Leadership, “Reputation Matters,” Forbes, March 27, 2024
Most of us care about how the world sees and values us. Wise or foolish? Kind or cruel? Trustworthy? Hard-working? Brave? Leadership material or doomed to be an also-ran?
Unfortunately, while most would like to be in control of what people think of us, and our good names, most of the judgments regarding our fate are made in rooms where we are not present. So, what are they saying about us when we’re not in the room, and what can we do to influence it?
As the information landscape is more and more controlled by those bad actors who want to highjack the narrative, disinformation, AI-driven deep fakes, and incorrect data are in the ascendency. The “truth” about us — personally — is careening out of our control.
And the two ways we have had to address it — tending to our reputations that have been built up over a lifetime from the inside out, and building our “brands,” more superficial pictures of ourselves, controlled from the outside in — no longer seem to be fit for the challenge. […read more]