The Perils of Self-Promotion

When Promote Yourself: The New Rules for Career Success landed on my desk last September, I groaned. Did the world really need it? Don’t we have enough ambitious workers leaning in so far that they’re toppling out of their desk chairs? Enough “thought leaders” selling dubious credentials and platitudinous advice? Do our workplaces really need more ladder-climbing, cheese-moving self-promoters? But the books and conferences and videos and articles keep on coming, and as an HBR editor, I have to sort the good (that is, recommendations based on ample research and real-world experience) from the bad. So I decided to take a closer look at this genre of self-help literature—with an open mind. Who knew? I might get some useful ideas from the most recent entries. At the very least, I’d learn how the people bombarding my in-box with article pitches are being coached. Promote Yourself is the consultant Dan Schawbel’s follow-up to Me 2.0: 4 Steps to Building Your Future , and it offers the sorts of bromides you would expect from someone whose career was inspired by the 1997 Fast Company article “The Brand Called You.” After he came across that piece, in 2007, “I did a quick Internet search to see whether anyone else my age was talking about personal branding online,” Schawbel, now 31, writes. “There wasn’t, so I jumped in.” The book is at its fleeting best when he delves into the research of his firm, Millennial Branding. It surveyed 1,000 managers and 1,000 workers in their twenties and found, for example, a disconnect between what managers look for when deciding on promotions (a positive attitude and the ability to prioritize) and what employees think managers want (communication skills and leadership ability). Another redeeming factor is the author’s willingness to cop to his own bragging blunders. He describes one incident in which he caught the eye of a pretty bartender. She asked what he did, and he launched into “a long recitation” of his professional accomplishments. Her response? “That was really unattractive.” Indeed, even as Schawbel is advising readers on how to get ahead, he warns against excessive self-promotion. Much of his focus is on being a team player, building real skill, and going above and beyond the call of duty—surely good advice, even if it comes wrapped in an irritating package. One form of personal branding that has become increasingly prevalent is self-identification as a thought leader. Hence Ready to Be a Thought Leader? by Denise Brosseau. Given my place of work, I’ve ruminated a lot about the rise of this curious compound noun. Why can’t we just use the word “expert”? Because an expert might confine her expertise to the library or the lab, rather than using it to influence the world. And because sometimes the people leading our thoughts are not actual experts; they may lack both formal training and experience, but they’ve got hustle and great communication skills, and we apparently like to listen to them. Brosseau, however, who started her first company at the tender age of 26, is determined to defend the thought leader label as something the business literati need. (“Public intellectual” doesn’t work in a society that has become uncomfortable with intellectuals; “man of letters” seems to have died off with Ralph Waldo Emerson and is rather quaintly gender specific besides.) Despite its cringe-worthy title and promiscuous use of italics, Ready to Be a Thought Leader? is a likable, practical book for seasoned executives who have achieved financial success but now want greater influence. Brosseau advises taking an exhaustive inventory of your credentials and expertise and then distilling your knowledge into a model that can be easily explained and replicated. But if you need the assessment in Chapter One, “Find Your Driving Passion,” I urge you to reconsider inflicting your thought leadership on the rest of us. Remember F. Scott Fitzgerald’s pithy line: “You don’t write because you want to say something, you write because you have something to say.” “Reams of psychological studies show that being perceived as modest is associated with a wide range of positive outcomes. The message is clear: People do not value confidence unless it is accompanied by competence—and even when it is, they prefer to see as little confidence surplus as possible.” That’s certainly the stance that Tomas Chamorro-Premuzic, a psychologist, university lecturer, and (full disclosure) HBR author, takes in his new book, Confidence: Overcoming Low Self-Esteem, Insecurity, and Self-Doubt , which persuasively argues that we’ve taken our culture of self-assurance and self-promotion too far. He cites a longitudinal survey of U.S. college students in which the proportion describing themselves as “an important person” spiked from 12% in the 1950s to 80% in the 1980s; further along the self-involvement spectrum, rates of narcissism jumped from 15% in 1982 to 25% in 2006. Chamorro-Premuzic frets about the impact on our skill-building abilities, because his review of the research on confidence (and competence) shows that it’s actually low self-esteem—not a healthy ego—that propels us to success. After all, he writes, “wanting to be good at something is incompatible with thinking you are good at something.” He advises the ambitious “not to have high confidence, but to have high competence.” Don’t “fake it till you make it” or strive to promote yourself. Instead, work hard. Work well. Be likable. He suggests that the only scenario in which it’s OK to fake a bit of confidence now and then is on a date—where he advises hiding your insecurities, drawing attention to your “unique selling points,” shining the spotlight on your partner rather than talking about yourself, and tackling challenges head-on instead of assuming it isn’t meant to be. Not bad advice for the office, either. There are times when a bit of self-promotion is necessary—for example, if you’re vying for a raise; changing your role, company, or industry; or trying to recover from a negative performance review or a big mistake. There’s no question that HBR has committed a few self-help sins in its 91 years of existence. But I agree with Chamorro-Premuzic that it’s time to stop encouraging people to lead our thoughts (even before they know their own) and telling them to promote themselves (regardless of how skilled they are). In a superconfident world, I’d prefer less advice on getting ahead and more insight on getting better.

The Perils of Self-Promotion

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