How to Repair Your Personal Brand

How to Repair Yur Personal BrandHow to Repair Your Personal Brand5We all hope that we can move flawlessly through a long and satisfying career. Its a nice thought, but unfortunately, thats not the case for most people. Sometimes this requires taking steps to repair your partieal brand. While perfection is nice to shoot for, the rest of us mere mortals occasionally pull a career-limiting move (yes, it has its own abbreviation of CLM). When that happens, you have to move into damage control to help mitigate the possible harm it could do to your career.There are two big questions that loom over you in these situationsCan you repair your Personal Brand? Answer YesWill people forget? Answer Sometimes and it can happen with the right steps.Lets look at both questions and what you can do.Repair Your Personal BrandAcknowledge and take responsibility. No one likes a person with no integrity. We cheer for people who arent afraid to admit to their blunders. Its that moment in time we all relate to our frailties and hope we will be big enough to do the same. Also, people can tell when you are sidestepping and that is almost as inexcusable as the bad deed, sometimes worse. Step up and take responsibility.Apologize. Most likely, whatever you did will require some apologies to various people. You negatively impacted the business or work-mates or both. Part of taking responsibility for a CLM is acknowledging to specific people you get it about whatever you did. When you do this, dont make excuses, dont reassign blame, and dont add comments to lighten up the impact. If you do those things, people will not believe you and that will be another blunder.Make a repair plan. As part of your acknowledgement of your CLM, you need to also be prepared with a plan to make things as right as you can possibly make them. It might not be much, but something is better than nothing.Execute flawlessly. If you say you are going to do something, do it. Now is not the time for you to become a slack er. People are watching to see if they need to permanently rethink your Personal Brand. Dont give them a reason to hit the reset button.Erase Their MemoryBe consistent. Its funny how our collective memory works. Sometimes we quickly forgive and forget peoples mistakes but not always. You can see evidence of this with our celebrities. The best way to help people forget is to be consistent in reinforcing your good Personal Brand. Over time, they will regain confidence in what to expect from you.A bit more self-promotion. Lets face it we all have to do some self-promotion. For a while, you might need to step yours up a bit more to simply make your good work more obvious to people.Give people a reason to like you. Even if you were loved before, that love may be shaken. Go out of your way to be helpful. Volunteer for projects or activities that will put you with others in a new way. Spend time nurturing the relationships. Its especially important to win over an alpha in the group because people will follow their lead of supporting you. Sometimes this is hard because shame can cause us to retreat- dont do that.Know when to leave. Sometimes, the damage is not something you can overcome without long-term career impact. Give all of this some time to get back into place, but at some point, you need to read the situation. If your read is that its not going to go back to a supportive environment, you need to cut your losses and leave. You can reclaim your good Personal Brand in new stomping grounds.We all get advice to lean-in to our strengths, and you should. Its also good to recognize that things wont always go well and its equally important to show you are a person of character. Knowing how to pick yourself up when you fall also shows strength.Bonus Tip Adapting is key to your career survival, growth, and advancement. Get free instant access to the video series The 5 Most Common Ways Introverts Commit Career Self-Sabotage and How to Avoid Them.Readers, do you need to r epair your personal brand? Share your tips with us belowBrought to you by Dorothy Tannahill-Moran, Introvert Whisperer and Leadership Champion at www.introvertwhisperer.com- dedicated to helping you achieve your career potential. Follow Dorothy on Twitter and find her on Facebook.cover