At the peak of his prowess, Tiger Woods seemed invincible.
The world cheered on as he not only rewrote the record books, but took his sport to a never-before commercial landscape – the total PGA tour prize money doubled during the Tiger era, growing 3x faster compared to the six years before he turned pro.
He won 14 major championships and stayed the world’s top ranked player for 683 weeks.
However, one morning is all it took. His sporting genius, built over many years, collapsed when front pages spoke about his marital infidelities.
After this, some of the most ardent cheerleaders were delighted to see him fail.
He had lost fans and sponsorship deals even before he could say anything in defense. His severe back injuries too earned little empathy.
Publicly available information about Woods was tarnished and people had altered their opinion about him.
This opinion is reputation.
Reputation is that subjective belief you hold about someone or something. It plays a huge role in your everyday decision-making.
You place your order from Amazon because of its reputation of being a customer-centric brand. You ensure you do your homework before meeting your super boss because you’re aware of his reputation of being a no-faff guy.
Reputation is also influenced by the social context. Being social creatures we want to fit in to earn the respect and approval of our peers.
In order to gel in, we often alter our behaviour accordingly. For instance, your reputation in the corporate world may be that of a serious, relentless and motivated individual while you might be lenient and fun-loving around family.
Reputation links to the basal human need of self-esteem as described in Maslow’s pyramid. Good reputation breeds social acceptance.
However, in the quest for prestige and standing, we mould our behaviour to fit societal conceptions of right and wrong, and risk losing individuality. We make decisions on whom to befriend and the jobs to pursue depending on the respect we may command from society.
Every action, the way you talk, dress, behave and conduct yourself in different situations plays a key role in building your reputation. Even brands might be willing to bend over and stay in good graces with their followers.
Think of reputation as a score that people might keep of you based on interactions. As the score builds up over time, you can use it as currency to seek help or resources from others.
Accumulating positive deeds compounds this value for the future, but negative public knowledge can often send your score spiraling to zero.
While you may think reputation is totally under your control, in reality, you only control it partly. Character can be controlled, but people’s beliefs formed out of examining your character cannot.
There are two key aspects to building a reputation – first impressions and consistency.
First impressions can leave a lasting remark. Your first project can signal a strong work ethic among colleagues and a first purchase can create strong brand impressions.
However, a solid reputation is only built with the ability to consistently replicate similar behaviours over a period of time.
While creating a reputation is a challenging task, managing it can be a different ball game altogether. Reputation damage can be self-inflicted or caused intentionally by an external entity that stands to gain from your loss.
Yes Bank can be a classic case of self-inflicted reputational damage. The Bank took more than a decade to establish reliability but fell from grace through one piece of news about its unethical lending practices and accounting gaps.
Cases of intentional reputation damage are often seen in the F&B industry wherein customers sue companies over false claims or might spread mis-information to gain monetary benefit.
Finally, even with the high risk proposition reputation can be, it pays to stick to your guns. As long as you do no harm, trust your beliefs.
While fitting in can be good for cultural acceptance and popularity, strong beliefs, unless proven otherwise, go a long way in helping to build personal brands and ultimately reputation.