Few months back I met an old friend of mine from my student days who is a senior civil servant now. While chatting I asked him how he handles many pressures that come with the high position. He was very candid with me. He said initially when he joined the service his life was tough as different people had different expectations from him. Things that did not go with his own principles of life put him under immense pressure but he didn’t succumb. Result was that he saw many transfers and there was a time when his average tenure in a position was only a few months. But now that he has created a persona around him there are no pressures. People knew exactly what can be expected from him and things that he won’t do come what may. So undue requests are not made on him anymore and he was more at peace. Fortunately for him he realized much early in his life what type of person he would want to be.

I was deeply impressed with what he told me. Then my thoughts started revolving around this incident. Is it applicable only to senior officials, government or otherwise? At what stage of life should we start thinking on this issue? Do we create a persona by our efforts or it happens on its own? Many such issues started coming in my mind. That’s when I realized it happens with all of us, all walks of life and all age groups.

Just the other day we were having a discussion about somebody. The issue was if a particular person has said something should we treat it as correct and true? Everybody immediately remarked that if this person has said it has to be credible. Not only will he knowingly not say anything that is not correct, but his judgement also is normally good. So unless there is a genuine human error, whatever he says must be treated with great deal of respect. Now this is what the persona the person has built around himself.

If we start looking around us don’t we always have an opinion about most of the people with respect of certain character and personality traits? Chances are that this opinion may be shared by most people, unless the persona is very strong and evokes contrasting views. Even in these cases while there may be disagreement about few elements of his persona, commonality shall still remain high for most others. Just to give you few examples from our public figures, we have companies like Wipro and its Chairman Mr. Azim Premji, Infosys and Mr. Narayana Murthy, Reliance Industries and Mr. Mukesh Ambani, Tatas and Mr. Ratan Tata, HDFC and Mr. Deepak Parekh etc. In almost all cases these names evoke a certain similar thought in the minds of most people. This persona is created and cultivated by them over a period of time by their consistent behaviour and conduct. Over a period of time it becomes so strong that if they behave and act intentionally or unintentionally against that persona, others would find it hard to believe.

While all these people are well known and few in numbers which may make us believe that it is applicable only to that section of people, nothing can be farther from truth. Don’t we see people around us all the time who have created a strong image or credibility around themselves? Let me connect it with our day to day life. I’ve had the privilege of having few drivers, most of whom have stayed with me for an extended period of time. Apart from their obvious driving skills, they are also known for something else. They may be punctual or not, they may be well dressed or not, prone to taking sudden and uninformed leave, do they listen to my conversation in the car, do they reveal such information to other drivers, can I trust him with money, can I trust him with sensitive and important work? Every single driver has created his own persona around him. So, we are not talking only about the famous people.

Similarly, let us think about family environment. Let is imagine that there are two brothers, both are of school going age. Don’t we see in our everyday life that the mother may give higher credence to what one of them may say? While they may both indulge in pranks, mother would know who would tell the truth if she asks. Similarly a mother would also know who of the two needs reminders for home work, assignments and exams. The creation of this persona starts from an early age and slowly it keeps getting evolved.

In our work environment we often take many decisions and sign many documents. In almost all cases the information and recommendations on which we act depends a lot on the person who gives them. Some very important documents and papers are approved only because they have been seen and counter signed by a particular person. Assessment of a specific person may get disproportionately high weightage as compared to his colleague. There are people around us on whom others have sort of blind faith regarding what they say, their assessment and advice or the documents that they may have seen and signed. On the contrary there are some people who are always seen with suspicion about their intentions, abilities, and attention to detail etc.

As we grow, our ability to develop a halo or persona around us keeps getting stronger to the extent that it gets communicated to others in a short interaction also. Don’t we often form an opinion about a person after meeting him for the first time? While we may not be able to understand him fully, we still form impressions that are normally proven right over a period of time.

But what choice do we have in the matter of creating a persona? Is it about our willingness to create it or not or the type of persona do we build around ourselves? My own sense is that we don’t have a choice whether to build a persona around us or not. The only choice we have is the type of image, brand or persona we create of ourselves in the mind of others. Even the most subdued people, who would like to hide themselves somewhere, will create this persona around them. Only thing is that it will be a weak persona which will not be respected.

Similarly, there are people who would want to believe that they are above all this and speak their mind without bothering about what people say. Does it mean that they are not creating a halo or persona around them? The fact is that they are also creating this persona around them, of being fearless, of being able to speak their mind. Whether what they say is relevant, important, credible, to be taken seriously etc is a different issue and creates a different persona. We may find outspoken people who are normally logical and convincing and some others who speak nonsense very confidently.

My Little Thought Of Life in this context is that we are our own brand ambassadors. We must be aware that we don’t have a choice in the matter of creating ourselves as a brand. Just because we are living amidst people, we are creating our own brand and reinforcing it every day. The choice that we have is what type of brand we are creating. Is this brand credible, reasonable, truthful, honest, knowledgeable, hardworking etc. is something that we can decide, influence and nurture. Like any other brand it takes years to create a brand image, but once created it stays with you for a long time, unless some catastrophe happens. To give a simple example in terms of airlines, Air India, Jet Airways and Indigo have their very strong brand image which has been developed over a period of time and is difficult to change now. And a good airline like Malasian had a serious brand crisis after couple of quick accidents.

To my friends and readers I’d recommend creating a conscious brand image of themselves rather than a listless, unplanned, moving on its own brand since we don’t have a choice of not creating a brand but the choice is what type of brand we create. Let’s be our own brand ambassadors