[00:00:00] Janet Taggart: A well-conceived, well-articulated, authentic employer brand does more than describe your leadership culture. It actually solidifies your competitive advantage. It attracts key talent and inspires lasting engagement. It’s a crucial part of executing an effective business strategy to achieve top results. And when done right, it differentiates you in a crowded market and creates a powerful leadership narrative that resonates with those within your organization and those who are considering joining your organization.

[00:00:54] Stephanie Willmore: Welcome to the Leadership Transformations podcast. I’m your host, Stephanie Willmore, accountability coach with Peridot Circle Consulting. In this podcast, we explore real-life situations with the help of our two founders and principal consultants, Janet Taggart and Linda Linfield. Today, we are joined by Janet Taggart.

[00:01:13] Janet specializes in empowering leadership transformation from the inside out, coaching aspiring to executive leaders to become known for their highest value. Thank you for joining us again, Janet.

[00:01:27] Janet Taggart: I’m delighted to be here.

[00:01:29] Stephanie Willmore: Today, we are going to deep dive into an underrated and profoundly important topic, and it’s essential for organizations to build, and that is their employer leadership brand. Janet, can you tell us the difference between an employer leadership brand versus a general employer brand?

[00:01:51] Janet Taggart: Yes. That’s a great question because an employer leadership brand consists of basically three specific things.

[00:02:00] It’s an organization’s hiring, development, and advancement practices. It’s essentially how an organization signals what it values in leadership and how it invests in people across the employee lifecycle. Where general employer branding might focus more on culture, perks, or workplace experience, the employer leadership brand hones in on how you grow and empower leaders.

[00:02:28] It tells both prospective and current employees. “Here’s how we lead. Here’s how we grow, and here’s what you can expect from us at every stage of your career.” It’s very much akin to a personal leadership brand where you’ve developed a brand, you’ve developed a process, a way of thinking about how you deal with leadership within your organization.

[00:02:57] Whereas a personal leadership brand is from a personal perspective and how you are a leader personally, and how you show up, and your mindset, how you think through problems and work with people. That’s a personal leadership brand, where an employer leadership brand really is about how an organization, whether it’s a business leader or HR executive, deciding, “This is how we work with our leaders. Here’s how we find them. Here’s how we grow them, and here’s how we empower them.” And there’s a lot involved in it, so I’m sure we’ll get into it as we go along.

[00:03:35] Stephanie Willmore: Thank you for explaining that. Yeah. So instead of it being a marketing approach for the company or an individual leader’s personal brand, it’s more about a leadership approach, and I think you could think of it almost like the leadership DNA of the company, how that’s really embedded into the company, and how that impacts the experience employees have in the organization.

[00:04:00] Janet Taggart: Absolutely. A well-conceived, well-articulated, authentic employer brand does more than describe your leadership culture.

[00:04:08] It actually solidifies your competitive advantage. It attracts key talent and inspires lasting engagement. It’s a crucial part of executing an effective business strategy to achieve top results. And when done right, it differentiates you in a crowded market and creates a powerful leadership narrative that resonates with those within your organization and those who are considering joining your organization.

[00:04:36] Stephanie Willmore: That’s a really great explanation, and you mentioned something about the market. As we’ve been coaching people at different organizations, we’ve noticed that the talent market is tightening and that there’s leadership demands that are increasing on leaders. And why is this important now?

[00:04:53] Why should an organization be mindful of their employer leadership brand?

[00:04:58] Janet Taggart: Well, I guess if I were to boil it down into one simple answer, it would be because an employer leadership brand really does help you achieve your most vital business outcomes. Your employer leadership brand helps you to achieve your vital business outcomes by becoming an employer of choice.

[00:05:17] In other words, it gives you an advantage when prospective and current employees are in the process of weighing their employment options. It crystallizes your reputation and your intentions as an employer and offers a clear and compelling reason to choose you or to stay with you.

[00:05:37] When people know what kind of leaders you invest in and how career paths are shaped and how employees are empowered, they can make informed decisions, and more often than not, the right people will say yes to your offer. And again, this is not lip service, right? We often have great intentions about what we want to provide and the kind of leaders we want to have, and the career paths we want to develop. And part of developing an employer leadership brand is to identify where you’re in alignment and where you’re not, and to really take a hard look and say, if we’re not aligned here, can we make the adjustments necessary?

[00:06:21] Or maybe we really don’t believe or not committed enough to this one identified purpose we have, and we need to evolve that purpose so that is actually authentic.

[00:06:33] Stephanie Willmore: That’s a really good point. And just based on what you said, it sounds like it creates some kind of magnetism, right? So there’s like this magnetism towards your company, and then also you mentioned alignment, and so it creates kind of this internal compass or guidance for leadership development to happen in your company.

[00:06:50] Janet Taggart: Yes, absolutely. It really does help you guide how you develop your talent. It gives you that touchstone to know how to do that. And externally, it signals that alignment and opportunity to others. And we know that when we’re searching for a job or others are coming to our organization, a lot of times it’s based on referral.

[00:07:17] And so when you have a really strong employer leadership brand, it really does help with that referral process. And we find—there’s research out there—that referrals are actually much more aligned. They’re actually being attracted to what your company has to offer. So it’s really a win-win there.

[00:07:37] Stephanie Willmore: Yeah, that sounds like it. And let’s break that down a little bit further, if you don’t mind. You talked about how it can attract the right kind of talent that’s aligned with your company. Can you elaborate on that a little bit more?

[00:07:51] Janet Taggart: You bet. A useful employer leadership brand does help you attract the right talent, particularly those who want to make a positive difference.

[00:08:00] Whether your primary intention is to attract mission-driven subject matter experts, or, by contrast, you care more about creating a community and investing in the development of those interested in growing with you. Your employer brand makes obvious to people what they can expect during their time in your organization.

[00:08:25] It also signals to candidates, “Here’s who we are, here’s what we believe about leadership, and here’s what your journey might look like here.” And when done right, it creates alignment and clarity upfront, reducing mismatches and wasted energy.

[00:08:40] Stephanie Willmore: That’s great. And how does that influence the recruitment process itself? How could employer leadership brand influence the way you recruit?

[00:08:49] Janet Taggart: Well, if you are attracting people who want to come to you because of what we talked about, it really does impact that process of hiring. A useful employer leadership brand allows you to decrease time to hire by predisposing the right people or the people with a better fit for your organization to engage with recruiters and the hiring managers.

[00:09:19] It also can help mitigate cost-per-hire. It does this first by decreasing turnover, allowing you to benefit more from past hiring efforts that resulted in a good fit for your organization, and it additionally enables you to more quickly find a qualified match for open positions. If your employer brand is consistent and believable, it shortens the decision-making process for those who receive offers from you.

[00:09:48] Why? Because your employer brand has already set expectations and communicated what it means to lead, grow, and succeed in your company. That alignment builds trust and speeds up hiring.

[00:10:01] Stephanie Willmore: Yeah, and that sounds like a huge operational win, especially in today’s type markets. 

[00:10:06] Janet Taggart: Absolutely. And it improves the hiring quality.

[00:10:10] That’s what’s really important. It pays dividends down the line. For anyone who’s ever hired someone who was not a good fit knows what a difficult situation that can be and what a drag that can be on the team and others, and the person who’s hired that isn’t the good fit. So there’s a lot of elements to this almost a simple concept of this employer leadership brand. 

[00:10:37] Stephanie Willmore: Great. That’s really interesting. And I’m curious, how does that influence the employee experience? How does employer leadership brand influence morale and engagement? 

[00:10:48] Janet Taggart: This is one of the most powerful, often overlooked impacts that employer leadership brand has.

[00:10:55] A useful employer leadership brand allows you to boost employee morale and engagement by characterizing and supporting the social contract between the organization and the individual. You can think of it like this: even if the organization is known for rapid and perpetual change, which I think a lot of the organizations we work with, a lot of ’em fall into that category.

[00:11:21] When that expectation is talked about, embraced, and supported, it becomes a known element of that environment. And what we can do is help people develop the mindset in order to, like I said, embrace that expectation to be able to work effectively even though there’s this rapid pace of change and just moving at the speed of sound almost.

[00:11:49] So it’s not a surprise. It’s a feature of your leadership culture. And when expectations are aligned, engagement rises. People don’t need everything to be easy, but they do need clarity and consistency. Your employer leadership brand really does help provide that.

[00:12:05] Stephanie Willmore: Yeah, that sounds like that’s really essential to organizations, especially those who are in high-demand, fast-paced environments.

[00:12:14] And speaking of that, and employer engagement, I was wondering if you could touch on the topic of retention and how does having a strong employer leadership brand address that issue? 

[00:12:25] Janet Taggart: A useful employer leadership brand allows you to increase retention of valuable talent because expectations on both sides tend to be met.

[00:12:35] So that employer brand needs to not only be identified, but also needs to be true, authentic, active within your organization. And when that happens, it creates expectations for both sides because it’s authentic and it’s true that those expectations tend to be met. By preempting employee disappointment and discouragement through the effective use of brand, you save both the recruiting and training costs of turnover.

[00:13:06] When people know what leadership looks like, what development feels like, and what success requires, they’re far less likely to become dissolution. Plus, you reduce the opportunity cost that comes from insufficient resources to get the workload handled. People leaving this retention issue, people leaving isn’t just a talent issue, it’s a productivity and performance issue.

[00:13:34] When you constantly have to train new team members, the whole team’s momentum suffers. Training new employees not only impacts the lost time in terms of having an open position, but it impacts lost productivity time on the part of those who need to train the new person. It really does have an impact on the ability for the company and the teams to be able to be productive and hit their targeted deadlines.

[00:14:05] Stephanie Willmore: Yeah. It sounds like a leadership brand, an employer leadership brand, has an impact on so many different facets of the company, including revenue and morale and momentum. And I really hadn’t thought about it before in that way.

[00:14:17] Janet Taggart: You’re right. Retention isn’t a side effect. It’s actually a signal that your employer leadership brand is doing its job.

[00:14:24] Stephanie Willmore: That’s so interesting, and I think that that’s a great way to conceptualize it. And let’s look at it from a different point of view. Your employer leadership brand could be seen as a part of your strategic business plan, so let’s talk about how that fits into strategy for a business overall.

[00:14:42] Janet Taggart: Yeah. This is something I think too that we don’t often think about when we think of an employer leadership brand, that it is part of your overall strategic business plan because it allows you to do a couple of things.

[00:14:59] Number one, it helps build leadership capability for the future as you leverage the goodwill of your current employees and develop a balanced strategy that includes development and talent acquisition, and this same goodwill developed with employees also extend your credibility with clients, customers, and other key stakeholders.

[00:15:24] When your internal brand is strong, your external relationships becomes stronger too. It can also increase resilience during economic uncertainty. Support organic, on-the-job development, and even attract investment. So we’re not just talking about HR; we really are talking about business, health, growth, and sustainability.

[00:15:45] Stephanie Willmore: Yeah. It sounds like with everything that you just mentioned, it’s not just about branding; it’s about a form of strategic leverage within that plan.

[00:15:55] Janet Taggart: That’s true. It’s how you build a business. People want to join, stay in, and believe in. 

[00:16:02] Stephanie Willmore: Wow, that’s so insightful. Thank you for sharing that.

[00:16:05] Say I’m somebody listening to this podcast, I’m a CHRO or somebody who has to think about these things on the day-to-day, where do they start with developing an employer leadership brand? 

[00:16:17] Janet Taggart: Well, they need to start with alignment, and there’s a couple of ways to go about this. One of the most useful ways is to review your business strategy, identify what your talent goals are, and what your current leadership development practices are.

[00:16:34] Are they telling a coherent story? Do they relate to a purpose or a mission of the organization? This can often lead you to the why or the core principle behind all of what you do. That’s where the brand element comes in. We wanna get really deep so we can understand what those core principles are. That way, you can then next define your leadership promise.

[00:17:02] You’ll be answering questions like, “What do you expect from leaders? What do you offer in return? What kind of leadership environment are you cultivating?” Then, once you’ve identified what your intentions are related to that purpose, the third step is to listen. Listen to your people. Test your messaging.

[00:17:25] Make sure that employer leadership brand is authentic and grounded in the real experience of those working within the organization. From the boots on the ground all the way up, you wanna make sure that it really is something that people are experiencing real time. Then once you understand where you fall short, where you can improve, and you start to make those adjustments, you can then embed it.

[00:17:56] Don’t stop at just messaging. How many times have we interacted with an organization who messaged one thing, but they actually deliver on something else? It’s not about just messaging. It’s about operationalizing it through onboarding, manager training, performance conversations, succession planning, and even exit interviews.

[00:18:21] So it really does need to be, first of all, identified, understood, tested, and then embedded so that it really does become part of the organization’s DNA.

[00:18:35] Stephanie Willmore: Yeah. It sounds like in order to know whether or not it’s making an impact in the way that you want to, it needs to show up in behavior, right? Actions speak louder than words, and you want people to feel that.

[00:18:45] I love how you talked about that impacting the employee experience.

[00:18:51] Janet Taggart: Exactly. If it’s not experienced, it’s just not real.

[00:18:54] Stephanie Willmore: Yeah, especially when we coach an organization, we want everything to be transformational and authentic, right? And so we wanna see those outcomes come through in a real genuine way.

[00:19:07] Say that an organization is trying to implement this, what are some of the common pitfalls they should look out for?

[00:19:15] Janet Taggart: Well, let me identify three big ones. One is over-promising and under-delivering. If your brand says one thing and your reality says another, you lose trust fast. So make sure that what you promise is what you deliver, and that may be that you have to hold back on the promise as you work on the delivery.

[00:19:38] The second one is neglecting development. Your brand needs to reflect the actual pathways for growth and leadership. At Peridot Circle Consulting, our mission is to help leaders lead and to help the best leaders become even better. And we love partnering with organizations to provide or supplement their talent development strategy implementation.

[00:19:59] The third big pitfall, I would say, is the lack of thoughtful responsiveness. Your employer leadership brand should remain rooted in core principles, but also be flexible enough to reflect the distinct needs of different teams. When every group has vastly different experiences without a unifying leadership identity, it can confuse employees and weaken the message.

[00:20:24] The key is adapting authentically while staying aligned with your leadership values. And I would add here too that it really is helpful for leaders within the organization when an overall strategy can be responsive to the needs. 

[00:20:46] And even though that strategy may not be able to be adopted company-wide, it’s useful a lot of times to pilot things and to allow business leaders to try things with their own organizations and for HR to look at those and say, “Is there something that this team is crying for that we could start also implementing from an organizational perspective?” Rather than shutting down that business leader and saying, “No, you can’t do that. You must completely align with our efforts.”

[00:21:23] What I’m saying is it can be a cross germination, a cross-pollination of ideas and approaches. So you wanna stay aligned, and if you are communicating that key message and that key purpose, then as long as those business leaders are trying to stay aligned in that way and they are partnering with HR, that could be a really helpful way to pilot things that will be really useful for the organization overall.

[00:21:55] That’s something that we come across sometimes. I thought I’d throw that in there for you.

[00:22:00] Stephanie Willmore: I think that just like our last podcast that we recorded, you mentioned how culture takes time and that would just, with anything that you’re trying to implement that has real, tangible, lasting change, it’s gonna have some trial and error.

[00:22:14] So I love the recommendation that you do a pilot program, if you will, to see how it goes and then follow that up with consistency and with authenticity, and by just really trying to be flexible, but not giving up on the idea. And so just maintaining that level of consistency as you implement seems to be really important.

[00:22:35] Janet Taggart: Yeah. Your employer brand isn’t just a marketing campaign and it’s not just a top-down implementation of certain strategies, but it’s really allowing that flexibility, that authenticity, and allowing that investment is so key. 

[00:22:53] Stephanie Willmore: Great. Thanks for explaining that. Let’s pivot one more time and talk about how the market, for example, that we touched on earlier.

[00:23:03] Where do you see employer leadership brand evolving in the next few years? Speaking about what businesses utilize in order to have that a part of their strategic business plan.

[00:23:15] Janet Taggart: Yeah. As I think about what the future could hold, I see we do live in a tight environment, and sometimes the first things that go are some of the most vital things, and that is leadership development.

[00:23:30] I know this is a difficult environment, and I think that it underscores the importance of employer leadership brand even more because we will see brands, when used more deliberately to drive innovation, inclusion and resilience, really become a central part of the value proposition that companies offer, and we help HR professionals and business leaders take a good look at their employer leadership brand and we partner with them to take them from where they are to where they want to go.

[00:24:07] It’s really important work, and it really does help drive the business forward. That’s what I see in the future—that the ability to be able to attract, retain stellar employees that can manage into the future and lead into the future are gonna be key in order for companies to survive in the type marketplace we are now experiencing.

[00:24:35] Stephanie Willmore: Well, that’s so insightful and thank you for all of these recommendations. I feel like it would be really helpful for anybody in a position of leadership and development in a company to consider. So do you have any final takeaways that you would wanna add to our discussion here today?

[00:24:52] Janet Taggart: I suppose I would say that a well-conceived, well-articulated, authentic employer leadership brand really does solidify your competitive advantage.

[00:25:03] It attracts key talent, inspires lasting engagement, and strengthens your ability to deliver top results. If you want to grow, retain, and inspire the leaders who will shape your future, you need an employer leadership brand that speaks the truth and delivers on it.

[00:25:20] Stephanie Willmore: Wow. That’s powerful. Thank you for sharing that.

[00:25:23] And thank you for joining us for this podcast today. And to our listeners, we invite you to appreciate the experiences that have brought you here to this moment of your life’s journey, and we invite you to stay open to the possibilities within you. You were meant for greater things. Until next time.

At Peridot Circle, we facilitate the growth and transformation of individuals, leaders, and emerging leaders of fast-growing tech-savvy organizations. If any of our listeners are interested in learning more about our approach to leadership coaching at Peridot Circle Consulting and how to help transform how you show up at work, book a consult with us online at peridotcircleconsulting.com. We would love to help you and your organization achieve more than ever before.