How Your Personal Style and Reputation Impacts Your Career
We all know how important reputation is in our careers. But how often do you think about how your personal style can affect your reputation? Maybe you’ve never thought about the intersection between the two at all. Luckily, Career Maven Consulting is tackling the topic this week to help you find that intersection and use it to your advantage when it comes to crafting your dream career!
First, let’s define personal style. Personal style is both how you show up aesthetically and how you show up in terms of your mode of operation - how you engage, how you show up, how you communicate, etc. Personal style is your way of being as it relates to your career and professional experiences. Your reputation is, of course, what other people think of you. The way that you carry out your personal style impacts your reputation directly. We can’t always control what people think of us and how they perceive us, but there are aspects of your reputation that you do have control over as it relates to your personal style. Let’s take a look at the ways that the intersection between the two can greatly impact your career.
Consistency
If people know what to expect from your personal style, you build a reputation of trust. So how do you facilitate that trust? First, you remain consistent. Trust and accountability breed opportunities, and opportunities breed revenue and growth. Yes, you want to strive for raises or high salaries, but the growth opportunities that you can gain are also invaluable. Early on in your career, if people know that they can trust you to be on time and produce solid deliverables, they are more likely to reward you with more responsibility or respond favorably when you read out to learn more about a particular area. Humans need to know that what you say and what you do are going to align. When they don’t, you’ve lost trust, but when they do, you’ve earned it.
Aesthetic
Personal style is just that -deeply personal. There’s no one right way to show your brand aesthetically. As long as you’re within the bounds of professional, your aesthetic should be what you feel best in when it’s time to tackle that big presentation or ace that dream job interview. At CMC we feel so strongly about this because if there’s one thing we know it’s that if you don’t feel like you look good, that’s going to show up in how you interact with people.
Each industry and environment has specific parameters that may cause you to dress a certain way, but it’s important to make room for at least one aesthetic aspect that makes a difference for you when it comes to bringing your A-game. That might mean cutting your hair or growing you out, or getting your nails done in a certain way, or wearing your favorite pair of hoops. Even if you’re still working from home, continuing to partake in the visual piece of your work routine can help you feel ready to go and separate your professional life from your personal one when the lines can easily become blurred within the confines of your home space.
Navigating Change & Conflict
The final area to think about in terms of your personal style and professional aesthetic is how you show up in times of conflict. How do you manage change? How do you find solutions and navigate problems? Are you the type of person that sees a challenge and just gives up? Or are you the person that uses the resources around you to problem-solve or at least identify a handful of viable solutions? Even if you’re not the final decision maker, if you are the person who gathers information and packages it in a way that brings everyone much closer to a final answer, you have just become the most crucial member of that team!
When you show up as your best self in terms of consistency, aesthetic, and conflict and change navigation, you do yourself a huge favor as a professional. These are three big pillars in the foundation of your personal style and career story and the sooner that you solidify them, the sooner you can begin to craft a strong career story that you can be proud of.
At Career Maven Consulting, we’re on a mission to help women up-level in their career, own their career story, and activate their career story. Join the Career Maven mailing list and become part of the community today!