Personal branding is not a new phenomenon. Long before LinkedIn carousels, podcast clips and carefully curated founder feeds, people built reputations around what they knew, what they stood for and, most importantly, what they actually did.
What feels different today is the sheer volume of it. Over the last two to three years, personal branding has engulfed almost every professional across almost every industry. Founders, CEOs, consultants, creatives, lawyers, marketers, doctors and entrepreneurs are all being encouraged to “build their personal brand” often with the underlying suggestion that if you aren’t consistently putting yourself out there, you are somehow falling behind.
And perhaps that is where the paradox begins. When did being visible become synonymous with being credible?
There is, of course, enormous value in putting expertise into the world. Personal branding can humanise businesses, give leaders a voice, build trust and make expertise more accessible. It can create opportunities that may never have existed otherwise. But at what point does building a personal brand stop being about sharing value and start becoming about seeking validation?
Because there is a subtle difference between wanting to be known for something and wanting to be seen. The former is rooted in purpose. The latter can very easily become a treadmill. The likes become the feedback. The comments become the affirmation. The views become the scoreboard. And before long, the question shifts from “Is this useful?” to “Will this perform?”
That shift matters. Because when performance becomes the objective, substance can become secondary to presentation.
We are seeing more and more content that looks different but feels remarkably similar. The same lessons. The same “five things I learned”. The same carefully manufactured vulnerability. The same leadership platitudes. The same recycled opinions, repackaged in a new carousel, a new font or a slightly different shade of beige.
It is content about authenticity that sometimes feels anything but authentic. And perhaps the uncomfortable question we need to ask is whether strong thought leadership is actually becoming harder to find.
Not because there are fewer intelligent people in the room, but because genuinely original thinking takes time. It requires observation, experience, conviction and occasionally, the courage to say something that doesn’t neatly fit into the algorithm.
Thought leadership should make us think differently.
It should challenge an assumption, introduce a new perspective, share an uncomfortable truth or offer an insight earned through experience. It doesn’t necessarily need a photograph of the person saying it. It doesn’t need a perfectly designed carousel. And it certainly doesn’t need to be posted three times a week to prove that the person behind it is still relevant.
There is also something to be said for the pressure this creates.
We have somehow arrived at a professional culture where being good at your job is no longer enough. You are increasingly expected to document your expertise, narrate your journey, photograph your coffee, share your lessons, comment strategically and maintain a consistent content calendar — all while actually running the business or doing the job you are supposedly an expert in. It is exhausting!
And perhaps “personal branding” has become too broad a term. There is a difference between building a reputation and building a content machine. One compounds credibility. The other can simply compound noise. So perhaps the question isn’t whether we should stop personal branding. We shouldn’t.
The question is: why are we doing it?
- Are we sharing because we have something worth saying?
- Are we contributing to a conversation?
- Are we making our expertise more accessible?
- Are we documenting something genuinely useful?
- Or are we simply checking whether people are still watching?
There is nothing wrong with wanting recognition. We are human, after all. But when validation becomes the reason for the work rather than a by-product of it, the work inevitably changes.
Maybe we don’t need more people building personal brands. Maybe we need more people building points of view. Because in a world increasingly saturated with content, the most valuable personal brand may ultimately be the person who has something genuinely original to say, and doesn’t need to say it every five minutes.
By Injeel Moti, Managing Director, Catch Communications
