My teacher made it cool to be thrilled by literature.
She would sit, perched at the edge of her desk, legs almost impossibly intertwined beneath her, eyes shining as she explained Shakespeare with a husky voice and sense of humour that even the most jaded teenagers could appreciate.
I no longer felt I had to hide.
Heartbreakingly, I had only one year with Mrs. Gould. She passed away the following summer. But her legacy lived on in me. Her devil-may-care passion for writing, and way of challenging the status quo played a part in my one day becoming a journalist.
Have you ever wondered what your legacy will be? What your students will say about you in 30 years? Or even what they say about you now?
That lasting impression is your personal brand.
Yes, that sounds like a marketing tool. But personal brands aren’t just ‘images’ created to promote CEOs and Superstars. Their relevance is universal and their effect, lasting.
Jeff Bezos, the founder of Amazon, defines a personal brand as “…what people say about you when you’re not in the room.” So the truth is you have a personal brand already. It’s called your reputation. It affects your career path, the way you’re viewed and treated by students, colleagues and higher- ups as well as the legacy you will leave.
What do you think people say about you when you leave the room? How do your students describe you when they leave the classroom? What do parents say to each other after a parent-teacher interview with you? Do you think it’s a fair representation of your true talents and value? Wouldn’t you like it to be?
The point of recognising that you have a personal brand, is the power that gives you to make sure your brand reflects who you really are, the authentic you. Not an image. It’s about making clear the unique value you bring – to your classroom, your school and your community.
What is your unique value? Well, what are your strengths, passions and talents – not just what’s on your CV, but the skills you were born with; the life experience you’ve accumulated; and what you do passionately, that puts you “in flow”? What do you excel at 24/7? It could be working with numbers, writing, public speaking or being sensitive enough to judge everyone’s mood in a room. Are you consistently playing to those core strengths – in the classroom as well as the real world?
Interestingly, sometimes our core strengths are hard for us to recognise. We can take them entirely for granted, because they are so embedded in us, so “second nature”.
My business partner and I recently spoke at the 2014 Teachers Matter Conference, where we met a young woman who felt she had only limited value to offer at this stage in her life. Painfully aware of her lack of experience, she could only claim her fairly recent teaching qualification as a core strength, nothing more. When we asked about other talents, or hobbies, she answered, “All I’ve done is spent a year travelling on an OE.”
“All” she’s done? We pointed out she was already bringing an international perspective into the classroom. However, international travel also requires overcoming language barriers, identifying cultural differences, successfully navigating those differences as well as navigating new physical environments, overcoming fear and shyness, and the list goes on….
If this young teacher took the time to analyse her experience, she’d discover her strengths. One question she might ask herself is “what did she do differently, more easily, than her travelling companions?” With that awareness, she could see how what she offers is different from the teachers around her. She could also confidently share her strengths with her students, adding clear, identifiable value to their lives.
However even when we know our strengths, we are often so focussed on trying to shore up our weaknesses that our “value proposition” gets overshadowed.
In the book “Now, Discover Your Strengths”; Marcus Buckingham and Donald O. Clifton, Ph.D., the authors’, reason that it’s time to change. Instead of over-focussing on trying to repair our weaknesses, we can simply mitigate them and play consistently to our strengths. Doing that, they say, will bring us closer toward the near-perfect standard we all aim to achieve – and without it even costing us much energy.
Playing to our strengths also provides a confidence and visibility boost. By making clear to yourself the value you bring to the world, you build strength and confidence from within. That helps you perform your best under normal circumstances and remain resilient when challenged.
In addition, you draw more respect and recognition from the outside world. In “Be Your Own Brand: Achieve More of What You Want by Being More of Who You Are”, David McNally and Karl D. Speak write, “It’s not about packaging – a great brand has equity because people can cut right through the external trappings and see the value in associating with it.”
Clearly, teaching is a profession that’s all about paying attention to others: giving students time and attention, answering their questions, minimising their confusion and insecurity. Very little time is spent on introspection. But it is just this kind of self- examination that can lead you down the
path to discovering the value you offer and revealing your personal brand.
My business partner Maaike fondly remembers an English teacher who had a clear personal brand. She was one of the older teachers in the school, not the coolest or most outspoken. But with her quiet force and gentle nature, she was one of the most powerful in getting a group of kids full of energy and attitude to soften and open up. In part it was the way she spoke: with clear respect for others, but also with a calmness and kindness in her voice that commanded the same in return. To this day, Maaike uses that same technique to address a restless audience.
Maaike and I challenge everybody we meet to take the time to explore what their personal brand already is, and whether it reflects their authentic self. If it doesn’t, we urge people to find a way to align the two and then start to find ways to communicate or radiate their strengths and talents. And as Maaike’s English teacher proved, it can even be done quietly.
Finally, as David McNally and Karl D. Speak put it, “You can’t control other’s perceptions, but you can and do guide people to see you as you want to be seen, based on what they need and want from you in a relationship. The deeper the relationship, the more the mutual understanding grows.”
To that we’d add, the more mutual understanding you grow, the more lasting a legacy you will leave.