00:08 Hi, I'm Denise Simpson, a master life and leadership coach who helps women step into their authentic and feminine power. So they can lead like visionaries influence with grace and create a legacy of contribution and service. You'll hear about real leadership clients with real problems, navigating their success in life, business, and career. If you're ready to become a masterful leader, then this podcast was made for you. So let's get started.
00:47 Welcome my friend it's Tuesday, which means we have a new episode for you. And today I'm bringing to you a replay from a Facebook live. I did on personal leadership branding. I know this is so exciting. I had such a great time doing this live. I'm not a big live person, but I've been poking around over on Facebook. And I have been inspired to, to do weekly lives, usually their on Tuesdays or whenever I feel like it, or time permits. I just go on, I don't even know what I'm gonna talk about until about five minutes before I press live. Seriously. I just have so much in my brain, on my mind, on my heart that I wanna talk about. And there's just no telling what's gonna come up, but know that it's always about life and leadership and always for the purpose of serving you in some way somehow.
01:45 And so today's episode is again, taken from that replay I did on personal leadership branding. This is so important to learn, to understand, to build, and then ultimately to leverage, we wanna leverage your brand. And I'm gonna share with you on this replay, a few things that are very important to, to consider as we are building this leadership brand of yours. So I hope you enjoy this replay. And when you are done my friend, head over to Facebook, go like, and follow my page so that you can be notified when I am going live so that you can engage. You can interact and you can contribute to the conversation. Cause I wanna meet you. I wanna hear from you. I wanna learn more about you and your needs and desires as a woman in leadership. Ah, all right. Enough talking. Let me turn this over to the replay now. Hope you enjoy it. My friend, take good care talk soon.
02:49 Hello. Happy day. Okay. Listen. So excited about the upcoming master classes inside masters of leadership. So first of all, good morning. Hello. It's Tuesday. It is uh, not 11 yet here in Austin. And I got off a call with a client just, uh, about 20 minutes ago and was processing some things that we were talking about regarding her personal brand, me, her leadership brand. So she was telling me about how, um, she's hiring right now. And the HR department looked up, um, somebody, a potential candidate linked in and social media accounts. And so careful if you're out there applying for positions, uh, we've got, uh, HR looking at your social media feeds right now, which is wild. I hope y'all can hear me. I'm just raising the volume there. And she said, you know, I'm, I'm seeing the importance of a personal brand and this idea of branding myself as a leader.
04:11 And what would that even look like? And I love this topic now. I have been like dodging this idea for a long time. Since people wrote books about it and stuff, I'm like, whatever. See, I'm a skeptic. I, I come into, uh, I'm not cynical. I'm not, I'm a skeptic. And that's just my research brain that that's just who I am when it comes to, uh, the work that I do and, and the trainings that I give and the information I share with my clients. I'm very skeptical cuz there's a ton of shit out there that makes zero sense. Okay. And so when, so when all this came out about personal branding and how it's important to establish yourself as you know, a, a leader, um, you know, in your industry or even in your organization or institution, I just like, I, I brushed it off and said whatever.
05:01 Then she said to me today. Yeah. However, we're actually looking at their social media feeds, which I, I kind of knew that, but I was hoping that HR wasn't as biased as that, I was hoping that the hiring manager wasn't as biased as that to go into somebody's personal, you know, Instagram account and go check in on their life. Right. And like then bring them into an interview based on what you saw on that or a combination of what you saw on social media and you know, what they put on their resume. I don't know. It's shady and I didn't, I, I, wasn't a, still not a, a fan of poking around somebody's personal profiles. I'm not, and I'm not gonna base my judgment on, uh, what they do in their personal lives with their families or they don't have families. I'm not gonna judge them on that, uh, based on what kind of work they can do for me in the organization.
05:56 So careful with that leaders. Careful. Uh, I know we live in this day and age where everything's on social. I mean, listen, we go way back with Facebook. Don't we? Um, and uh, now with Snapchat, which, you know, I'm not on there, but I understand that like you could, stuff gets deleted within 24 hours or something. I don't know. Uh, but TikTok and so forth. And so anyway, careful leader, careful, if you're hiring someone, you don't go poking around certain places. We don't wanna base our, our hiring decisions on what they had for dinner last night, whether they went partying with their friends the night before the interview, right? Like we're not doing that. And if you need help, you gotta reach out to me. Okay. So here's what was really cool about this conversation I had with her this morning on personal branding, uh, leadership branding, let's call it leadership branding.
06:58 Um, I tell my clients all the time lead with your values, which you're doing anyway. So let's be explicit about them. Your values are what you stand for. These are the, the things that are at the unconscious mind, by the way, they're not right here at the prefrontal cortex. They're actually buried at the unconscious mind and they drive every decision you make as a leader. And so it's important. You make a list of your values, so values that drive you as a leader, but also it's important to get your team to come up with a shared values list. I do workshops on that by the way, reach out. We can do that for you. Um, and so we talked, I talked to my clients about showing up with your values. What are your personal values? What do you stand for? What are your convictions rooted in?
07:51 Are they rooted in autonomy? Are they rooted in sovereignty? Are they rooted in integrity? Are they rooted in ethics? Are they rooted in, in fun, in fulfillment? What, what are your values that you've kept quiet about what values are driving your leadership style? That is so important to ask. And the, and why this, this makes sense in talking about your personal branding or leadership branding is that this is who you are. These values are, are who you are. They represent what you believe and what you stand for. And so if you're going to brand yourself as a leader, take a close look at those values that you have taken on for yourself and that drive your leadership style. They drive every decision you make. And if there are values that are on there, that aren't aligned with a workplace context or a leadership context, then take a look at what else you could add, right?
08:57 Make a list of 10 things that are important to you about what you represent in the organization, who you are in the organization. And those would give, will give you the list of your values. And don't think so hard while you're making this list. Just go at it, just write everything out, whatever comes to mind, put it on paper. And from that draft, you will find your personal values that you stand for that are important to you as a leader in the workplace, in a relationship with your followers. So that's part of building your leadership brand. That's part of who you are, it's being more you and less them. And by them I'm meaning your, your former leaders, your former super, or maybe even a current one, right? Because sometimes we're holograms of former leaders or current leaders, because we don't have leadership training. So what we're doing is we're mimicking, we're mimicking these leaders because they did it right, because they were in authority positions because they were here longer.
10:08 So there you are hologram of these leaders. So you don't know where their beliefs end and yours begin, right? You don't know where their values end and yours begin. Right? Hi, Kate. I see you ha happy to have you here. Um, and so the, the part of, of leadership branding, where we're talking about personal branding in the context of leadership, and so here you are showing up in the organization and the research shows it's important that you build this brand because here's what it's going to tell your leaders, your stakeholders, your board of directors, even your CEO, is that she is indispensable is that she is irreplaceable. And this brings me to point number two, become a linchpin in your organization. This will be part of your personal leadership brand, right? Number one, we talked about values. Make a list of those things are important to you in the workplace.
11:11 That's who you are. That's part of your brand. Number two, become a linchpin. And how do you become a linchpin is you know yourself better than anybody else. This is called self-awareness. This is called you not being a hologram of your former leader. This is about you becoming an original copy of the leader that you want to be. You understand, like that's the linchpin of this. This is like all of my personal qualities that make me me, which includes my values and my convictions and my beliefs. And what I stand for that is how you leverage your qualities. You self-awareness is the first step. Know who you, you are and know the qualities that you can leverage. That's how you become a linchpin in the organization. That's how you become irreplaceable, indispensable. This is the woman you want leading this next campaign. This is the person you want in this next leadership position.
12:13 This is the person that we want to groom and prime into this next upward mobility position. This is the person because she is a linchpin. Kate says, yes, drop the former version of your old leader and your old self, right? Holograms do not be a hologram. Do not be an echo of who they are, be a voice like. And that's where self-awareness is important to find the voice, to find the original copy of who you are, because trust me, you are made up of everybody. Else's beliefs. Those that raised you well intended and not so well intended families, right? Parents Le you know, leaders in your, in your family, right? Your society, your culture. I mean, let's talk about my society and culture layers upon layers upon layers of socialization, being told what to do, how to think, how to feel, how to behave. So where do their beliefs end and mind begin?
13:18 This is where the self-awareness starts. And so if you're someone who is faced with, I don't know who the hell I am as a leader, I wanna be an original copy. I wanna be, I wanna show up as powerfully as I can self-awareness will be your first step. And we get to do that in masters of leadership. And by the way, we are all about self leadership. We're all about self-awareness and finding who we are and, and what we stand for versus being the hologram of your former or current leaders. Keith also says, yeah, lead from the viewpoint, the version, the hologram of your best self that is already now, already now. Right? And I think Kate, if you agree with this, you may not. But so many of us in leadership go into leadership accidentally. Some of us do accidentally, right? Like we're pushed into it.
14:11 And, and then we realize, oh shit, I don't, I don't know what the hell I'm doing. I don't even know who I am as a leader. And a lot of these leaders, God bless them, but we train them and we coach them because they're valuable. They're still valuable. These are the people that are the biggest people. Pleasers. These are the people who are yes. Persons. Yes. Ma'am no. Ma'am yes. Let me do, let me see how many people I can please. And leadership is not more people pleasing. It's not a, a platform for you to be a giant people. Pleaser. Hell no, you're gonna get caught real quick. If you're someone who's so focused on other people's reactions or behaviors towards you as a leader, you have a problem. My friend. And so this is part of what I mean, not knowing who you are, because you learned this from somebody else.
15:02 Cuz maybe you learned this in your upbringing, right? I mean, that's something that in my Mexican culture was all about family first, make sure everybody's tended to, then we take care of your needs and your desires, but everybody else comes before you. So women like me going into leadership, we need to do a full 360. We need to go go what? Let's just burn down the systems and let's create a new foundation for us because this is not gonna work for us. If we want to be impactful, powerful leaders. And so there's so many nuances, right? And Kate says, agreed. People pleasing is about not dealing with the root of a lack of self love and fear of rejection. You know what I call people, pleasers, Kate, I call them liars. They're lying to themselves. They're forgoing their desires, their needs and their wants because they think somebody else's desires, needs and wants are more of a priority than theirs.
16:03 That's more important than theirs. They're lying to themselves and they're lying to others, right? It's like, what, where did we learn this? And you know, I talk a whole lot about women leading versus men leading or, or they leading. So there's nuances and how women lead. And a lot of us is because of how we were socialized to believe things, right? To believe that we are not supposed to be priority, that we're, we're here to, to procreate and we're here to nurture our families. And we're here to focus on everybody else's needs, but ours. And then you get into leadership and you're screwed because that's not what leadership is about. You know, it's, that's the last thing that you wanna do is put somebody else's needs and desires. And I know this goes against everything that you think leadership is about. This is what the industry has per perpetuated.
16:57 It's like, no, we, women leaders need to be onto what they're telling us, how to behave. We need to be onto what is unnatural to us, right? What's natural is that we nurture, we wanna put everybody in front of us, but then we neglect our own desires and our own needs. And then we wind up in burnout. And then we wind up in, in, in divorce court. We wind up in bankruptcy because we have neglected our personal selves, our personal wellbeing for the sake of the organization. And for the sake of others, not on, not on my watch, that's not happening on my watch. Kate says it's a, a protective ego issue for self protection. People pleasing. Ooh, people beers. My goodness. So thank you, Kate. Love that. You're here, here. You got me. You, you understand this better than most of us out here.
17:53 And so it's important for those that are looking at this personal branding, this personal leadership branding. It's not about being a hologram of what you think is right. It's about being the original copy of who you are. And I shared with you two very important things. What are your values? What's driving every decision you make at the unconscious level, make it explicit, make it conscious. So you know who the fuck you are, know who the fuck you are, make a list of that. You wanna workshop. I will design it for you. I already have one in the can. I can work with you. And if you want to do a shared values list for your team members, it's important that we, we come up with something together, especially when we're moving as a team together, individual creativity, individual mindset, individual genius. However, there is a shared values list that moves us to these goals.
18:49 And it's important that you reevaluate these values, especially with your team on a quarterly basis, you have new people coming in new people, leading, you have people evolving. You have people expanding. You have people learning, you have people falling back. Let's stay together as a team. And let's do that shared values list every quarter so that we it's on it's top of mind. And I have an amazing client who, uh, had had a graphic designer do this gorgeous, uh, list of values that they share. And it's it's top of mind. I recommend you put it where you can see it. You know how your, your organization has like your core mission, your vision and your values. Yeah, that's cute. Listen, your team needs to be so cohesive. And it's important that this team comes up with that values list and that you have it explicitly.
19:43 You have it consciously, you have it right in your face every day and maybe make it a wallpaper on your computers. Like do what you have to do to make sure that your team stays moving with these values that you all came up with. Ugh, genius. So exciting. Especially when you want high performers, especially when you want them fully engaged and committed to the, the objectives of the team. You want them sharing this list? You want them to follow this list and keep, keep them top of mind. Uh, Kate also says the re original copy of who you are, is accessible to you. Always who? Kate? Yes. Values must be spoken weekly. For sure. I speak. Therefore I am. Thank you. That's that's it. That's exactly right. Let's go back to that point that you just made. Okay. The original copy of who you are is accessible to you always, let me remind you.
20:40 You do not wanna be a hologram of your former or current leaders. Like we have the access it's accessible to you now to understand who you are. And you know, what, if there are things that are, that are confusing to you, things that you are challenging, where you go, you know what? There is a misalignment here. There's something I don't agree with. You know, I was always told to do this as a little girl, but you know, I'm a grown ass sovereign woman. And that's actually in contradiction to who I want to become today, who I want to embody today. Challenge it. Do not quiet. That intuition do not quiet. That gut feeling do not quiet. That whisper in your brain, in your ear that says this isn't right. And this doesn't feel right. Something is off. This is the sign you want permission. Here's the permission to disrupt permission to disrupt neurology is now go ahead, disrupt it.
21:42 And if you don't know how to do that, get it inside. Masters of leadership with me, we disrupt shit every day in there. we give permission to, to disrupt. As soon as you, you, you check out as soon as you enter my program, trust me, you have given yourself permission to disrupt neurology, to disrupt whatever society has embedded in your beautiful mind, whatever your culture has said was right for you to do all that gets blown up and trust me, it's not it's sometimes it is jolting. Sometimes it's it's shocking. And then other times it is a subtle shift. It's a subtle shift that is so effortless and it is so smooth. And then you realize, oh, I'm not behaving like that anymore. What happened? Well, you disrupted neurology. And then some of us have very shocking revelations. And then we realize, oh shit, I've been doing this really, really, really interestingly.
22:38 And I don't wanna keep doing this this way. Let's fucking go. That's also disrupting neurology. So you've got, you've got a beautiful range of reactions when you start disrupting neurology. And by the way, here's the caution. I caution you. Rage and anger may come up for you. As you are disrupting neurology. It came up for me. It came up for me in a very personal, intimate revelation that I had. And I have to tell you, rage was involved. Anger was involved. I wanted to burn down the whole system. I wanted to burn down the whole fucking bridge. The whole like, no, you ain't crossing this river. You that's, it it's blown the fuck up. You can't cross here because I'm not going back anymore because you're not gonna see me going back. I'm not gonna rebound to these old societal antiquated beliefs about me as a woman, that's burnt down.
23:39 And so ha I had to process the rage and the anger. Like we all have to process the emotion and we get to do that in a safe container inside masters of leadership. So know that you will have a range of reactions and responses. And we don't, we don't sub submerge them. We don't suppress them. We don't repress them. We embrace them. And, and you get to do that inside my program, Kate says, um, most of my coaching was about gaining permission. Yes, yes. Permission to be who the fuck you are, who you wanna be, how you wanna show up, who you wanna serve, whose lives do you wanna change? I mean, that's that? I just believe everybody has a damn purpose and you make it your purpose. You don't wait for a sign. Yeah. You give yourself permission to, to, to, to, to transform and to transform lives.
24:31 However you see fit that. Kate also says, good. Let all suppress feelings come up. As you reveal, you heal. As you reveal you heal. That's so, so precious as you reveal you heal. And it all comes from self-awareness. It all comes from wanting to challenge those beliefs because you internally have found the misalignment. There's a resistance, there's a tug, there's a push and pull, right? And that's where you step into making a decision. I want better. I deserve better. I deserve to look under the hood of my mind. I deserve to step forward. That's the beauty of self-awareness is that you then move towards the, he, the revealing to then heal the, you know, the trauma to heal what society is told you. What's right. For women in leadership, which your culture said that you need, you need to do. Right? So there's so many, um, gifts in self-awareness and that's what we get to do as women leaders, right?
25:33 We don't sit around and, and, and, uh, you know, eat bomb bonds, although you, we can no shame or shade in that. Go do it. But we're out there making an impact in our industries. We're out there ruffling some feathers. Sometimes we're out there changing the culture. And so it starts with you, my friend, it starts with you first and foremost, and then your team, but we can't do the work with your team until we do the work with you. So two things again, let's about listen. And when Kate comes online here with me, yo, we, we, we, we go off. I mean, we go off, this is a woman who's exceptional and she knows what's up. She knows what we're talking about here. And we just, we riff, we go off. And so let me take it back to what I originally started. This conversation, personal leadership, a client of mine was, uh, was little startled because the HR department was looking at a candidate's social media platform and looking at all of their posts.
26:40 And if you're anything like me, when I go search for someone I'm looking at like a year, two years of a bunch of posts and pictures and videos, you go down a rabbit hole and then your mind gets immersed in their world. And then you start envisioning who they are and what they're doing. If you're an HR and you're a hiring manager and you're doing this shit, you may be wasting your fucking precious time. Don't do that to these candidates. I'm so I'm, I'm not for this technique. I'm not for this, this tactic. Uh, but I understand that, you know, HR departments are wanting to know everything about the applicant, but that's not what I want to focus on what they had for dinner the night before, when, when they went to big Ben to go, you know, on that family trip, I don't care if they binged drank, you know, two weeks before I like there has to be boundaries, HR or hiring managers, there ha there has to be boundaries with your applicants.
27:35 And so when I spoke to this client, she was a little startled with that because there's a candidate she's really excited about. And there were some questionable things on their Instagram feed and I'm like, well, why'd, y'all go searching for that shit. I mean, I know we can't, you know, there's things we wanna take at face value, but there's just some boundaries that we need to, we need to reconsider. That's all I'm saying. I'm not saying for you to stop doing that. Listen, I'm, I'm the biggest rabbit hole chaser. Trust me, I go down a rabbit hole and I'm like in everybody's business, I get that. But when we're hiring people, I want you to use that evidence list first, right? Interview them. If you have to go for a second and a third interview, you have to do a committee or a panel so that it's not just you and, and your brain that you wanna trust, but it's others.
28:22 You know, others' opinions as well, careful with the bias, careful with the prejudice, careful with the discriminatory tendencies, you have a human mind. You've got bias, honey. You've got all those things I just listed. And so be careful with how you're hiring people. What are your hiring techniques and your investigative techniques that you're, that you're pulling behind the scenes, careful with that bullshit. You may miss out on a really great applicant. You may miss out because of your fucking bias. So careful with this shit, you need help. You reach out and I'll privately consult with you. Okay? So personal branding is what she and I were talking about. And I said, well, this is how we do personal leadership branding. You get explicit, you get conscious of your values, make a list of 'em. That's what I said, make a list, get 'em all on paper.
29:09 And this is what you stand for. These are your convictions. This is what's driving your leadership decisions every day. So you might as well make 'em explicit and then have a shared values slip with your team. Create the, the list together, evaluate that on a quarterly basis. As people come in, come out, people evolve and grow. People fall back. You wanna pull 'em back in. And here's the explicit shared values list that you all came up with. You need a workshop. I got you covered. And then number two, become a linchpin, become a linchpin, leverage your qualities, leverage. Let's use the word exploit like fuck leverage. I want you to exploit exploit, exploit these beautiful qualities, qualifications, qualifiers that make you, you, and, and, and make sure that you use 'em to where you're benefiting, but also your team is. And then that'll get the attention of your CEO or your shareholders or your board of directors and your peers in the organization. So personal leadership branding is what we're gonna cover inside masters of leadership real soon. Join me here. Make sure you put on your, uh, alert or notifications on here so that you can join me. Uh, and we can talk about whatever musings I have in regards to women in leadership. Kate loved you. Thank you for joining me. And for those who are gonna watch the replay, post your comments, let me know what your thoughts are. Take care.
30:36 Hey,
30:36 If you enjoy listening to this podcast, you have to join me inside my exclusive coaching membership for women in leadership. Just like you. I wanna help you become a masterful leader with the help of a community of the most powerful women on this planet. My membership is called masters of leadership. Yes, of course it would be called that . So whether you're a novice or a master, you have to join us. You're gonna get the support that you need and deserve inside my membership. So head over to Dr. Denise simpson.com/m O L. That website again is Dr. Denise simpson.com/m O L. You deserve this, my friend. So join us inside. See you soon.
