Brand Is Not a Marketing Asset. It’s a Leadership Tool.

I don’t think of brand as a marketing asset.

I think of brand as an organisational foundation and a leadership tool.

In real organisations, brand is not something you can simply launch. We like to pretend it is though... And we do so by building decks, unveiling logos, aligning on tone of voice, and then we call it a brand rollout. But in reality, brand is much bigger and much messier than that.

Brand is not just what you say, it's how an entire organisation exists.

It shows up when decisions need to be made and there is no clear answer.

It shows up in what gets escalated and what doesn't.

It shows up in what leaders tolerate under pressure.

It shows up in how people behave when nobody is watching!

When the brand is clear, it becomes a filter. Teams can decide faster because they know what fits and what doesn't. When brand is vague, everything becomes a debate. Every decision needs alignment, justification, and escalation.

When the brand is lived inside the organisation, alignment happens without constant control. People move in the same direction not because they are managed tightly, but because they share the same understanding of what matters.

When the brand is only a story, the gap eventually shows up. And it shows up between what is promised and what is experienced and between what is said and what is done.

The sketch I shared alongside this post is how I often think about brand when I am not preparing a presentation, but trying to make sense of real organisational complexity. Not as CVI, logos, or campaigns, but as something closer to the soul of an organisation. Something that shows up everywhere, whether you pay attention to it or not.

Branding isn't a marketing exercise.

Branding is leading.

And whether leaders like it or not, they shape the brand every single day through the decisions they make, the behaviors they reward, and the standards they choose to uphold.

So the real question is not whether brand matters.

It is whether the brand where you work is mostly something you communicate, or something you actually use to lead.