Individuals

Your Reputation – what is it?

Your reputation is how people perceive you and judge whether you are someone they will trust. It has a life of its own, moving independently of you, from person to person without you knowing.

It will often arrive at a meeting ahead of you and predetermine how people respond to you. It takes time and effort to build a strong reputation, however, a single misplaced word or action can destroy it.

Your reputation is one of the most valuable assets you will carry with you through your career, and yet the one you may understand the least.

Why does it matter?

You may work in business or the public sector, the services or the City; you may be a performer, an artist or a sportsperson. Whatever it is you do, you will have a reputation, whether you like it or not!

A strong reputation will benefit you in a myriad of ways; it will create opportunities, help you perform more effectively and make a greater impact personally.

The result can be getting the jobs you want, the career progressions you desire and the success you need.

Doesn’t reputation ‘just happen’?

For the majority of people, their reputation is something that ‘just happens’. Only a few are naturally great at building a strong reputation.

The rest of us tend to go through life neither understanding how others perceive us, nor doing anything about managing our reputations.

That means that rather than having no reputation, we have one with a life of its own, without any conscious influence from ourselves.

Can I manage my reputation?

Yes, you can. A strong reputation is made of two components – your trophy cabinet of achievements and how you present yourself to other people.

Let’s assume that you are continuing to add achievements to your trophy cabinet.

Your challenge is to be clear and consistent in how you present yourself to others; giving them every opportunity to build a positive understanding of who you are and develop a feeling of trust for you.

What should I do next?

Take Reputation Buzz’s five question health check to find out how well you manage your reputation at the moment. It’s free and only takes a couple of minutes.

Individual Reputation Health Check

5 questions to assess your current reputation:

If you are a human and are seeing this field, please leave it blank.

Do you know what your reputation is?

Yes, I know very clearly
I think I know, but have no way of being sure
I don‘t know

How often have you asked someone what they thought about you?

I regularly use methods to assess the strength of my reputation
I sometimes ask people about my reputation
I've never asked anyone what they think

Is your career dependent on having a good reputation?

No, I don’t need a strong reputation in my line of work
Having a strong reputation would help me in my career ambitions
A strong reputation is essential for me to achieve my ambitions

Are you aware of any risks to your reputation?

Yes, I regularly assess risks to my reputation
I'm aware there are risks, but not sure what to do about them
It's not something I've ever considered

Has your reputation ever suffered from something that has happened?

No, nothing has happened that would damage my reputation
There have been a couple of occasions when my reputation has been slightly damaged
Yes, I've had a serious set-back to my reputation

Your Result

Show me

You are aware of what your reputation is and this is already giving you an advantage in the competitive world of work.

Your reputation is a blind-spot for you, and this poses a big risk to your success and progress in the future. You may already have a great reputation and don't know it. You may also find your reputation isn't so great and is holding you back.

You are doing the right things to monitor and manage your reputation for the future.

By not having any process for finding out about your reputation, you are missing an opportunity to start managing your reputation in a positive way.

However, you say your reputation isn't important in your career. This could be the reality, but as there are few careers where reputation doesn't have an impact, it could also be a blind spot in the way you think about your future.

It's great that you recognise how important having a strong reputation is to your career success.

As you are regularly assessing the risks to your reputation, you are unlikely to be caught by surprise by unexpected events. Even if the worst does happen, you are likely to be prepared and you're reputation will have a robustness already built into it.

You are in danger of being taken by surprise by unexpected events if you don’t have a clear understanding of the risks to your reputation. Assessing the risks and building a response plan can help build robustness into your reputation.

As you have never suffered reputational damage, you are either very good at managing your reputation up until now, or you have been very lucky! Just be careful that this is actually complacency.

You are aware of the reputational damage that can come from set-backs. This should give you plenty of incentive to do more to actively manage your reputation more closely, and try to avoid setbacks in the future.

Short Summary

Mostly Ticks – You seem to have your reputational management under control; it's obviously something you take seriously. We can help you develop the techniques and tools still further. A first step could be to do a Reputation Buzz survey to check that your assumptions about your reputation are accurate.

Mostly Crosses – You have an opportunity to improve the way you manage your reputation and potentially change the way other people perceive you. The first step is find out how people see you now by doing a Reputation Buzz survey to understand your reputation today.