The next chapter doesn't owe you a straight line. It just owes you a pattern…
You Don’t Need Permission to Build Your Brand
Building your next chapter while still employed isn’t the risky part. Staying invisible while you wait to leave is.
I was mid-scroll on my phone when the message came in.
A director at my organization wanted to meet.
Nothing unusual about that. Except the subject line mentioned my LinkedIn posts.
I’d been building quietly for months. Not secretly. Just privately. I was posting about consulting, about building a business, about the kind of expertise I’d spent 17 years developing. It felt natural. It felt like mine.
What I hadn’t done was tell anyone at work.
The meeting was uncomfortable. There were questions about my content, about the apparent gap between what I was writing about and what my company did. My organization wasn’t exactly enthusiastic about associates building personal brands. And while I understood their hesitation, I hadn’t given them any context to work with.
I could have handled it differently. I could have started a conversation instead of hoping no one would notice. I might have even shifted how they thought about personal branding altogether.
Instead, I found myself answering questions I hadn’t prepared for.
Then 2019 arrived and rearranged everything. I joined a company that didn’t just tolerate personal branding. They actively encouraged it. It was a different world.
But not everyone lands there. Most of the professionals I work with are still in the messy middle: building their next chapter while still showing up for someone else’s.
That’s exactly where this post lives today.
If you’re going to build a personal brand while still on someone else’s payroll, here are three ways to build your visibility without burning the bridge you’re still standing on.
Principle 1
Build the narrative before someone else does
Here’s what happens when you stay quiet: someone else fills the silence. Not out of malice. But a director who sees your LinkedIn posts and doesn’t know what to make of them will ask questions. And you don’t want to answer those cold.
The move is not to ask permission. It’s to inform. A simple, confident conversation: “I’m building visibility around my expertise. I wanted you to know, because I think it reflects well on what I bring here, too.” You’re not asking. You’re owning the story before someone else tries to write it for you.
Principle 2
Build alignment between your work and your next chapter
Most people assume their organization and their personal brand are in conflict. They often aren’t.
Look for the Venn diagram. If you’re building a consulting practice around leadership and your current role involves leading people, there’s your alignment. Write about what you’re learning. Talk about the challenges without revealing confidential detail. You become more visible, your employer benefits from the thought leadership, and nobody loses. That’s not a compromise. That’s leverage.
Principle 3
Build a clear boundary around what belongs to you
Not everything in your head is yours to share. Knowing the difference is what keeps you protected.
Your expertise, your perspective, your hard-won insights: yours. Your employer’s internal strategy, client data, and proprietary processes: not yours. The line is clearer than most people think. Staying on the right side of it means you can share generously and confidently, without second-guessing every post you write.
You don’t have to choose between where you are and where you’re going. You just have to be intentional about how you show up in both.
What story are you letting someone else tell, simply because you haven’t spoken first?
Cheers,
Leanne
P.S. The hardest part of building your brand while still employed isn’t the visibility strategy. It’s knowing what to build visibility around. If that’s where you’re stuck, the Payable Expertise Assessment was made for exactly that moment. Take it here, it’s free.
P.P.S. My real-life newsletter goes deeper – more insights, more goodies, and more of the good stuff you won’t find anywhere else. If you want in, you can subscribe right here. I’d love to have you.
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