Written by Kelli Binnings, Brand Expert & Entrepreneur
Kelli Binnings is a multi-disciplined creative who loves talking and writing about brand, psychology, and leadership. She is founder and Chief Brand Strategist at Build Smart Brands, soon-to-be author of, The Breakout Creative, set for release late '25. She is also in the process of completing her Master’s from Goldsmiths University in London in the Psychology of Arts, Neuroaesthetics, and Creativity.
Building leadership from within allows us to align our personal identities with our leadership roles to create authentic, effective brand experiences. Leaders who understand and embrace their true selves are better equipped to motivate others, inspire trust, make confident decisions, and lead with purpose. Self-identity forms the foundation of your leadership style. How you lead yourself informs how you’ll lead others, face challenges together, and set and achieve vision. When leaders have a clear sense of who they are, they are more likely to lead with integrity, remain resilient, and foster deeper connections with their teams. This depth of authentic alignment not only drives personal fulfillment, but also enhances organizational success by creating a culture rooted in trust, clarity, and consistent values. Ultimately, building leadership from within cultivates leaders who are genuine, adaptable, and aligned with both their own values and those of their organization.
What is brand leadership?
While there are many definitions of brand leadership from the business perspective, I like to focus on the individual view, the leaders inside a brand. It’s through the originators, innovators, and owners, responsible for upholding the values, meaning, and behaviors that shape the overall experience for others. They are the ones who set the tone, define the game, so to say, and lead by example a team, brand, and the community they collectively serve. For me, brand leadership starts with internal leadership, knowing who you are, what you represent and stand for, and how it impacts others. No different than strategizing a brand, becoming a true brand leader requires internal structure and ongoing awareness. When you have the strength to identify all your blind spots, emotional triggers, and bad habits and actively and openly self-regulate, you become a source of inspiration for others. That is how you lead a brand, motivate a team, and build a community founded on shared values, integrity, and mutual respect.
The above is a lot easier said than done. It’s safer to hide behind the role but if the goal is to get 1% better every day, shouldn’t we give our best to the communities that help bring our visions to reality? The short answer is a resounding yes, but first, we have to know how to spot the signs that change is needed …
How to spot broken leadership identities in brands?
I’m a strong advocate for internal branding within a company. Why? Because that’s where the external experience begins. Think of a bullseye.
Putting leadership at the center (the foundation and core of an internal organization), the team, their network, your buying community, and their network all stem from the experiences and examples leadership sets. You can also see how WOM (word of mouth) integrates into the internal brand experience, which can either be your biggest selling point or your Achilles heel depending on how the brand leadership kicks off this chain reaction.
3 key behaviors to identify leadership challenges
Reactionary behavior
The market (and life) is unpredictable, but operating in crisis mode 24/7 can lead teams to confusion, frustration, and burnout. Reassuring your team through strategy and planning, helps them prioritize and stay on task, leaving them confident in their contribution and the market certain of who you are. Pay attention to your reactive/proactive behavior split. When unpredictable things happen or opportunities arise, be transparent with the team on your why, and allow them the chance to understand the urgency not just perform.
Disconnect between delivery and the brand promise
Brand leadership isn’t about ideals, it’s about what is real and possible for a team to rally behind and deliver. If we set our brand claims (or promise) too high or outside of what we can actually deliver, we hurt ourselves and deceive the communities that support us. As leaders, we need to work towards our vision while maintaining reality, giving people a chance to be excited about what’s to come rather than disappointed it isn’t here yet.
Ignoring or misinterpreting feedback
Customer and team feedback is key to any business. When leaders ignore or misinterpret feedback it becomes detrimental to the company's growth. Leaders need to listen more than they react so that messaging can resonate, teams can feel more secure, and core adjustments can be made to preserve the future of business.
While there are many identifying cues, these (3) are the easiest to spot and work on as a team. And the best part is, if leaders were to focus on and encourage transparent feedback alone, they’d be able to make major shifts and growth across all areas simply through actionable awareness.
5 key insights for building strong self-identity and effective brand leadership
These (5) areas of awareness are foundational in building a strong self-concept. Period. Whether you're a leader of a brand or business or simply leading yourself, being aware and actively working on these (5) will help you realize your goals, build communities, and motivate others by example. And that’s what leadership is, right? The ability to guide, influence, and inspire even if at times that’s yourself.
Authenticity and Integrity
Being true to yourself and your word is, on a fundamental level, all we have. If we live outside of our core self-concept and aren’t accountable for our actions and behaviors, we will struggle in just about every area of our lives. Start here and stay here. Authenticity and integrity begin and start again every growth cycle in our lives, making who we are personally, in the present, match who we are becoming, in the future.
Clarity of vision
We all have aspirations of some kind, ideas worth exploring, or plans for the future, but how we communicate them determines how likely we are to achieve them. Leaders who have clarity of vision don’t deviate. They keep their eyes on the prize and incrementally bring it to reality through unwavering commitment and discipline. Always remind yourself (and your team) of the vision and find a way to collectively fall in love with the process to get there. This level of dedication is admirable and highly motivating when you don’t falter.
Resilience and adaptability
How a person handles change shapes either a positive or negative feeling toward the outcome. If we learn to see change as an opportunity, we can reframe experiences to work in our favor. Being adaptable or flexible isn’t a weakness or a break in direction, it’s a chance to refine, regroup, and reaffirm the vision from a different perspective. There’s a great quote by Daniel Hurst from his book 20 Minutes to Change a Life, “If the plan doesn’t work change the plan but never the goal.” Unforeseeable changes happen but learning how to use them to your advantage is what makes you a leader worth following.
Empathy and connection
This one may take a little longer to refine as everyone has different empathetic capacities and ideas of connection, but over time, empathy can be encouraged through active listening and observation. Learning how to identify cues in others can help you shape your response to one they need rather than one you think they need. This will allow for deeper connection and care within your relationships and build a supportive community that wants to see you win.
Consistency and trustworthiness
Consistency is easy when your actions and behavior align with who you are. This goes for the brand you lead and the person you show up as every day for your team. When leaders are consistent, it removes confusion, instills trust, and gives their team the security they need to focus on the goal rather than how they feel about the goal. Again whether this is personal or professional leadership, the points remain the same; strength in self determines the support you’re able to give towards strengthening others.
The interconnectivity between brand leadership and self-leadership is hard to ignore. How we define our individual “brand of self” is directly related to how we engage and interact with others in every aspect of our lives. Be honest with yourself, clear on your vision, adaptable to changes outside of your control, empathetic in your approach, and above all, consistent in your behavior. If you remain an open work in progress, you’ll naturally recruit others who support you, are inspired by you, and build teams that are moved by your internal brand rather than against it.
The new leadership model
Leadership is not a title, it is something earned. You don’t become a leader simply through accolades, high performance, and years of experience, you are elected a leader by the community of others you guide, inspire, and influence along the way. Doing the messy self-identity work gives you boundaries to operate in and supports behavior that is well-defined from within so you can focus on elevating others. “If your actions inspire others to dream more, learn more, do more, and become more, you are a leader.” I learned this great quote from former President John Quincy Adams from a Steve Barlett post, which if you don’t follow him, you’re missing out.
This new leadership model is all about truth and accountability. We are no longer in a place where leadership isn’t questioned, if anything, it’s carefully scrutinized. Leaders are “on” every day through social media, WOM, the news, you name it. It is a privilege to lead a team, which is why brands struggle when leadership is undefined. Goals and priorities become ambiguous, and the confidence in brand values suffers. Being a successful brand leader takes courage but when it’s done right, every single person around your bullseye knows and grows it.
What’s next?
Whether you’ve been at this for a while or you’re just starting out on this self-leadership journey, there are plenty of resources and mindfulness techniques you can use to start (or continue) the internal conversation. To name a few Headspace is a lovely app for quieting the noise, ACT (Acceptance and Commitment Therapy) methods provide some insightful and highly thought-provoking questions, and there’s a great book called “The Changemaker: The Art of Building Better Leaders, that’s certainly worth checking out.
I’m also frequently writing about this topic so feel free to check out my “thoughts” on my website or connect with me to further discuss how you can improve your brand leadership within your organization. You can connect with me on LinkedIn, Instagram or visit Build Smart Brands.
Read more from Kelli Binnings
Kelli Binnings, Brand Expert & Entrepreneur
Kelli Binnings is a fearless thinking, multi-disciplined creative, who loves talking and writing about brand, psychology, work culture and leadership. As a life-long learner and "design your life" believer, she thrives on bringing ideas to life and joy to others through her work. Outside of her brand business and love of writing, she’s a published music photographer, wellness athlete, soon-to-be author of her first book, titled The Breakout Creative, set for late '25. She is also in the process of completing her Master’s from Goldsmiths University in London in the Psychology of Arts, Neuroaesthetics, and Creativity. Her mission: To reframe the way people think and apply positive psychology to their professional lives.
