The Myth of the Personal Brand: Why Leaders Need Reputation, Not Performance Theatre

Where evidence meet elegance.

By Zoe, Founder of C-Suite Careers and Editor of The Boardroom Edit.

There was a time when reputations were whispered over linen-clad tables, tended with the same care one might devote to a good pair of brogues. A person’s standing travelled by word of mouth, not wireless signal. Now, it seems, the whisper has been replaced by the megaphone. The twenty-first century professional no longer cultivates a reputation; the curate a brand.

The personal-branding industry, valued at more than £20 billion worldwide, is the new vanity economy.¹ It promises transformation through algorithms and exposure, claiming that visibility equals value. But leadership built on performance soon discovers the difference between applause and authority. There is a hollowness in constant presentation, the sense that one’s image is ageing faster than one’s ideas.

We live in an era of optical leadership. Visibility has become virtue. Executives post about humility while counting impressions, celebrate burnout as “resilience” and confuse communication frequency with connection. Every digital square is a stage, every caption a curtain call. One almost expects next quarterly report to come with a standing ovation.

Of course, self-expression is not the villain here. Storytelling when sincere can clarify identity and invite trust. The problem lies in mistaking persona for presence. Persona is projection; it performs for approval. Presence is perception; it emerges from conduct. The first can be edited; the second must be earned. Presence, one might say, is what remains when the Wi-Fi cuts out.

Psychologists have long noted that humans detect insincerity more quickly than factual error.² A leadership tone that rings false - too polished, too rehearsed - repels rather than reassures. Digital polish has become the new over-scented cologne… impressive at first encounter, cloying thereafter.

The world reputation once carried weight precisely because it took time. Like patina on bronze, it deepened with each act of reliability. It was built on restraint, not reach. Savile Row never needed hashtags; it relied on the quiet currency of a good name. Edelman’s Trust Barometer 2024 shows that 76 per cent of people place greater trust in “a person’s consistent behaviour over time” than in any official statement.³Reputation, in other words, still outperforms marketing.

Yet in the modern economy, speed has seduced us. Every achievement must be announced before it has been absorbed. Each success is captioned, each lesson monetised. Even reflection must now be rendered “relatable”. We have become broadcasters of our own biographies; forever live, seldom alive.

The cost of such constant performance is fatigue. Deloitte’s Human Capital Trends 2024 reports that senior leaders cite “digital exhaustion” as a top three factor affecting judgement and creativity.⁴ When life becomes a feed, thought becomes a headline. One begins to perform leadership rather than practise it. In private, many confess the same quiet anxiety: they are visible everywhere and known nowhere.

True reputation asks for something rare. Continuity. It is not built in pixels but in patterns. It forms when values repeat, when tone endures, when others can describe you accurately in your absence. Reputation is the slow art of credibility; it wears in, not out. It belongs to the family of virtues that includes discretion, composure, and grace under scrutiny. It cannot be scheduled, filtered, or optimised.. only demonstrated.

Perhaps we have forgotten that the original purpose of style was not display but discipline. Elegance, after all, is efficiency refined; it is doing fewer things beautifully. So it is with reputation. It gathers strength not from frequency but from fidelity - the reputation of good judgement.

None of this is an argument against modern communication. Visibility matters. It connects, educates, and occasionally inspires. But visibility should be the outcome of substance, not its substitute. A brand is what you show, a reputation is what remains. The former is performed; the latter is proven.

As the algorithms tire and appetite for authenticity returns, reputation is emerging as the new luxury… a kind of moral craftsmanship. It cannot be bought, borrowed, or branded; it must be built. In a culture addicted to instant relevance, the quiet endurance of credibility feels almost… radical?

The irony, of course, is that reputation does what branding claims to do: it speaks on your behalf. But speaks softly, and never contradicts itself. It is your character rendered legible. When cultivated with patience, it travels further than any campaign.

Leaders of the next decade will need to rediscover this slower language — one of preseme over persona, contribution over commentary. Because influence built on image fades as quickly as engagement does; reputation, earned quietly becomes culture. The best personal brand remains what it has always been: a good name.

References

Statista 2024, “Global Market Value of Influencer and Personal-Branding Industry.”

https://www.statista.com/statistics/1092819/global-influencer-market-size/

Harvard Business Review, “Storytelling Can Make or Break Your Leadership,” 2020.

https://hbr.org/2020/10/storytelling-can-make-or-break-your-leadership

Edelman Trust Barometer 2024.

https://www.edelman.com/trust/2024-trust-barometer

Deloitte Global Human Capital Trends 2024.

https://www.deloitte.com/global/en/issues/work/global-human-capital-trends.html