, the City of Houston called me to present a proclamation from Mayor Sylvester Turner to proclaim, March 24th as "Willard John Vital Day", I was truly humbled. My father never spoke of his accomplishments, he was always focused on helping others and making an impact. He would have lunch with me near City Hall often when I worked downtown and never spoke of his involvement in these movements that impacted the lives and trajectories of many.

CIty of Houston Proclamation of 'Willard John Vital Day'


My siblings and I were honored when Congresswoman Sheila Jackson Lee presented a proclamation for the legacy and mark that Willard John Vital left on this world and named April 10th as Mr. Willard John Vital's Day as well.



U.S. Congressional Proclamation of 'Willard John Vital Day'

Lessons Learned


What is my learning in all of this?


1. It's extremely imperative that we know our personal brand roots.

It is important that we dig deep as we journey to know ourselves better before rushing to project an image that is only ‘successful’ (externally speaking), but not to ourselves.


2. Have a vision for your life and focus on defining your own success.

Be sure to track your personal milestones and have a strong support network of leaders and people around you who constantly push you out of your comfort zone.


Success really should be about working on purpose and clearly understanding the difference between being a "success" vs being "successful" as a route to achieving complete self-actualization and personal rebirth.


I discovered “Built to Last: Successful Habits of Visionary Companies” by Jim Collins & Jerry Porras over a decade ago. I immediately was magnetized by the 'Big, Hairy, Audacious, Goal (BHAG)' concept and put it into immediate practice across company projects at Shell and Brand Rebirth. I even created a dual Rebirth U masterclass series entitled “Prevision Portrait + Prevision 7.0”.


I have always known that innovation, ideation, thinking differently and strategy were personal strengths, but I assumed that they came as a result of educational and global travel experiences.


After my father's passing, I endured the difficult task of cleaning out his house and particularly his bookcase. I found a ray of hope when I discovered that my daddy had actually read the same “Built to Last” book that I had many years prior.


It was in that moment, that I realized that much of my innovative spirit came from him, a licensed medical social worker and human rights activist. He always pushed me to think differently, think for myself and advocate for others and I am grateful

3. Fight for freedom and justice- always.


For my dad, this was literal as he grew up in a segregated society in the south and learned about the world by listening to NPR (radio) and reading a lot. He had an electic circle of people from all walks of life: African-American, West Indian (Carribbean), African, Indian, White, Pakistani, Kenyan, Venezuelan, Honduran, Mexican etc.


He supported political causes that did not personally benefit himself and housed a community resident with mental challenges for over 15 years until his passing. He rode to Zacatecas, Mexico with his neighbor to pick up horses and also allowed the neighbor's children to do homework at his house when they did not have wi-fi internet access.


He always encouraged me to take a stand, and to support a cause that aligns with social and financial progress. My mother felt the same and still rallies around causes that uplift the disenfranchised. He encouraged me to "think differently" and when I discovered that this was my WHY, I felt validated.


Today, my fight is focused on helping people aquire and maintain psychological freedom which affects their overall wellbeing and ultimately builds their personal brand.

My daddy and I were extremely close and spoke a lot, rode bikes together, painted together and celebrated life together. Strengths Coaching (including Well-being), WHY Coaching, Personal Brand Leadership Coaching and Training + Development (Teams) brings me closer to him as he was a major contributor to my brand DNA.


My coaching also allows me to make an impact and life transformation for others and carry on my father's legacy of helping others. I encourage others to dig deep, discover and live your WHY, and transform your talents into strengths.


Remember to love and honor God, your parents, your elders, your ancestors and people who have helped to transform your life and remember to do the same and pay it forward in your authentic way. This is what I am learning to do more and more each day. 🥰





Tanika Vital-Pringle, Global MBA, runs Brand Rebirth, a boutique leadership development and brand strategy agency that helps emerging leaders improve professional self-care and strengthen leadership impact. She is a WHY Institute and Gallup-Certified Strengths Executive Coach [Strengths = IDEATION | BELIEF | CONNECTEDNESS | WOO | STRATEGIC] and Chief Brand Strategist. Clients are coached to discover their WHY, aim their Clifton Strengths and build iconic personal brands.


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How Emerging Executives Can Shift to Total Rebirth While Increasing Employee Retention






The COVID-19 global pandemic has created a digital tectonic shift in communication. Remote working has become a way of life for many people around the world and has presented opportunities and challenges for emerging executives and team development. It is well known that having a strong personal brand can create opportunities within a company or even externally if for some reason an employee is made redundant.


Building a personal brand in the Zoom era has an opportunity cost of lost emotional connection which affects trust with peers, leaders and teams. As a means for survival, most leaders have focused heavily on the necessary tangible components of their roles and abandoned personal professional development to a certain degree. So, in fact, they have commoditized their personal brands, which is quite dangerous.


“A personal brand is a perception in the minds of others that must be developed, nurtured and managed by rising stars—the notion that there is no one else in the marketplace quite like them. Their personal brand will stand at the forefront of influencing all types of stakeholders in the niches your firm serves via their experience, expertise, thought leadership, honesty, integrity and capabilities”. (Source: Journal of Accountancy).

Strategic personal brand building is a necessary component of professional development for emerging executives and should be built from the inside-out. Personal branding building should consist of a mix of executive coaching, therapy, and career development where a high-performing leader ultimately discovers or rediscovers his/her WHY, establishes an authentic leadership style and begins to operate from a true place of purpose. Self-discovery should be the initial focus of one’s personal branding coaching journey, then Strategy and thirdly, Activation.


All companies (and leaders) can benefit from rebirth – change that leads to a new period of improvement for the brand, and this applies to personal branding too. Steve Forbes shared that “investment in one’s brand is the most strategic decision that companies can make, because without the brand, there is no differentiation". Without differentiation, brands compete merely on price and simply blend in.


Here are 10 steps that you or an emerging executive within your organization can take to build an authentic personal brand.


1. DETERMINE YOUR BRAND PREVISION (VISION)


This is a great time to assess where you are in your role, where you would like to go and what really brings you joy (not merely happiness). You should question why you want to build your brand and determine what success looks like for you in the short-term and long-term. It is totally appropriate to profile other thought leaders within your organization (or externally) so that you can solidify who you want to ‘become’. If you are working with a coach, he/she should help you determine what it would take for you to achieve true ‘self-actualization’. Brand goals should be established based on what you have defined that brings you joy so that you will have an anchor to build upon.


According to the Alan Vitberg, "Developing Your Personal Brand Equity", Journal of Accountancy, July 10, 2010,

“Personal brand equity refers to the (1) intangible value that individuals bring to the firm in terms of their ability to influence others by leveraging their experience, expertise and reputation (2) relationships they have built and maintained, and (3) the tangible value they bring in terms of their contribution to firm revenues and growth”(Source: Journal of Accountancy).

When you determine your brand prevision, it provides a roadmap to build your personal brand equity. All in all, this is a foundational step to building one’s personal brand.



2. ESTABLISH PERSONAL CORE VALUES


Core values demonstrate what energizes you as a person and can prescribe how you are geared to generate more success in your career. When you joined the organization you work for, you most likely learned about the brand’s core values. Well, it is important to determine your own personal core values as they measure core and unchanging motivational drivers. There are some great tools that will get you past choosing basic core values that don’t resonate with you at the deepest level. After establishing core values for your personal brand, look to see if you have values-alignment with your company.


It is important to find a way to connect with your organization and team at the core values level as well.


According to the Qualtrics State of Global Engagement Report, “Confidence in senior leadership to make the right decisions for the company is a top employee engagement driver and represents 53% of 13K responses spanning 12 countries, along with managers who help employees with career development (50%)”.

All in all, when emerging executives discover their personal core values and work for companies that invest in their professional development, it fosters a greater sense of engagement for them and invigorates their leadership impact.


3. DETERMINE YOUR WHY



It is a known fact that purpose-driven brands are more successful and build community. A poll conducted by Fred Kiel at KRW International found that CEOs who were seen as authentic in living the company’s purpose produced a higher return on assets (9.35%) vs. just 1.93% for those who rated lower. This statistic also applies to personal brands that are purpose-driven. When emerging executives and corporate leaders know their why (reason for being), their what (they do) has a greater impact.


As emerging executives desire corporate ascension and transition into leading teams, it becomes imperative that they understand the internal operating system that drives their decisions, direction, and behavior. It is a known fact that senior leaders/emerging executives struggle with team cohesion and lack confidence in their remote teams (at times).


In fact, according to a study on engagement, “Disengaged employees cost U.S. companies around $400-$500 billion each year".

Hence, in addition to emerging executives discovering their WHY, they should try and find a way to understand their team’s WHY”. Overall, determining your WHY, then that of your team’s WHY is a pivotal milestone in practicing authenticity, kinetic leadership and shows more promise of becoming more aligned with your company purpose.


4. PERFORM A SWOT ANALYSIS


Developed in the 1960s, SWOT stands for Strengths, Opportunities, Weaknesses and Threats and is a strategic planning and management framework that was developed by the Stanford Research Institute and funded by Fortune 500 companies. After experiencing deep discovery with the steps, the SWOT can help one analyze additional dimensions using an objective lens and better define what one has to offer. It is also a powerful and systematic tool that can help when applied to personal branding. It has four quadrants and analyzes one’s internal self (Strengths & Weaknesses) and external self (Opportunities & Threats). Performing a SWOT will increase your emotional intelligence (self-awareness) and build a roadmap for personal success within the organization and will ultimately benefit your company as well.



5. DETERMINE THE PROBLEM YOU SOLVE


This is where you think beyond your daily tasks and responsibilities and go a little deeper. Look at your company’s vision statement, strategic goals, individual development plan and define what problem your skills sets are truly solving. Try your best to quantify the problem you are solving in terms of cost savings or opportunity costs of not solving the problem. Think about the “pains” that the organization is experiencing. Focus on the big jobs (initiatives) that your department or division is trying to get done and find your footing in it.


6. DEFINE AND ANALYZE YOUR TARGET AUDIENCE


It’s critical to understand whom you are serving (target audience) both internally and externally on a psychographic level. Psychographics go beyond basic demographics and look deeply into attitudes, behaviors, beliefs, interests and opinions. Think about the internal stakeholders (leaders, teams, etc.) you have visibility with and responsibility to on a regular basis. If your role (or the impact of your role) is externally facing, make sure you understand your customers on a psychographic level.


Ensure that you understand what is preventing your internal customer from getting his/her job done so that you can alleviate these pains. Frameworks like the Value Proposition Canvas help with fleshing out this thinking and is a great resource.


7. CRAFT BENEFITS AND REASONS TO BELIEVE


Benefits in personal branding for emerging executives refer to what is offered to the target audience (internal stakeholders) in terms of value. If your work product results in a stellar reputation for your department or #1 sales status, then document it. In brand management, benefits come in three packages: functional, emotional and self-expressive.


Functional benefits refer to tangible benefits of experiencing the brand. In the case of personal branding, this could refer to the outcomes of your work like cost savings or efficiency. It’s important to focus on what outcomes you achieve and not merely the processes you use to arrive at these outcomes.


Emotional benefits refer to how the brand makes people feel (i.e., satisfied, relieved, safe) when they work with you.


Self-expressive benefits refer to how the brand communicates its self -image and symbolizes their customers’ self-concept. It is most concerned with “what does using your brand say about your customers.” (Source)

For example, when Sheila works with Byron (the emerging executive), she is smart because Byron has a strong track record of success in process improvement.


Once benefits are crafted for one’s personal brand, the focus can shift to 'Reasons to Believe' which are proof points of why others should believe in you. It is commonly used in corporate branding and is a precursor to establishing a strong unique selling proposition.


8. UNEARTH YOUR BRAND IDENTITY


After becoming fully self-aware, unearthing core values, determining your WHY and other aforementioned steps, the personal brand is ready to be brought to life. This could include a plethora of things including: a professional brand photoshoot, brand personality discovery, personal brand statement, customized color-palette and font/typeface identification.


9. DEVISE YOUR CHANNEL STRATEGY


After making the investment in building a solid and authentic brand, the next step should involve determining the best channels to share and promote this personal brand masterpiece. Covid-19 forced the world into remote working and for many companies, it will remain like this. Hence, it is imperative that one’s personal branding channel strategy have a strong digital (on-line) component.


Generally speaking, your channel strategy could involve assessing internal platforms, events, and opportunities at your company to leverage. Additionally, the focus could include external speaking opportunities, podcasts, forums, blogs, conferences, an intentional LinkedIn strategy or alliances that would improve and augment the reach of your personal brand for the dual benefit of you and your company. The determining factor in personal branding platform selection is where your target audience spends time and consumes content and it will most likely be digital.



10. ACTIVATE YOUR PERSONAL BRAND

Branding is about ‘being’ and marketing is about ‘doing’. Activation (marketing) in personal branding requires expanding your reach and generating awareness with your audience and ultimately creating brand evangelists. Brand evangelists are those who strongly insist on consuming your brand and sharing it with others.


Developing consistent and engaging content for your target audience is crucial. Foundational content could include: well written long-form and short-form bios, white papers, optimized LinkedIn profiles, videos (pre-recorded and live), participation in podcasts, personal website development, Linktree, etc.


Content development is an iterative process and should be tested, refined, and optimized to ensure relevance to your target audience. Once you achieve the ‘foundational’ personal branding steps 1-8, you might require minor retooling over time, but you should not have to make major changes. Steps 9-10 that are focused on activation and marketing are short-term and can be adapted and changed to suit the dynamic needs of platforms and technology.


CONCLUSION

Emerging executives and high-performing leaders in the corporate space, particularly in the technology sector, should view personal brand development as an opportunity for career growth and leadership development. “It is also important for upper management to understand and support the concept of personal branding and its importance for a firm’s growth and legacy. Personal brand equity planning should be a part of every firm’s succession plan to protect its future growth and viability”. (Source: Journal of Accountancy)


Personal branding increases greatly emotional intelligence, improves relationships and enables leaders to communicate from a point of strength. It would be beneficial for companies (HR departments) to support personal branding and executive coaching as a part of professional development for high-performing leaders.

"Employees who say their manager is not good at communicating are 23% more likely to experience mental health declines” according to a HBR study with Qualtrics and SAP."

Simply put, personal branding helps emerging executives lead better. Personal brand development is self-care for the aspiring and ascending emerging executive leader who is courageous enough to lead during a global pandemic and beyond. When emerging executives work with professionals to build their personal brand equity, it can produce lasting effects for them and the organization.


Tanika Vital-Pringle, Global MBA Brand Management, is a Personal Brand and Corporate Brand Strategist for Brand Rebirth who has over 20 years of experience working for global Fortune 50 companies and beyond. She is a certified WHY Coach and offers comprehensive personal branding coaching programs for Emerging Executives & High-Performing Leaders and Workshops to build employee engagement for teams. Book a discovery call today.

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It is a well-known fact that having a strong brand can establish an expectation that something is of higher quality than the competition, even if the difference is minimal. Brand strategists have long taught that company brands must find a way to achieve powerful differentiation in order to charge a premium. This is because brands compete on intangible attributes and commodities compete on price or convenience. Some might ponder - but, what about emerging executives, particularly those in the technology sector? What are the implications for their careers and personal brands during a global pandemic and post-COVID world?


Tom Peters shared this powerful quote in Inc. Magazine that resonates with many “we are the CEOs of our companies, Me Inc. To be in business today, our most important job is to be head marketer for the brand called You.”


This implies that career professionals, particularly emerging executives and high-potential corporate team leaders should view themselves as brands and cultivate authentic personal brands for themselves. Personal brand development is particularly needed in the field of technology since it is usually forgotten due to the belief that the technical aspects of the job are only pertinent. Additionally, personal branding can help leaders create a competitive advantage and build content to maximize their digital presence so that they will be better equipped for a post-COVID world.


Defining Personal Branding

A personal brand refers to vivid intangible attributes and/or associations that exists in one’s mind and heart about an individual. All these colorful and (hopefully) positive attributes create a magical pull so that others will be drawn (even magnetized) towards you. In a professional sense, these are the attributes (like reliable, innovative, accurate, genius, etc.) that enable leaders to create emotional connections so that others can experience all of what they have to offer.


John Sherry, noted ‘Brandthropologist’, wrote a very academic, yet poignant definition in Kellogg on Branding by Alice M. Tybout and Tim Calkins that I find to be quite riveting – “The brand is a principal repository of meaning in consumer culture. It is both a storehouse and a powerhouse of meaning”. Hence, one’s personal brand stores meaning, powerful meaning that others should experience on a multi-dimensional level that goes beyond a leader’s technical abilities.


Benefits to Building a Personal Brand

Building a personal brand helps to establish authority in the marketplace (both internal and external) as it amplifies your leadership potential. Some tangible benefits of personal branding include: increasing earning potential and/or getting promoted, attracting mentors/recruiters in the organization, becoming an influencer, uncovering professional purpose, improving people relationships and creating team balance . According to Waller and Waller, “professionals who build their brand make 47% more money than those who don’t”.


Kinetic Leadership Trends

Executives in the C-Suite (Chief Technology Officers, Chief Information Officers, Chief Marketing Officers, Chief People Officers, etc.) generally receive coaching to further build their leadership effectiveness, especially with team management. Emerging executives and senior team leaders in the technology space need the same level of focus in the form of personal branding, which can include some executive coaching elements. According to Deloitte’s 2020 Global Technology Leadership Study of over 1,311 survey participants across global geographies, “technology leaders are being called upon to serve as kinetic leaders –a supercharged change instigator, pursuing transformation while ensuring resilience.”



Transformation cannot take place alone; it requires vision setting, collaboration and teams who embrace, internalize, and execute the vision. Hence, effective leaders (particularly in technology), should strengthen “soft skills” like emotional intelligence, authenticity, building tribes, influence, and purpose. Encouraging collaboration, empowerment and an intrapraneurship-mindset within the organization can help make kinetic leaders more effective and impactful, as well.


Challenges in Tech Industries

According to CNET.com, 2018, imposter syndrome is prevalent within the tech industry, with about 58% of tech employees stating that they currently experience some form of the condition within their careers. It is key to note that kinetic leaders in tech and (other industries) can greatly limit their effectiveness if they (or their team members) have an intense fear of failure, are unconsciously sabotaging their own success or feel that they need to work 1,000% harder to be treated the same.


Strong Personal Brands That Demonstrate Kinetic Leadership

In order for leaders to build their personal brands, others have to be aware that their brands exist. Brand recall occurs when people (consumers) demonstrate an ability to remember/recognize attributes about a brand when given minimal stimuli (i.e., name, colors, etc). It is used daily when we think about consumer brands and applies to personal branding as well.


Steve Wozniak is an electronics engineer, programmer, philanthropist, and co-founder of Apple Inc. He is known for creating Apple 1 and co-creating Apple II. He is affectionately known as the “Woz” for his technical brilliance and has subsequently launched other companies. He is a person of influence because of his purpose-driven nature – he strongly held that “Apple’s products could change people’s lives once they got into people’s homes”. This belief was infectious and transformative for subsequent teams and staff at Apple. Even today, Woz is a house-hold name, celebrity and even appeared on Dancing with the Stars, which indicates the relevance of his personal brand to transcend industry categories.



Woz’s counterpart and co-creator, Steve Jobs, embodied the definition of a kinetic leader. He got people to “buy into” his vision. He developed his marketing and communications “soft” skills to lead Apple to success and inspired and motivated his employees to exceed expectations. Jobs had an intrapraneurship mindset and has a personal brand that has a powerhouse of meaning. He knew his WHY and became known for it.


Jessica O. Matthews, Founder & CEO of Unchartered Power is an energy inventor who invented the Sockket, an energy-generating soccer ball. She went on to found Uncharted Power, a sustainable infrastructure company that transforms the ground beneath us into an industrial IoT platform that streamlines the deployment and management of infrastructures, such as power lines and broadband. Source: Oracle Blog. I have personally worked with Jessica and observed how she uses purpose and solving problems that affect people and society to magnetize her personal brand. She will continue to be an influencer for generations to come and inspire teams to join her tribe.


Reshma Saujani is a leading activist and founder of Girls Who Code and the Marshall Plan for Moms. She began her career as an attorney and activist and in 2010, she became the first Indian American woman to run for U.S. Congress. During the race, Reshma visited local schools and saw the gender gap in computing classes firsthand, which led her to start Girls Who Code. Today, Girls Who Code has taught 300,000 girls through direct in-person computer science education programming and reached 500 million people worldwide through its New York Times-bestselling book series and award-winning campaigns. Source. Reshma’s transformative personal brand has earned her broad recognition in top-tier media outlets.


Conclusion

Success in personal branding takes work, structure, gut, and consistency. There are many roads to doing it well and the benefits outweigh the costs. All four of the before mentioned leaders demonstrate kinetic leadership in very different ways and are all uber effective. According to CEOs surveyed in BrandPie’s 2021 CEO Purpose Report, “the activation of purpose (your WHY) is still a skill that leaders recognize needs developing”. As corporate leaders (particularly technology leaders) become kinetic leaders-- change instigators and more purpose driven, they should deepen their focus and commitment to personal branding. This will help to decrease imposter syndrome, strengthen communication skills, uncover professional purpose, and achieve team balance in this virtual and remote world.


Tanika Vital-Pringle, Global MBA Brand Management, is a Certified WHY Coach and Personal Brand and Corporate Brand Strategist for Brand Rebirth. She offers comprehensive coaching programs for Emerging Executives & High-Performing Leaders and Workshops for teams.


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