Reputations are complex, easy to lose and expensive to acquire. While a negative reputation is damaging for anyone, having no reputation is particularly bad for diverse leaders from minority backgrounds, who are underrepresented across almost every industry in business. As such, leaders from diverse backgrounds and identities must learn reputation management skills to scale systemic hurdles. Diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) programs have always intended to address systemic barriers and obstacles for people of diverse backgrounds. As companies renege on their DEI commitments, the pressure on diverse leaders to personally manage their barrier-hopping has increased exponentially. We’re back to hacking the system rather than breaking it down wholesale. While hacking has a tech bro/girl boss neoliberal tinge, some reputation hacks are worth learning.

What Happens When Leaders Forget About Reputation 

The reputations of a CEO and a company are inextricably linked. This has been made acutely evident this year as Tesla sales have tanked in direct proportion to Elon Musk’s flailing reputation in Europe. Leaders who understand that their words and behavior are tied to the value of their business are less likely to commit reputational harakiri.

A smaller-scale reputational fail happened in January 2024 with the CEO of Kyte Baby, an alternative baby clothes company that espouses strong parent-friendly values. When an employee requested the right to remote work when she and her partner adopted a baby who was born at 22 weeks and needed intensive care, she was fired. After the employee’s sister made a TikTok video explaining what had happened, the Kyte Baby CEO responded with her own video, saying she apologized to the employee for how her parental leave was handled and that the company would examine its policies. She came under fire for this: criticisms included that it seemed insincere, scripted and not enough. The CEO returned the next day with an unscripted video apologizing more, saying she regretted her ‘terrible decision’ not to let the employee work remotely. The story made media headlines, including on CNN. No CEO wants to make CNN for the wrong reasons.

What Can Diverse Leaders Do?

Mary Ann Sieghart says in her 2021 book The Authority Gap that you can’t argue with a stellar record of success. Two things are inherent in ‘stellar record’—one is the idea of excellence, a concept that has plagued people not of the hegemonic workplace leadership norm. They have to be better than, work harder than and fail less than the default man. However, another aspect is the idea of a record. The most crucial lesson diverse leaders can take away is that success at work is not only about doing a great job; it also involves talking about it. Diverse leaders need to become good advocates for themselves.

“Never assume your manager can see inside your head,” writes Porter Braswell, MD of True Search and CEO and founder of several start-ups, in his book Let Them See You. “Make sure they understand the value of your work by mapping each project or initiative to a specific and meaningful business outcome,” he advises. Porter notes that leaders from diverse backgrounds should not shy away from overcommunicating. “A critical mistake that many young professionals make, especially those new to an organization, is waiting until their annual review to highlight their accomplishments.”

Stories, Behaviors, Networks

Frank Wolf is the co-founder of Staffbase, a German comms tech unicorn. In his recent book The Narrative Age, Wolf coined the idea of a narrative moat that companies (and leaders) need to build as part of their reputation. This moat will protect them when crisis hits (Musk likely has a better narrative moat in the U.S. than he does in Europe).

Reputation consists of stories, behaviors and networks: the words leaders use, the stories they tell, how they behave and the networks that reflect and highlight both. Reputations collapse when words and behaviors don’t match and collapse to mighty effect when this happens in public (as with both Tesla and Kyte Baby). Social media has a network effect that broadcasts disastrous behavior worldwide in seconds. However, when stories and behaviors match, and diverse leaders have mastered the network effect—getting comfortable on the appropriate social media for their audiences—they can build a stellar reputation.

Finding Allies

Not everyone knows what their stories are, or which social media they want to use. There is a potential ally at work whom leaders from diverse backgrounds can befriend to help them. The head of communications is responsible for both company and leadership reputation (as the two are intertwined). They can assist with reputation building, by working on stories with the leader that are both personal but support the business and finding media opportunities, keynotes, panels and podcasts. If a company has no communicators, leaders can try marketing or hire their own communications team member or coach.

However, those who feel comfortable with the stories they want to tell should go out and tell them. LinkedIn is a brilliant platform for leaders to find their voice, tell their stories, hone their perspective and shine a light on their expertise. If the leader’s audience is young, get comfortable with video and get on TikTok. If their preference is writing, Substack is an excellent medium for long-form articles and building an audience. 

Representation, Role Models and Building the Ladder

Representation matters, and it’s important that emerging leaders of diverse identities can see leaders ahead of them who are succeeding, both in their roles and with great reputations. There are many, but two in particular who have built excellent reputations by excelling at their jobs and employing narratives, behavior and networks are Sindhu Gangadharan, MD of SAP India and Yamini Rangan of HubSpot. Both use social media adeptly, have large followings and are authentic storytellers. By showing up consistently, as themselves, telling stories that match business strategy but also shine a light on who they are as leaders, they have both built strong narrative moats for themselves. By being great builders of companies and reputations, leaders also build something else: a ladder for emerging leaders to climb up behind them. There is always space for more great leadership.

Charlotte Otter is an executive communications expert, speaker, advisor and author of We Need New Leaders: Mastering Reputation Management to Reshape the C-Suite, out on June 3, 2025.