Ducks in a Row: Personal Brand / Personal Culture
by Miki Saxon
Everywhere you turn these days you’re told to use social media to create an easily recognized persona that becomes your “personal brand.”
It’s supposed to be the “real” you, i.e., authentic.
It’s also supposed to be the best you, which usually means inauthentic.
Inauthentic, because people typically share all their upside, but rarely the downside.
They post all the fabulous pictures (even helping them along via photoshop-type editing).
Non-fabulous pics are a rarity, unless they are meant to be funny, e.g., morning bedhead before coffee, and those are screened carefully.
We’re not talking spontaneous, rather faux spontaneous.
In fact, everything is carefully curated to enhance and extend one’s personal brand.
But what about personal culture?
As with company culture, your personal culture is based on your personal values.
Values are much harder to curate, since they underlie all actions.
Fred Destin is the latest VC to apologize for his actions, along with Binary Capital’s Justin Caldbeck, 500 Startups founder Dave McLure, and Lowercase Capital’s Chris Sacca.
Apparently it didn’t occur to any of them that their actions towards women were unacceptable, which makes you wonder about their values.
There is no wondering about Donald Trump’s values, since he stated publicly that he could do as he pleased, because he is rich.
The take away here is that no matter how carefully you curate your brand your personal culture will eventually trip you up if your curation doesn’t accurately reflect your values.
Image credit: Jinho Jung
