A profession that requires personal branding is not limited to marketing, sales, doctors, or celebrities. Even teachers need to build their personal brand. Personal branding is the process of shaping public perception of an individual’s qualities. For teachers, this includes how they are perceived by students, parents, and the community based on their professional performance in the school and the wider community. Teachers can build their personal brand by fulfilling their mandate, improving student learning, having a commendable personality, understanding educational insights, and participating in society. In the context of a school setting, a teacher’s personal brand can be established swiftly by adhering to these three key factors:
- Teacher appearance: Teachers must exude an aura of freshness, fragrance, and enthusiasm from the very first moment they come in contact with students and colleagues. This includes taking care of their appearance and ensuring their body odor is pleasant and inviting.
- Teacher uniqueness: Students can feel whether the teacher teaches with aggregate. In addition, students can also feel the teacher’s sincerity through the simple actions that the teacher takes when interacting with them, both inside and outside the classroom. It is also related to the teachers’ attitude, friendliness, discipline, and totality in working and socializing with fellow teachers and parents of students.
- Competence: The teacher’s mastery of teaching material, the way the teacher conveys material concretely, and the use of various approaches in teaching to ensure that the students can understand the concepts being taught. At the Mentari Group training on personal branding for teachers, Fidelis Waruwu emphasized the importance of following 4 essential steps to develop and enhance the school’s brand. All teachers
should take these steps seriously to establish a strong presence and reputation in the education community.
- The teacher tries to help every student who needs his or her help. To have a positive image, the teacher must always help students gain experience to feel valued and supported in the learning process. If students get a good experience from the teacher, parents and the environment will believe it, it is not only the teacher’s image that is good but also the school’s image and the foundation.
- Teachers make sacrifices and find out solutions to problems faced by their students. This relates to how the teacher accompanies students when they experience issues in subjects, social constraints, and emotional constraints; therefore, teachers really need to guide students and give advice at their best.
- Teachers continue to improve their competence to make their teaching attractive and increase students’ confidence in their competencies. The way to enhance competency is, of course, not only understanding teaching material but also needing to keep abreast of technological and information developments so that they can provide teaching that is relevant to students’ lives.
- Teachers build good self-credibility through various positive actions within the school environment and the community to generate respect, admiration, and trust in students toward their teachers. By building a positive image through the four strategies mentioned above, teachers increase their selling power as professionals and improve the branding of their school as a great workplace. This results in trust from the community, including students, parents, and colleagues. You can maximize competence in building personal branding by watching the video “Building Personal Branding” with Fidelis Waruwu via the following link
