If you want to have more influence, if you want to be the go to person in your organization, if you want to get promoted or be the thought leader in your department (or in your field), your reputation will either help you or prevent you from achieving that goal.
Your reputation is how people see you, how they categorize you, the conclusions they form about you, what they believe they can expect from you. It represents how you present both to the people you know and work with, and also to the people you don’t know personally and have never worked with. You have heard it, and it is true–your reputation precedes you.
We talk with people who have a hard time understanding this. They say things like:
• I am who I am and people just need to accept me.
• How can they form a conclusion about me when they have never met me?
• Start managing my reputation now? That makes no sense to me, how do you manage a reputation?
• Yes but, how I deal with people now will be different than how I will deal with people in the future…
Unfortunately, that’s not how it works. We start building our reputation as soon as we start the interview process or start participating in our professional association or put up our Facebook page.
As you grow and get promoted in your organization, professional society and community, you develop a reputation. If it is positive, people will look forward to meeting you and working with you. If it is negative, they will avoid you or even think about quitting if you are about to take a leadership position.
A positive repute increases your influence and the more influence you have the better you are at getting work done. The reverse is also true.
So how important is thinking about and developing a good reputation? It’s critical to your success both personally and professionally.
In this week’s Quick Tips we will discuss how you can start or build upon your positive repute.
Copyright 2011 Kubica LaForest Consulting
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