Three months ago, a senior leader approached me with a simple goal: to build a credible personal brand that attracts opportunities without feeling performative. We agreed to treat LinkedIn as a strategic channel to clarify our positioning, publish with intention and measure what matters. In month one, we optimised her profile to clearly reflect her past and current impact, as well as her future leadership direction and then set a content plan.

Her challenge looked like many executives':

• A profile that didn’t fully communicate the leadership story or search-friendly keywords.

• Sporadic posting with no clear pillars. Or better still, reposting content.

• A concern about “oversharing” versus being useful.

We tackled it with three pillars: Leadership, Personal Stories and Industry Insights, then committed to a steady posting schedule. In July alone, we published 11 posts under these themes.

Momentum built quickly and predictably:

• Recognition + Introduction posts surged first, topping impressions, engagement and new followers in July (e.g., awards/recognition and a concise intro led across metrics).

• Theme insights: Awards/recognition and personal brand storytelling consistently drove reach, engagement and follower growth.

Then came August, the inflection point. A single leadership personal story (told with a specific lesson and a human moment) went viral, delivering 58,000+ impressions, 1,553 engagements and 170 new followers, the clear performaance driver of the month.