Shelly Lazarus has been building brands at Ogilvy & Mather for more than 40 years. When she joined the agency in 1971, she was one of few women in the advertising field. Twenty-six years later, having steered successful branding efforts for clients such as IBM, Ford, American Express and Unilever, she was named its chairman and CEO. She was interviewed by Harvard Business Review (blogs.hbr.org) about the meaning and importance of building a personal brand.
What can a personal brand do for your career, and what’s the best way to start building one?
I hate it when people talk about personal brand. Those words imply that people need to adopt identities that are artificial and plastic and packaged, when what actually works is authenticity. One of the fabulous things I’ve enjoyed about my career is collaborating with so many leaders across different industries and countries, and without exception the successful ones have been comfortable
in their own skin. Resilience — the ability to hang in there when things are difficult — is critical in a career, and if you’re spending every hour of the day pretending to be someone you’re not, you’ll be exhausted and won’t have the energy needed to face your real work. On the flip side, if you’re genuinely excited about what you’re doing, and have that light in your eyes, it will attract other people to you, and motivate them.
How does the recommendation to “be yourself” hold true if you’re not certain you’ll be effective?
Expressing a point of view is always legitimate, and if you’re doing it because you’re genuinely passionate about a topic, I don’t think anyone will have a problem with that. If you’re valuable to the organization and advocate strongly for an idea, what’s the worst that can happen? Even if the project doesn’t move forward, you’re not going to get fired. What you do need to pay attention to, however, is style — not just what you say, but how you say it. You don’t have to be mean to be powerful, and you can do anything with charm.
Does a personal brand have to change as you become more senior in your company?
There’s a common misperception that you have to take on a new persona when you enter the leadership ranks: to become more restrained, intellectual, cerebral. But that doesn’t do anything for you. Brands exist in the hearts and minds of the people who use them, and if you suddenly try to switch them — which I’ve seen
many corporations try to do — you alienate the customer. Whatever humility or generosity or warmth made me successful early in my career when talking to a brand-manager level client, I tried to keep when we were both promoted and sitting in corner offices.
