Everyone has a personal brand – including leaders within organizations. Your personal brand is not just a logo or a slogan—it’s what people say about you when you’re not in the room. And in a world where perception can be as influential as performance, personal branding has become a crucial tool for leaders aiming to shape how they are perceived both inside their organizations and beyond.
How can you leverage platforms like LinkedIn to elevate your leadership brand? Today’s podcast guest, Jessica D. Winder, is here to share how you can stand out on LinkedIn in a way that feels authentic to you.
Jessica D. Winders is a working mother of twin daughters, celebrated for her expertise as both a keynote speaker and career coach. With a pragmatic approach and a passion for fostering leadership development, she leads Hidden Gem Career Coaching and authored “The Hidden Gem Within” to guide individuals and organizations toward unlocking their true potential.
In this episode, Jessica shares how she started on LinkedIn and why building your brand as a leader is important. She explains why an organization and an individual leader would benefit from regular posting, and how a social media policy can define expectations. Jessica reveals some challenges she’s had as her follower count grew and why she still says LinkedIn is her #1 platform of choice. Finally, she leaves us with tangible tips just to get started.
If you’ve been thinking of posting on LinkedIn but haven’t been able to, this episode is for you!
Key Highlights
- Three years ago, Jessica started posting on LinkedIn 1 to 2 times a week as a form of self-expression. Now she writes every day.
- No matter where you work, you are more than your job. You can take it with you no matter what.
- The benefits of posting for an organization include humanizing the brand, having employees share the product, and recruiting.
- The benefits for organizational leaders include recruiting new team members, being known as a thought leader (even if you are planning to stay), and moving the conversation forward. Plus, if you leave your company, you can take your social brand with you.
- It’s helpful to have a social media policy, even if there is a lot of freedom with what you can say.
- Other ways to brand outside of LinkedIn are having a blog, website, or podcast.
- Easy ways to start on LinkedIn: commenting on other’s posts, using your own leadership journey, and posting when something comes to you.
- The feeling of overwhelm stops people. People start out strong but run out of ideas and quit. You can get inspiration from anywhere – podcasts, conversations, etc. Anything that sparks a thought.
- It’s much better to post once a week and keep it going, than post every day for 15 days, then quit.
- Forget the algorithms – it’s impossible to keep up.
Links Mentioned
Jessica’s Bio
Jessica D. Winder is a working mother of twin daughters, celebrated for her expertise as both a keynote speaker and career coach. With a pragmatic approach and a passion for fostering leadership development, she leads Hidden Gem Career Coaching and authored “The Hidden Gem Within” to guide individuals and organizations toward unlocking their true potential.