Samurai near Imperial Palace, Tokyo

“Professional persona” (a term often used interchangeably with “personal branding”) is what brings nearly all of my clients in for coaching. Many are seeking to increase managerial or executive “presence,” while others are digging out from behaviors that have besmirched their professional reputations. Whether they are seeking to expand or to rehabilitate their personae, knowing just what “professional persona” means is a critical starting point.

[Persona: “The role that one assumes or displays in public or society; one’s public image or personality, as distinguished from the inner self.” Substitute “the workplace” for “public or society” and you have a good working definition of “professional persona.”]

But “an image one displays in the workplace” is a very broad descriptor and doesn’t give us much to go on when trying to craft or manage it. To get a little more focused, let’s add that professional persona has two aspects: the display of your professional skills and character traits, and, your colleagues’ impressions of them.

The skills and traits you display are your choice, so in a sense, this is the more manageable aspect of professional persona. With clear-eyed self awareness, impulse control, and self management, you can elect to consistently demonstrate a positive professional persona.

The trickier aspect of managing professional persona is the part we have less control over: how other people perceive the skills and behaviors we display. Unfortunately, our intention does not always equal our impact. In other words, what we intended to put out there is not always what “landed.” A story from my early career brought this vividly into play for me.

At the time, I was a Physician Assistant in an AIDS clinic, before there were medications that helped patients to live with HIV as a chronic condition. One of our clinic’s values was kindness. Since one of the cruelties of the disease was the stigma that came along with it, we went out of our individual and collective ways to be warm and supportive to our patients.

I had been treating Ira for about 3 months, when he said, “I want a different doctor.” “Okay, that can be arranged, Ira. But I’m wondering if you would mind telling me why? I hope that you feel you are getting good care.”

“Well,” he said, “that’s the problem. Doctors are supposed to be brisk and gruff. The brisker they are, the more they know their stuff. You are so nice that you can’t possibly know enough about AIDS to save my life.”

In point of fact, I was very well trained and fully competent to treat Ira’s HIV infection. But this didn’t matter to Ira, because my professional persona was not congruent with what he considered to be medical competency.

I could have argued with him, but I asked if he would be willing for me to take a more matter of fact and less personable approach at our next visit. He agreed, and I did, but his clock was ticking and he needed someone who seemed more competent to him. He happily switched to another clinician a month later.

I tell this story to demonstrate that who you are and what people perceive are sometimes very different. The goal is not to attempt to prove to the other person that you are competent, but that you realize that the other person’s perceptions need active attention. Although I was not successful in changing Ira’s mind about me, I was successful in hearing and attending to his concerns.

In the end, it mattered less what my real skills were than what Ira THOUGHT they were. His thoughts were The Truth to him. Even though I was a little annoyed at the time, in retrospect I’m indebted to Ira for teaching me about the need to manage my professional persona.

From my story, you might conclude that since you can’t control what other people think, you may as well not try. This could not be more wrong. If you do not manage your professional persona, I can assure you that others will.

In my case, it is true that I did not change Ira’s mind about my medical competence. However, I did not worsen his impressions of me by ignoring his concerns, by arguing with him, or refusing to refer him elsewhere. I attempted to limit the downside to his perceptions by responding to his Truth. Had I not done so, I would not only have been “incompetent” in his eyes, but also arrogant and controlling. And had he come to that conclusion, he would certainly have warned other patients away from my care. Ultimately I might have been saddled with a professional reputation that was even further away from reality.

Sometimes we cannot change another’s impression of us–but often we can. In my next few blog posts, I’ll be detailing the 4 critical elements of professional persona, and how to “land” with others in the ways you are intending.