At what point did looking like a leader become more important than being one?
Scroll through LinkedIn for five minutes and you’ll find no shortage of advice. Build your personal brand. Clarify your leadership story. Increase your executive presence. Grow your influence. Become more visible.
None of this is inherently bad. In a noisy world, helping people understand who you are and what you stand for has value. But it seems we’ve started confusing leadership with visibility.
But the question seems to have shifted from:
“How are people experiencing my leadership?”
to:
“How am I being perceived?”
Those are not the same question. A brand is an impression. Leadership is an experience.
Your team doesn’t work with your LinkedIn profile. They work with your decisions. They experience how you handle pressure, conflict, uncertainty and mistakes. They remember whether you listened before speaking. Whether you shared credit instead of claiming it. Whether you made the difficult decision when it mattered. Whether your values were something you practised rather than posted.
That’s where leadership lives – in behaviour.
Not in carefully crafted narratives or polished profiles and ‘executive presence’.
The issue isn’t personal branding itself. It’s when the effort we put into shaping perception starts to exceed the effort we put into becoming someone worth following.
I’ve met leaders who speak passionately about psychological safety while showing a very low tolerance for disagreement. Some write about humility, yet they constantly humble-brag online and make every success about themselves. Others post about courage while avoiding the hardest conversations in their own teams.
Optics take precedence over practice.
Leadership has always involved some degree of image. That’s nothing new. What’s changed is the amount of energy we’re encouraged to invest in managing that image.
There is now an entire industry built around helping leaders define, package and promote themselves. Much of it is thoughtful. Most of it genuinely helps people communicate more clearly. But even the best advice can reinforce a subtle assumption: That leadership is something we project. Rather than something other people experience.
I’m regularly told I should spend more time promoting myself and talking about the work I’ve done with clients. My response is usually the same.
I don’t really have the time.
And besides, I don’t think I should be the one to tell those stories. My clients will tell them for me – good or bad. That’s how reputation is meant to work, isn’t it?
The strongest leadership brands are rarely manufactured. They emerge. From consistent decisions. Trust built over years. Helping other people succeed.
Branding has value – but only when it’s the shadow cast by genuine leadership. Other people tell the story because they’ve lived it with you.
And perhaps that’s a better test of leadership. Don’t ask:
- What do I want to be known for?
- How do I become more visible?
- How do I differentiate myself?
Instead ask:
- What is it actually like to be led by me?
- What do my decisions make easier for other people?
- Where do I create unnecessary friction?
- If my profile disappeared tomorrow, would people still describe me as someone worth following?
Those questions are harder. They’re also far more useful. Because leadership has never been a communication strategy.
It’s a responsibility.
Most of it happens where nobody is watching. In the conversations that won’t become content. The decisions that won’t attract applause. The moments when doing the right thing costs you something.
If LinkedIn disappeared tomorrow… No profiles. No posts. No followers. No carefully crafted leadership narratives. What story would the people you’ve led tell about you?
Because in the end:
A brand is an impression. Leadership is an experience.
And if your leadership is genuine, your reputation will always travel further than your marketing.