An exploration of the alignment between the leadership brand and corporate brand attributes

Abstract

Leadership branding is a relatively new construct in academic literature. It has been largely written about in popular press articles in order to describe the brand exhibited by the leadership of the organisation. The leadership brand influences the behaviour of the employees as well as the perception of the external stakeholders. The influence on the stakeholders’ are largely through the leadership’s interaction with the stakeholders as well as their involvement in establishing and managing the corporate brand of the organisation. A strong corporate brand has been proven to provided benefits to an organisation; the influence the leadership has on corporate brand creation and management thus directly affects the benefits. Considering there are no studies investigating the leadership brand relative to the corporate brand, a list of attributes by Ulrich and Smallwood (2009) was modified in order to fulfil the purpose of the study; to determine whether a leadership brand exists and whether it has any relationship to the corporate brand. Exploratory quantitative analysis was used in order to achieve the research objectives. The questionnaire was distributed to 140 employees of a large mining organisation in South Africa. It was found that a leadership brand is present within the organisation and that it relates well to that of the organisation’s corporate brand. The analysis of the results revealed that there are a distinct group of brand attributes displayed by the leadership of the organisation that culminate in the development of the organisation’s corporate brand. Further investigations regarding how the demographics of the respondents influenced their perception of the leadership brand yielded no conclusive evidence, thus indicating that that the leadership brand is achieved regardless of the composition of the organisation. The findings from the research have contributed to the current academic knowledge regarding the leadership brand. Furthermore, the research can assist organisations in constructing and managing the corporate brand of the organisation. Identifying the leadership brand and ensuring that the organisation’s communication is aligned with that of the leadership brand assists in creating brand consistent behaviour within the organisation and establishes credibility with external stakeholders.