Advice for those of you who are...

...Leaders

You spend 80% of your time communicating - at the very least.

Clarity is fundamental to your ability to communicate. It lets people know what they can expect of you, gives them an understanding of your messages and actions and helps them know how to relate to your leadership.

Crises of confidence between leaders and their staff often arise when a leader promotes one set of values but lives according to another. For this reason, you must become aware of the values that really govern your daily decision-making and be clear about them.

It is of vital importance for your leadership that you have a strong personal brand and that you are visible. Speak about yourself, about what drives you, about your core values.

So then:

• Become aware of the values your really live by and talk about those values - talk the walk!
• Be clear about who you are, don't just talk about the organisation, talk about yourself!

...Politicians

Political representatives are becoming increasingly important as a means of inspiring electoral confidence in practical politics and ideology. It is therefore important to both you and your party that you profile yourself as a representative.

• Politics is not impersonal for voters or politicians, so dare to be personal in your approach. Your values should always be clear.
• The issues you specialise in should always be matters that are closely related to your competence, your values and your life in general.
• You need a true and interesting story about yourself that shows how you arrived at your attitudes and ideology. Who are you? What kind of journey led you to where you are today?
• Because politicians are also people who have to strike a balance between the demands of professional, family and social life and a need for time to spend on themselves, your plan of action should be focused on activities that make the greatest possible contribution to the world and give the greatest possible benefits to you and the party.

...Consultants

Regardless of whether you are employed or self-employed, as a consultant you are the product. Not only do you sell your knowledge and expertise, but also yourself as a partner.

• It is vital to your success that you succeed in clarifying your personal profile and then make it visible. What are your core values and how would you like to contribute to the world around you?
• You should have a true account of yourself that gives the customer a picture of who you are and what you have to offer.
• You must adopt a visual profile strategy: office, graphic materials and website. Your profile should express your core values - in form, colour and symbols.
• · You must show your core values in your personal image, your attributes and your attitude.

...Entrepreneurs

To be an entrepreneur is to be driven by passion, to want to create the new, to constantly have new ideas and a desire to realise them. Entrepreneurs are often also driven by a mission, a strong, conscious wish to contribute to the welfare of others and to be useful.

Realising your ideas often requires you to convince others that the idea is worth investing in - either financially or in some other way. The viability of your ideas is important in itself, but you have to be convincing too in order to get others to want to join you.

• Your core values are central to your offer. As an entrepreneur your personal credibility acts as a guarantor that your idea will work.
• You must be clear about your mission and your passion.
• Your personal story must show who you are, what drives you and why you are able to realise your ideas.
• Your business idea must be crystal clear: what will you/your product do for whom and why.

...Elected Representatives

As an elected representative you have been chosen to represent the members of an organisation. So it's not about you and your personal brand, but about the organisation's brand, right?

• Organisations and the ideas behind them are always personified by people. We always relate to people and it is people who win our trust, or not as the case may be. That is why you cannot represent the members of your organisation unless you are clear about who you are.
• In order to create trust for your organisation you must be authentic, you must genuinely represent your own values. If your core values do not coincide with those of your organisation, you should leave the organisation, because you are not doing yourself or the organisation any favours by staying on.
• · An organisation may represent the loftiest ideals or the greatest good, but if the individuals we meet fail to personify those values we lose faith in the organisation.

...Students

What should I do when I've completed my studies? What do I WANT to do? Will I find employment? What can I compete with?

• Note where your strengths lie in group work and projects: are you an instigator, an initiative taker, an executor, a quality controller or a social harmoniser?
• Note where your strengths lie in your studies: are you able to appreciate holistic perspectives, are you capable of remembering details, can you read quickly, do you think deeply…?
• Consider what you find most interesting in your studies. Why?
• Dream. What is your dream job? Why?
• When you are about to apply for jobs, or if you are thinking about starting a company, you must have your own personal business idea. Thinking "I'm a young graduate so I don't really know what I can contribute" won't do. If you don't know what you can contribute, how is anybody else going to? You won't come across as a credible job applicant if you don't know what you can give.
• Remember, whatever it is you are studying and whatever you did before you began your studies all adds to your experience and thereby to your future offer.

...Pursuing a career

New forms of work replace the old. Temporary employment reduces job security. Structural changes mean we have to, or want to, seek out new paths. If you are currently in a situation where you want to develop professionally or if you are between jobs and are applying for employment, then there are a few things you ought to consider:

• In order to define yourself clearly to the person who is going to employ you, you must first define yourself clearly to yourself. You must know in advance what you want to contribute, not just as a formulaic answer to questions in an employment interview, but as a genuinely felt desire to contribute. Write a business idea for the job you really want.
• When looking for suitable jobs, you should have a clear idea about what you value. When considering a future employer, which fundamental values are central to you?
• Put your energies into pursuing the jobs that really would suit you and where you really would best fit in. One successful interview is better than ten that lead nowhere.
• People are often surprised to find that the elements they considered completely haphazard and coincidental in their professional life and education often possess a common theme, if they only take the time to look for it. It is your task to accentuate the common theme in your professional history especially in relation to the job you are applying for.

”In the communicative leadership lies the responsibility to make the communication work.”