Financial Times

Wanted: Brands of leaders
By Random Access Memory (RAM)

This week ...
RAM departs from his recent ramblings on the lack of political leadership and the need for firm action, and takes on the issue of building brands. He plans to revisit the politics of business in coming weeks

"Your image as a brand is the most important business consideration for you" a guru on business matters was heard saying at an international brand symposium. When asked to define what a brand is for all to understand, he simply said, "A brand is the trusted promise to deliver quality, consistently".
Delivering quality, consistently to gain trust, is not an easy task. It is a lot of focussed effort, hard work and sweat. More so, it is always driven by a vision and a strategic direction.

All those who matter in the development and maintenance of brands are always called on to share the visions and strategic directions that drive these brands.
There is always a strong buy-in, sought from all. In essence, building brands is a process of building and maintaining trust. Trust of quality and consistent delivery of the promise - with consumers and other publics (external customers), shareholders, workers and suppliers (internal customers) - is paramount to the success of a brand.
We speak of brand value, brand values, brand excellence and brand personality, all of which go to form the core of the structures necessary in building the trust of people in the brand, which then permeates as brand loyalty.

McDonalds, Coke, Pepsi, Toyota, Microsoft, UN agencies such as UNICEF, UNESCO and the likes, people such as Nelson Mandela, Mahathir Mohammad, Lee Kwan Yew and within the local context Maliban, Munchi, DSI, Arpico and Siddhalepa are but a few 'brands' that come quickly from the top of my mind.
What is common about all of these brands that have survived the onslaughts of many travails and come a long way, is that they have all maintained quality, consistently and in so doing, build the trust of the many customers and the public they serve.

They have been able to command brand loyalty through sticking to the values and the strategic directions they took on, with a great degree of focus and determined effort. In the context of Sri Lanka's political, community and business leadership, there is a need today more than ever, for good brands to emerge. Building trust with consumers is wanting in all spheres of activity.

Respect for the rule of law, recognition of equality and the right to live with dignity, seeking agenda beyond personal gain, recognising the values of meritocracy and transparency in governance, acting firmly without fear or favour against corruption and malpractices, being accountable at all times, are the core brand values that will need to prevail. The focus on winning the trust of the customers and the public they serve must not be limited to bouts of interest during events or elections, but be a solid and consistent process.

The leader brands will need to drive quality at all times setting in place examples and models that all of us Sri Lankans can look up to and follow. Being vision driven, strategically thinking of the long-term good of the nation, its resources and people, practicing self -discipline, restraint and patience, working with a sense of respect for others' views, working on time, demonstrating the ability to listen and act with conviction are the core structural features that will help build these brands. Short-term quick fixes will not help the process of brand building at all.

The opportunity for commencing the process of leader brand building is well within the horizon of Sri Lanka's leaders of today. The crying demand from right thinking people to open all windows for undertaking consensual politics, seeking lasting solutions to the ethnic issue and the peace process, transforming the already solicited support of the international community to be a reality on the ground and ensuring that Sri Lanka's integrity as a nation remains in tact, are ideal launch pads for our leaders to take off from.

In so doing they will have to maintain the quality/consistency proposition at all times. Swaying from rational and agreed positions, failing to provide cordiality and mutual respect, last minute changes of mind, seeking short-term gains, failing to communicate a shared vision to wider audiences and losing sight of the vision and strategic directions will be the all important negatives to be avoided when driving the process of sound brand building.

All in all, our 'leader brands' will need to be assertive, drive quality propositions, be consistent and win the true loyalty of a large majority of Sri Lankans and the global community, for the long term.

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