In this episode, I’m going to put out a challenge to all leaders: You are your brand. Yes, you.
When you show up and when you engage, your brand thrives. In today’s digital world, your choices and actions as a leader have the potential to undermine organisational, brand and reputation, but they can also be the very things that truly bring it to life that unlock its potential.
In the words of my guest, the brands that do well are the brands where the boss shows up. But if you look around online at the digital presence of much of corporate Australia, it’s clear to see that many leaders are silent or to be honest, yet to show up all together.
It’s an enormous opportunity lost. So what does it take to get it right? What does it look like when a leader is or embodies the brand? And how can you translate that alignment, that symmetry into your choices and actions online?
I’m thrilled to be joined on the show by someone who deeply understands brand, who deeply understands his role as a co-founder and leader, and who dreamt of making quality gin not even a decade ago, but has already been crowned the world’s best – two years in a row.
He’s the co-founder and brand director at Four Pillars Gin, Matt Jones. Here’s a snapshot from our discussion. I hope you find it as valuable and insightful as I did.
Roger Christie: You said upfront, “The brands that do well are the brands where the boss shows up.” Leaders today really are the brand and I think that’s particularly true in the online world where every little digital footprint that we leave is an accessible, searchable proof point for stakeholders to validate or disprove your credibility. So if it’s ok, I want to share a bit from your about section on your LinkedIn profile. The reason being it raises an interesting question for me.
In the last three characters, why is that as the Co-Founder and Brand Director of a world renowned in business that your product isn’t front and centre in how you describe yourself?
Matt Jones: That’s an interesting and confronting question. I think in my case, we’re very fortunate at Four Pillars. We have three Co-Founders who all in their own right have an incredible ability to tell a story, to communicate, to connect, to build relationships. Cam Mackenzie is not just the maker, he is the heart and soul of our business. He is the driver of our culture. He is ambassador number one. He’s just an extraordinary human. He has this extraordinary ability to commit his craft and excellence and at the same time represent that and tell that story – that is rare.
I’m by far the most shy and retiring of the three co-founders…. Stu is this bundle of charisma and if Cameron leads our gin making and advocates on behalf of the gin, Stu leads our desire to build relationships.
When we drew up our leadership structure, we drew it as a triangle. One of the sides wasn’t commercial, it wasn’t sales, it was relationships. And so there’s always been that belief that it’s building relationships, both with end consumers, with trade customers, with partners, with distributors – its relationships and the strength of those relationships that will ultimately fuel ultimately those commercial outcomes.
So out of Stu, Cam and then looking at me – my job was to always be much more behind the scenes. My job is not to be the face of the brand, which is going to be interesting when we now talk about the importance of leaders showing up! My job is not to embody the brand. When people look at me, I’m not asking them to see Four Pillars. When people think about Four Pillars, when they visualise Four Pillars, I want them to picture Cameron and his team in the distillery.
That’s a very long winded run up to say gin is not front and centre of my LinkedIn profile because I’m not here to try and be an embodiment of Four Pillars. I am me. I’m someone who is a bit of an accidental entrepreneur with a background in brand. And I’m not trying to hide that, and I’m not trying to sort obfuscate and say I’m anything other than a professional brand builder, strategist, communicator, who happens to have landed in the world of gin and is now doing my best to do justice to what’s being made down there.
Roger Christie: You know what’s interesting about that from my perspective, Matt is that you talked about that leader leadership structure, and you talked about your authenticity and your role in that. And there is no right or wrong answer to this in terms of who you are, aside from being yourself, and I completely agree with that.
But you described that triangle. And I think, particularly as an organisation reaches a certain level, what you tend to see is actually more of a homogenisation of leadership. What you see is people start trying to replicate one another, trying to represent what they believe to be an archetypal leader of that organisation as opposed to themselves.
What you’ve just described beautifully is it is the complete opposite and that is what really resonates with people online. You [the Four Pillars Co-Founders] might look the same in terms of your visual identity, but your stories, your backgrounds, your strengths and your passions are all unique. I love that because that is exactly what we would advise clients. You are all be working towards the same goal and you’re very clear on that at Four Pillars, but you’ll have your own ways of doing it. Leaders will have their own audiences with whom your story resonates, and it’s important not to dilute that. It’s important to remain distinctive, but aligned.
RC: Authenticity is intrinsically linked to feeling content and confident in who you are. What we find is what people have in the offline environment isn’t necessarily translating into the online environment. Why? Because they feel like more people are watching or that people are looking to spot those imperfections, those flaws and bring people down.
But I do think that it carries more impact and even more influence when you carry that same persona offline – online. We talk about this idea of symmetry; who you are offline needs to be consistent with who you are online. Because otherwise people who know you from either of those domains are going to start asking questions when the two don’t match up.
It’s about turning up as yourself as a leader. That’s the authentic story that’s going to resonate.
Matt Jones: I think you’ve said something really, really insightful there, which is you don’t need to show up online and in public anymore or differently than you show up in the business. But the way that you show up inside your business, the type of leader you try and be there, you should be willing and able to project that externally. You don’t need to overreach.
For more from Matt Jones, follow and connect with him on LinkedIn. For more on the latest from Four Pillars Gin, head to: www.fourpillarsgin.com
Feel free to drop Roger Christie a note with any thoughts – we’d love to hear from you – and be sure to subscribe to the Your Digital Reputation newsletter packed full of advice, trends and the best leadership examples just for you.
