A recent TikTok on career progression provoked a pretty conflicted reaction in me and got me thinking about the value of bringing your full, authentic self to work in brand. The premise of Jacqueline’s TikTok argument is that you don’t get promoted if you are both nice to work with and good at your job. The bottom-line being that people who do both are the reliable backbone of the team, valued by co-workers, but never rewarded with a leadership role – because what member of any C-suite have you worked with that consistently does both?
It’s a fair point, and particularly for female leaders operating in a patriarchal environment (hello to the 8% of women who are CEOs at the world’s largest publicly listed companies, you are really doing the most and we praise you), it’s sadly easy to understand that prioritising success can often be at the expense of your outward emotions, integrity, and empathy for other women around you.
But I strongly believe that working in a branding discipline not only allows you to be both kind and kick-ass at your job, but requires it. In fact more broadly, Brand attracts some of the most exceptional, emotionally intelligent minds who are leading the way on cultural change for the better and masterminding incredible ideas every day, but are just a little too busy to shout about it. It’s part of why we founded Women in Brand in the first place – we know there are so many successful, passionate, and talented women moving brands forward (and fighting their reputational fires) all over the world, so we wanted to bring these professionals together and amplify their achievements through our network.
Harnessing your emotional intelligence superpowers
Wherever you work within the discipline of brand, facilitating or convincing people to step out of their comfort zone, try new ideas, and think outside the box takes an incredibly driven but considerate brand thinker. Whether it’s pitching concepts to a C-suite, forming a single strategy out of a million ideas, or designing a client’s vision to life, it’s undeniable that humans connect with humans, so bringing your authentic self to this work is surely the best way to bring even the biggest brand skeptics along on the journey.
Personally, I’ve hugely benefitted from bringing my whole self to work – I know my passion and personality has helped to build pivotal connections, energise teammates, and inspire a belief in the value of branding. As a brand thinker, bringing your own experiences, eccentricities, and imperfections will help bring your work to life, and is kind of necessary to be a visionary. At the end of the day, brands are just trying to connect and engage with people, which means that the humans behind the brands need to be authentic for their output to actually resonate at all.
And though this might be a sweeping brush, perhaps a lot of these benefits women working in brand bring can be applied to working environments that could do with a touch of humanity. In fact, maybe where these industries haven’t recognised the value of these superpowers is responsible for why we still see such a disproportionate gender gap at executive leadership level and a lack of Chief Brand Officers in the boardroom… a bit of food for thought.
Looking after your whole self
However, as Women in Brand Founder Tamira and I frequently discuss, the role of a brand strategist can, at times, feel desperately lonely. You’ve got to push the people you’re working with out of their comfort zones, taking them on a journey of self-discovery (and often it DOES get this existential) and highlighting the pain points that a lot of people don’t want to hear. And throughout all of that, you have to be engaging, inspiring, incredibly perceptive, and energetic time and time again – and even if this extroversion comes naturally to you, it can still be massively draining.
Again, personally, on the flipside of huge successes I’ve experienced repeated burnout, self-doubt and professional hangxiety, and often come away from a particularly demanding working day feeling like I was ‘too much’. So whilst any work in brand is infinitely improved by bringing your whole self to the work, we need to be sympathetic to ourselves, and our colleagues around us, who are pouring their energy into making our world a better place by driving brands forward. And maybe pouring a large glass of wine at the end of the day, too.
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