Call it whatever you like: Personal brand, career brand, or professional reputation. Here’s how to build it

In today’s workplace, it’s more important than ever to be sure your work doesn’t go unseen.

[Image: Master1305/Adobe Stock]

Jessica Wilen, Ph.D is an executive coach and the founder of A Cup of Ambition, a popular newsletter about working parenthood, the psychology of work, and women in leadership.

In a workplace increasingly defined by hybrid schedules, crowded digital channels, and shifting norms around visibility, being “good at your job” is no longer enough to ensure your work is recognized. Many professionals—particularly those who are thoughtful, collaborative, or less inclined toward self-promotion—find themselves doing high-quality work that goes largely unseen.

To better understand what it takes to build meaningful visibility and influence in this environment, I spoke with Lorraine K. Lee, an award-winning keynote speaker and the best-selling author of Unforgettable Presence: Get Seen, Gain Influence, and Catapult Your Career. Lee also teaches popular courses at LinkedIn Learning and Stanford University, and her insights have been featured in numerous national outlets.

Subscribe to A Cup of Ambition

A biweekly newsletter for high-achieving moms who value having a meaningful career and being an involved parent, by Jessica Wilen. To learn more, visit acupofambition.substack.com.

Executive presence used to be about how you showed up in the room. In today’s hybrid world, what most clearly signals credibility—and where do you still see high performers getting it wrong?

In this day and age, credibility comes down to trust. Workplaces are essentially webs of relationships built on trust, and that trust can now be formed across many different channels. While executive presence is one piece of your professional presence, the reason I define presence more broadly as both how and where you are seen is because presence shows up in the day-to-day moments and the smaller touchpoints that you don’t think matter but do.

Executive presence used to be about being in person, showing up in the boardroom in a high-stakes situation. But presence can really be about how credible you appear in a Slack channel, in an email, even answering a question from a senior leader in passing when they ask, “What have you been up to lately?”

There’s endless advice about personal branding, but many serious professionals recoil from the term. For someone who hates the whole premise, what is the lowest-friction way to become more visible?

Ben Cohen is fighting to free Ben & Jerry’s

© Fast Company