Part 1: Importance of leadership branding.

Why brand leadership and not the leader?

Time. A brand can outlive its leader. Its about brand legacy. A great brand may thrive through a set of leadership qualities and has higher chance of survival as a leader does not live forever.

"Leadership matters more because it is tied not to a person but to the process of building leaders." -Dave Ulrich and Norm Smallwood, LEADERSHIP BRAND. This pretty much sums it up nicely.

In another analogy, quoted by the book, it is not about branding a person (a particular great mum) but motherhood (her great leadership of love, care and values). What this mum is about to hand down has far greater positive effect than herself which has limited timeline. Yes, reality is that I only have 40 over years of shelf life, maybe shorter. A brand life span might be a few times longer, if the sucessor is a great leader of course.

Hence, for any given brand to sustain itself, great leaders must realise that they too must develop a process and system to sustain and permeate their brand leadership qualities. Oftentimes, you see the wise sage hand holding board meetings and making sure every detail ticks. It is pretty Asian in fact. It is the same with certain political parties.

In the business context, success replication of a brand like franchising should take on leadership branding rather than just 'photocopying the brand'. Thinking the brand experience can be applied anywhere. How wrong can that be! I will touch on this in Part 2: Leadership Branding for the Franchise Model.

Do leave your comments if you have any.