AMANDA KERSEY: Welcome to HBR On Leadership, case studies and conversations with the world’s top business and management experts—hand-selected to help you unlock the best in those around you. I’m HBR senior editor and producer Amanda Kersey.

Whether you’re trying to shift how colleagues perceive you or debating a bigger move into a new field, the question is the same: how do you rebrand yourself without undermining your strengths? That’s what Dear HBR: hosts Alison Beard and Dan McGinn talked through with consultant and author Dorie Clark in the 2018 episode originally called “Personal Rebranding.”

Dorie’s written extensively about professional reinvention, including the book Reinventing You. She joins Alison and Dan to share strategies for changing how others see you—and how you see yourself—without losing what makes you unique.

DAN MCGINN: Dorie, thanks for coming on the show.

DORIE CLARK: Hey, thanks, Dan!

DAN MCGINN: So, you did a pretty radical reinvention a couple of years ago. How did that happen?

DORIE CLARK: I actually had multiple reinventions, Dan, and it started with an ignominious failure which is that I got laid off from my first job, so I was forced to reinvent myself. [LAUGHTER] I had been a political reporter, and so I thought, all right, if I’m not having any luck in newspapers, maybe I can do this other adjacent thing. And so that’s how I became a spokesperson first on a governor’s race and then on a presidential race. Of course, they lost, too. [LAUGHTER]

ALISON BEARD: In your consulting work, do you find that people are more often completely changing what they do? Or more just want to change their reputation?

DORIE CLARK: I think it’s both. I mean, it’s a human condition that we want something that’s a little bit out of grasp. Right? We want to advance. We want to do more. And usually, for most people, there is a gap between where they are now and where they want to be. They need to be perceived a little bit differently. They need to be seen as more of a leader. But there are also folks that are probably daydreaming and saying, gosh, I wish I could be a photographer. I wish I could do whatever it is that really lights them up.

ALISON BEARD: Well, we have both of those types of questions to tackle today.

DORIE CLARK: I’m excited. Let’s do it.

ALISON BEARD: Dear HBR: how can I change people’s perception of me as a colleague? I’ve been at my current organization for 3½ years. During that time, I’ve been in two different leadership roles. However, no one seems to see me as a leader or an expert in my field. That’s despite over 15 years of experience. I’m enthusiastic, loud, sarcastic and quick-witted. Because of my past sarcastic quips, people feel like they can say whatever they want to me. They frequently make jokes at my expense. I want to grow in my job and gain the respect of my colleagues. But I don’t want to drastically change my personality while I’m at work. I’ve tried being quieter and cutting out the jokes, but people still don’t seem to see me any differently. How can I gain respect and demonstrate that I’m a competent leader and contributor?

DORIE CLARK: The thing that really jumps out at me here is that this woman said she’s tried acting in a different way, and people haven’t noticed. Of course, they haven’t noticed. It’s noticed. It might seem huge to this woman, but it’s probably a really subtle shift to her colleagues. And so, she’s going to need to take much more deliberate and concerted action to get them to notice.

ALISON BEARD: But at the same time, she says she doesn’t want to change her personality. So how far would you encourage her to go?

DORIE CLARK: She needs to telegraph her moves a little bit more. She might be adjusting and modulating just the right amount, but because people are so used to thinking about her in this particular frame—oh, she’s the funny one; she’s the sarcastic one—you know, it could take a long time for them naturally to pick up on the fact that’s she’s behaving a little bit differently. And so something that is a really powerful tool whenever somebody wants to change how they’re perceived by other people, you get them to do it in a rather expeditious fashion, is to actually draw attention to it by saying to the person, hey, I have thought about it, and I’ve realized that in the past, I may have come across as a little sarcastic. And I just want to let you know, I’m actually making an effort to try to not do that anymore. Just by stating it, by calling it out, that’s how you get the perception to change much faster.

DAN MCGINN: I’m struck in this situation by the idea that she faces a challenge now to rebrand herself because when she entered the organization 3 ½ years ago, she wasn’t as intentional as she might have been about what she wanted her new brand to be.

DORIE CLARK: I think that’s really true, Dan, absolutely. Fundamentally, humans are wired to conserve cognitive energy. We don’t want to think about things that we don’t have to think about. There’s just so many things already that people are worried about at work, that they have to deal with and so we have to somehow break into people’s consciousness if we want there to be a change. That’s why it’s important to flag your new behavior. It becomes particularly important for people who’ve been at an organization for a long time because you know what? You might have come in as an intern, and now you’re 37 years old, and everybody says, oh, she’s such a lovely girl. And that is completely not the brand you want anymore.

ALISON BEARD: What can she do in more subtle fashion to just act more like a leader?

DORIE CLARK: The question I think for someone like her who has kind of a fun, rowdy personality, is under what circumstances is it appropriate? And it sounds like from her question that maybe she just kind of had the on switch on all the time. And so, it’s not about her being different. It’s really about what are the places where that’s appropriate, and then what are the places that as a professional and as a leader you may want to tone that down?

DAN MCGINN: Your point about the humor is very well taken. On our show, Alison’s brand is that she’s the person that brings all the research. She brings all the citations and the real knowledge, and I kind of just wing it. But let me try to rebrand myself here and cite some actual research by [HBS professor] Alison Wood Brooks on the use of humor in the workplace. What Professor Alison has found is that powerful people, if you’re in a leadership position, you can easily get away with jokes, and if they land, you’re OK. If they don’t land, you’re probably pretty still OK. If you’re in a lower power position in a workplace, and you tell a joke, and it comes off wrong, the penalties for that can be much more significant.

DORIE CLARK: Yeah, absolutely. I think that’s a great point.

DAN MCGINN: A lot of us use sarcasm as a way to be funny. Is that ever a part of leadership? Is it a brand attribute that people need to be particularly concerned about in this context?

DORIE CLARK: well, there’s certainly a place for sarcasm. Lots of people enjoy it. But an implication that could be taken from the use of the word sarcasm is that it’s jokes at someone’s expense. And what leads me to believe that perhaps, is that she said that people feel free to say anything to her and sometimes make fun of her. And that sounds like it could create some negative feelings potentially. One other thing that comes to mind about this woman’s situation, too, that may be important, she is focusing on questions about her humor and about saying anything and being a little bit loud and rowdy. But I think it’s also worth asking, is that the only issue at play?

ALISON BEARD: That’s a great point, Dorie. We published a post from Christie Hedges, basically telling people to do that, and assuring them that it would be incredibly uncomfortable, but gathering five people, friends, colleagues, mentors and asking them point blank two questions, what’s the perception of me, and what could I do differently? And just be ready to hear the unvarnished truth and then act on it in a way that will help you advance in your career.

DORIE CLARK: I love that. And in fact, I have a related story or exercise that I share in my book, Reinventing You, which is the idea of having a literal personal focus group just the way that a consumer package goods company would do about a new product. And in this instance, one thing that’s helpful is, if you can find somebody, you get a friend, a trusted friend to be the moderator. And this moderator, who’s your friend, asks the questions. And that way you just sit there, take it in, take notes, so that you can really listen with an open mind to it.

ALISON BEARD: Dorie, I wanted to ask you about other ways in which she could demonstrate her expertise or authority after she’s telegraphed that she’s interested in leadership positions. What can she do to show her colleagues and her bosses that she is smart and talented and ready to move up?

DORIE CLARK: So, one of the things that she can do, Alison, is to focus on content creation. So, meaning, how can she share her ideas publicly in a way so that her colleagues can see for themselves that she is smart and talented and has good ideas. Signing up to do sessions at a conference or even a lunch and learn inside your company can be a way of sharing ideas. If she’s more of a writer, it could be starting to write blog posts on LinkedIn or Medium, so that people can really take a look and say, oh, that’s interesting. I didn’t realize was working on that. Or I didn’t realize that she thought about things that way. That can really begin to mark you as a leader because frankly, most people do not make the effort to do that.

DAN MCGINN: Is there a case to be made that she should be judged less on the jokes she makes in meetings and her sort of general demeanor, and more on the actual substance of her work? And if what she thinks is holding her back is these sort of style points, can she kind of redirect focus to the work instead of what jokes she may have made last month in a meeting?

DORIE CLARK: I mean, certainly, if you’re doing good work, you want people to see it. You want people to be aware of it. But it sounds like she at least believes that her past quips or behavior may have been a barrier to that. So, I think it actually is a legitimate thing to focus on.

ALISON BEARD: I also focused a little bit on, is there more substance she could offer that would overcome the sort of style dings that she’s getting? We published some research on female CEOs and what got them to the top, and the researchers found that women who got ahead demonstrated courage, risk-taking, resilience, an ability to manage ambiguity, I think also demonstrating vision and strategic thinking are also seen as important for leaders. So, if she can go into meetings and still maybe make her jokes, but then demonstrate all of those things, the fact that she understands the business, she’s highly competent in addition to being warm, I feel like that could be a good strategy as well.

DORIE CLARK: I think that’s absolutely right. I mean, if she were to actually just plan out in the important meetings, you know, the ones where influential people, her boss, her senior leaders are going to be there, she may say, this particularly meeting is an opportunity for me to showcase my vision with regard to the future of the industry. This particular meeting is a place where I can really highlight the accomplishments of my team and make it clear what you want to get out of it. What do you want other people, what perception should they have of you coming out of that meeting? Just being a little bit more deliberate can pay huge dividends for her.

DAN MCGINN: So, Alison, what can we say to lift this listener up?

ALISON BEARD: So first we think she could consider whether it’s only the jokes that are holding her back. She might want to gather a group of trusted colleagues and ask for candid feedback about how she’s perceived. Once she has all that information, she should telegraph her desire to assume more leadership roles and be taken more seriously, and maybe even the fact that she’s going to try to change her behavior accordingly. She should understand that she doesn’t need to completely alter her personality, but she may want to make subtle shifts in her leadership style, and that’s pretty easy to do with experimenting and repetition and finding out what works for her. And then she can also establish her authority and expertise internally by preparing well for meetings, asking smart questions, showing vision and strategic thinking, and then even outside the company, by becoming a thought leader in her sector or field.

DORIE CLARK: Absolutely. I think that’s a great summary. I am down with that.

DAN MCGINN: Dear HBR: I’m in my mid-40s. I’ve been working in software product management most of my career. I’m now in an executive role at a large tech company. The next logical step would be a VP role in product management. I’d give myself a 35% chance of getting there maybe in about three to five years. Lately, I’ve been thinking about working in a complementary function, something like operations, marketing or account management. I feel like I’d learn more. It would be a fun adventure to put myself out of my comfort zone. But my company doesn’t really have the role of general manager. Our functions report up in silos and don’t converge until the CEO. Nor do we have a formal executive rotation program. These silos make it risky to step outside my specialty. It’s possible I’d do well in another function for a couple of years, and then only return to product management at the same level I’m in now. This cross-functional experience might be valued more if I moved to a C level role at a smaller company, and I’m open to that. However, my current trajectory makes me most obviously suited for chief product office jobs. My brand is product management. I worry if I veer from that, I’d have to explain myself. My heart loves new adventures and learning new things. My brain says the smart play is to keep climbing the product management ladder. Which one should I do?

DORIE CLARK: Well, I think that this gentleman is caught in a common bind that a lot of people are in, which is, specialists versus generalists. And if you’re a specialist, if you do one thing, and you love to do it, your career path is often pretty clear. You just keep doing that thing, and then you do that thing at a higher level, and you move up. As a generalist, it’s a lot blurrier, and it’s challenging for folks like him, who are dispositionally curious and interested in a lot of things. It can make for a very rich career, but it’s a little bit less self-evident.

ALISON BEARD: I was really struck by this letter the whole, my heart says one thing and my brain says the other. And I went back to the idea, just a pro/con list. Right? You know, what’s the very worst thing that can happen if I make this move that I really want to make? And for me, plateauing in your career for two years, as long as you have a good narrative about why you did it, isn’t so bad. And the worst case, if he stays, is that he is bored and disengaged and unhappy in his career, and never does what he really wants to do, which is maybe to be a CEO somewhere. So that was my take. Dan, do you disagree?

DAN MCGINN: Well, you went with your romantic sensibility. I went with my background as a former finance major. And one of the first questions I asked myself is, what is his risk tolerance at this point in his life? I think our careers are really our biggest asset these days, and we do need to think about them sort of like when we were buying and selling stocks. You know, what’s our risk tolerance for this? Risk tolerance is high at certain points and lower at others. So, I think that’s at least part of the calculation he has to make here.

ALISON BEARD: I was assuming from a risk tolerance perspective that he seems highly employable and will always be able to get the same job he has now, and even he admitted that he’s not even sure if he’ll advance in this current role. So, there’s a risk to staying also.

DAN MCGINN: Dorie, what do you think of the riskiness of doing this?

DORIE CLARK: well, I think you’re right to ask the question, Dan. I mean, it’s always important for people to take a look at how much savings they have, what the immediate needs are for themselves, for college tuitions and things like that. But again, it doesn’t seem like this is that risky of a scenario. This is obviously an educated, pretty skilled guy who can probably land on his feet. Barring financial issues, that seems OK to me because he is going to be a lot more engaged. His learning curve is going to be good. And I think he’s likely to excel.

ALISON BEARD: How does he make the case in this company that is very anti-moving around, that he should be the one to do it?

DORIE CLARK: The best way to make the case is essentially to say, look, you have 100 people in finance, but what they don’t know, what they don’t have is the product experience that I have. And here is how my understanding of the products will actually inform my work in finance. A lot of folks sometimes fall back on their heels and say, oh, I don’t know. All these other people know more than I do. But you have to go on the offensive. And what I would say to this guy is, you need to lead with your competitive advantage, which is, the thing that you don’t have in this department is a deep knowledge of product. I have it. Here’s how it can add value. And even if you can just persuade one executive in the company to give you a shot, hopefully, that can seal the deal.

DAN MCGINN: So, I think the three of us are on the same page. At the end of the day, we’re going to urge him to make this leap. But I do wonder, how does he spin that internally if he does want to stay in this organization and make a career here for the long-term, given that they don’t seem to really value that kind of broadening experience?

DORIE CLARK: Well, people always respond to results. Right? There may be an organizational bias against people changing functional roles. It might be a pretty siloed organization. But if you are driving real results, and people become aware of that, that is a really strong position to be in.

ALISON BEARD: Dorie, have you seen other people make these kinds of big shifts before? And if so, where do they typically fall short? What are some of the biggest challenges they face?

DORIE CLARK: one of the key things that he should watch out for, Alison, is the fact that by his own admission, he’s a generalist. He is someone who’s interested in a lot of things. And that’s a great thing to be. But the thing that he needs to realize and to keep in mind, your career path is not necessarily as linear as a specialist. And there’s a kind of patience that is required because other people are not necessarily going to get it at first. You’re going to have to withstand a little bit of skepticism sometimes. And it may, frankly, take you a little bit longer to get where you want to go. But for him, keep in mind the end goal, and that he’s going to be better prepared to reach his end goal of being a successful C suite leader if he actually does follow his desire to learn these different things, because, by the time he’s ready, he’s going to be the complete package.

ALISON BEARD: So, Dan, what are we telling our product manager who wants to do something new?

DAN MCGINN: So sometimes we tend to hedge a little bit in our answers, but I think in this case we’re being really clear that we think he should follow his heart and try one of these specialist roles outside of his silo. We say that for a number of reasons. Number one, he seems like he’s in a really good position right now, smart, self-aware, highly employable, in a good industry. So, we think even if this doesn’t work out, he’s going to have a lot of fallback options. He recognizes that his company doesn’t make it easy to do this and that they might not value him doing this, and that creates some challenges. He may need to talk himself into one of these roles by getting an executive on board. After he makes this leap, he’s going to have to position himself and communicate it correctly. He’s going to need to give anecdotes and have sort of a mission statement about how he is taking the values he learned in product management, taking them to his new function, and then what he’s going to do with them after the fact. This will help position himself to be a C suite leader, whether he goes into a smaller company in the near term, or whether he stays at a large company and continues to try to climb the ladder. So, we think he should make this leap.

ALISON BEARD: On to the last letter. Dear HBR: I believe I am capable of rising and thriving in senior roles. But I fear that I am stuck. After years of working with me, people are used to thinking of me as a subordinate or a good worker. I work at a law firm where most people are nice but ruthlessly competitive. I’ve not told many people my ambitions. I would only tell people with whom I have a strong assurance that they would be willing and able to help. One strategy that helped me in the past is to get others outside the firm to tell my bosses good things about me. But other than that, I’ve changed jobs when I hit a ceiling. I’m a woman, and I think it’s harder for women to rebrand. I’ve seen women brutally criticize friends and colleagues for being too aggressive with self-promotion. And I remember the times that male partners at my firm talked up a prospective hire. They said the guy was straight from Central Casting. How could I ever meet that standard? I’ve started dressing the part and speaking up about strategic objectives, but it’s slow going. Like, trying to make headway in heavy snow. What should I do?

DORIE CLARK: She has got the right idea in playing the inside out strategy. It is common sometimes if you’ve been at a company, or in her case a law firm, for a while, for that organization to start to take you for granted. And so, if you can raise your profile, and it sounds like she’s working on that, outside the organization so that people inside begin to realize, oh, wait, other people are talking about her. They’re noticing her. There’s something valuable here. It begins to attune them to the fact that they need to pay you a little bit more respect.

DAN MCGINN: It does sound like there’s almost a tradeoff between competence in an individual contributor role and perceptions of leadership. Sometimes somebody can be so good at their current job that doesn’t involve any leadership, that people have a hard time envisioning doing something else. Do you think that’s part of what’s going on here?

DORIE CLARK: I think it could be. There’s a lot of interesting work that’s been done. Marshall Goldsmith and Sally Helgeson have a new book about this called How Women Rise, where they talk about women who, and this is in their telling, not exclusively, but perhaps largely an issue that women face, that women often will sacrifice their career for their job. And so, if this is something who, for instance, if she is an attorney at this firm, she’s probably been working long hours. She’s been really diligent. She’s been doing all the paperwork and staying late at the office and all the things, and meanwhile, what gets you promoted to partner is being out there and networking and winning business and becoming a rainmaker and raising your profile. And it is, frankly, hard to do both at the same time. But that is a shift that she has to make.

ALISON BEARD: Is that harder for women to do just because we’re always told that we need to be likable as well as competent?

DORIE CLARK: That is a challenge. Research has demonstrated again and again that women pay a disproportionate penalty. Personal branding can be more challenging for women to navigate, absolutely.

DAN MCGINN: One of the things she says is, I have not told many people my ambitions. Has erred by being so secretive and private with her level of ambitions? Has the idea that she’s just this good worker who doesn’t want to rise up, has she perpetuated that because she’s only confiding in certain people?

DORIE CLARK: I think it could be a problem that she hasn’t talked to anybody. The mark of a leader is the person who raises their hands and says, I want to be a leader. That’s step one, is expressing an interest in it. It’s not self-evident. She needs to step up and let people know.

ALISON BEARD: Apart from going out, willing clients, building business, establishing a broader network outside the organization, is there anything that she can do within the organization to persuade them that they should see her as more of a leader?

DORIE CLARK: There are two things that she should be keeping her eyes on. And this is true for almost everyone. You want your colleagues and the people around you to both like you and to think that you are competent. If you can achieve those two things simultaneously, that is a great place to be. Really, just at a basic level, it is showing interest in other people. One of the things that I actually suggested in a piece that I wrote a while ago for HBR called a campaign strategy for your career, is the idea of making a chart of key colleagues and literally color coding it. And if you don’t know someone or if you have kind of a strained interaction with them, you color that red. If it’s neutral, then they’re yellow. And if you have a good relationship with them, it’s green. And the goal that she could have is to turn as many of here key colleagues green on the chart as possible. Now, the competence piece is, again, stuff that you can do in really basic interactions. It’s just preparing and having good anecdotes ready for, hey, what are you up to? What are you working on? And she can share some initiative that she’s taking a lead on, that’s getting good results. And when you do that one-two punch of likeability and competence, it’s a great way to make people more receptive to you and to having you around.

DAN MCGINN: If I found a colleague who had a whole bunch of our names on a color-coded chart and was orchestrating this campaign to try to turn the reds into yellows and the yellows into greens, I’m not sure what I would think of them. How much danger is there in the perception that this is so coldly calculating that you’re actually campaigning?

DORIE CLARK: You know, I come from a background in politics. So, I personally don’t think there’s anything wrong with a campaign. Fundamentally at its heart, what a campaign is, is this. It’s building relationships with people so that they knew who you are. They know what you’re good at and can vouch for you as you’re coming up for that promotion. And so, I think some people might think that’s weird somehow. But broadly speaking, I think it’s a pretty laudable goal to say, you know what? The people that I don’t know, I want to get to know them. And the people that I don’t know that well, I’d like to get to know them better. I actually think that’s being a really good colleague.

ALISON BEARD: The fact that, you know, she needs to make people like her, and she needs to make many more people like her. She needs to show them she’s competent. I’m not sure she has a problem with that. The real problem is, is she hasn’t made the leap to showing that she could be a leader. How does she fit that piece of it in? How does she demonstrate to people that she could be a boss?

DORIE CLARK: Here’s the thing. When there’s a lot of people who are both likable and competent, the people who get the promotion are the people who are likable, competent and indispensable. If you are known and respected in your field, if you’re company feels like that somebody else would snap you up if you left, then that gives you a great advantage.

DAN MCGINN: Dorie, she says she’s taking steps in this direction, but she feels like it’s really slow going like it’s a slog. How long should rebranding take, and how can you know if you are making progress or not?

DORIE CLARK: I often advise a lot of authors and executives and people who are looking to build their brand, and what I tell them is that it takes typically between two to three years to actually start to see any difference. But here’s the thing. Most people during that two-to-three-year period just give up, because they get busy. They lose faith. But if you keep at it, by year two, year three, you start to see little flecks of incoming inquiries and recognition and signs that you’re doing the right thing. And when you keep at it, you are able to build a huge competitive moat between yourself and other people. And that’s something that I think that she might want to keep in mind.

ALISON BEARD: Could she accelerate that timetable by jumping to another company now?

DORIE CLARK: I think that she should jump to another company only if she feels like there is a poisoned well where she is. It’s not going to happen here, then fine, go ahead and move. But if it’s more neutral, if it’s just, well, why hasn’t it clicked yet? Why am I not getting offered the opportunities? Why are people not seeing my value? The truth is, in today’s busy overwhelmed society, it takes a while for people to see your value, and it often doesn’t happen naturally. There are things that proactively we have to do, and I think she might benefit from doing a little bit more of that before rushing to judgment.

DAN MCGINN: Good, so Alison, what are we telling her?

ALISON BEARD: So, this woman is seen as a good worker and wants to be seen as a high potential. First, we think she should consider being more public about her leadership ambitions. It is true that women can be penalized for self-promotion, but not if it’s done artfully. A couple of ways to do that are to pursue both an internal and an external strategy. Inside her organization, she could work to expand her network, making sure that people like her and see her as highly competent, and more importantly, as the high potential that she wants to be. She should also work to raise her profile outside the organization, especially with clients. She’s already doing that but should do more. Last, she should be patient. Rebranding can be a very long slog before it bears fruit, and if she does believe that the firm just isn’t a good fit for her as a leader, it’s too ruthless, it’s anti-women, she could consider jumping to another organization as a way to reset herself.

DAN MCGINN: Dorie, thanks for coming in.

DORIE CLARK: Thank you so much. It was great talking with you guys.

AMANDA KERSEY: That was Dorie Clark, a marketing strategy consultant who regularly writes for HBR about brand management, career planning, and business communication. She’s the author of the books Reinventing You, Entrepreneurial You, Stand Out, and The Long Game. She was speaking with Dear HBR: hosts Alison Beard and Dan McGinn.

HBR On Leadership will be back next Wednesday with another hand-picked conversation from Harvard Business Review. If this episode helped you, share it with your friends and colleagues, and follow the show on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you listen to podcasts. While you’re there, consider leaving us a review.

When you’re ready for more podcasts, articles, case studies, books, and videos with the world’s top business and management experts, find it all at HBR.org.

This episode was produced by Curt Nickisch and me, Amanda Kersey. On Leadership’s team includes Maureen Hoch, Rob Eckhardt, Erica Truxler, Ramsey Khabbaz, Nicole Smith, and Anne Bartholomew. Music by Coma Media. Thanks for listening.