Summary

Under pressure, you see whether the brand is a slogan or a standard. Pressure also reveals whether leadership truly guides trade-offs. The move is to embed brand as measurable behaviours in performance reviews and rewards, so it shapes decisions. Then pricing and deal quality regain discipline and consistency.

→ Watch more videos in this playlist on YouTube

Our Perspective

What this means for leaders navigating growth, change or transformation in their organisation.

The Hidden Misalignment

When brand accountability lives only in decks and town halls, it creates a quiet gap between what leaders say and what people are paid to do. In that gap, teams chase short-term wins that weaken positioning, and cross-functional debates default to opinions rather than shared standards. The commercial effects are subtle at first, then compound: discounting creeps, deal quality declines, and customer experience frays across the journey.

What’s missed is simple: brand is not a campaign asset; it’s a decision lens. If it doesn’t inform behaviour and rewards, it won’t shape outcomes. European Management Journal reports that strong brand equity lifts attitudes for frontline employees, dampens them for mid-levels, and barely shifts top managers, underscoring the need to tailor accountability by role rather than broadcast one message to all.

From Slogans To Standards

The shift is to treat brand as a set of observable standards that help people decide, trade off, and escalate. Not a manifesto, but a handful of codified behaviours per role that anchor how we price, qualify, prioritise features, and manage service handovers. This isn’t about being nicer; it’s about making value creation repeatable.

Start with the moments where your organisation makes or loses value: pricing conversations, product roadmaps, and service recovery. Translate brand principles into two to four behaviours that, if done consistently, protect pricing, improve win quality, and reduce rework. That’s where accountability becomes measurable rather than rhetorical.

Make It Measurable

In our experience with growth-stage organisations, the unlock is consistency: one definition of “on-brand” per role, tested in realistic scenarios and reinforced through rewards.

• Define two to four non-negotiable behaviours per role, tied to specific decisions (e.g., qualification, escalation, prioritisation).
• Allocate a clear share of variable pay and recognition to those behaviours; small percentages still signal what matters.
• Equip reviewers with prompts and scoring rubrics, plus short scenarios to calibrate across teams.
• Use lightweight evidence: win–loss notes, pricing outcomes, customer feedback comments, and peer observations.

When brand becomes observable evidence, performance conversations shift from taste to trade-offs. People learn how to win without eroding the very thing that earns returns.

Leadership Choices

Leaders set the stakes. Three choices matter most:

• Decide where brand behaviours offset risk (e.g., discounting) and lock those into rewards before the next cycle.
• Remove conflicting incentives that nudge teams to act off-brand, even if they lift near-term results.
• Build manager capability: calibration clinics, sample feedback, and decision checklists reduce inconsistency.
• Track second-order effects quarterly: pricing resilience, deal quality, rework rates, and retention.

The prize isn’t a prettier narrative; it’s a more predictable organisation. When accountability for brand sits inside reviews and bonuses, coherence increases, and with it the capacity to grow on purpose rather than by exception.

Sources:

• The impact of brand equity on employee attitudes — European Management Journal

Further Resources

1. Embedding Brand in Daily Management for Commercial Outcomes
2. Brand Consistency Beyond Content Guidelines
3. Elevating Brand Enablement for Team Alignment

If today’s topic resonates, we invite you to continue the dialogue — sometimes one conversation reframes the challenge. Start the conversation.

Back to top