A deeper understanding of who I am.

1. To: Professor Mandel
From: Julianne Michelle Dominguez
Date: March 25, 2020
Subject: Personal Brand Narrative
Character is being able to identify self-resilience and appreciate the personal growth and reflect
upon a viewpoint of yourself you never had seen. Over the course of these three months I have
obtained a lot of information about how I view myself and how other perceive me. I have
analyzed all of these responses and compiled them while creating my personal brand. In this
memorandum I will be discussing the three steps I took to fully understand myself. These
steps include a people style and culture map self-assessment, a survey self-assessment, and an
evaluation survey completed by former/current colleagues and teammates.
People-Styles and Culture-Map
As I have grown up, I have changed a lot just as any other person does. When I was very young,
I was shy, and when I say shy, I mean I hid between my mom’s legs. As I have grown into a
young adult, I have become more confident and comfortable with being more of a voice. I put
this to the test and took a self-assessment which gave me my people style. I am an Amiable,
which is someone who is less assertive and more responsive as well as kind, quiet, and
sympathetic.
I inputted these results into an excel sheet and noticed my composite assertiveness was a -1
which means I am not too strongly correlated to an Amiable. While my composite
responsiveness was a 7 which means I am strong correlated to responsiveness and being an
Amiable. Looking at the respondent’s results was very surprising to me. I was labeled as a
Driver, which is someone who is outspoken and quite honestly is the opposite of an Amiable.
My composite assertiveness score was an average of a 3, while my composite responsiveness
was an average of a -6. These scores indicate that they are strongly correlated to one side.
Spending time analyzing these results was quite difficult for me because an Amiable and Driver
tend to be on opposite sides of the personality spectrum. However, I came up with an idea as to
why this may be. While I am in a working environment, I tend to be a leader and strive to win
or complete a task to the best of my ability, and this would label me as a driver. However, in
social environments I tend to be very sympathetic and a good listener. The way I evaluated
myself showed that I wasn’t thinking about my personal brand from a professional side as much.
The Culture Map helped me realize a few aspects that my respondents and I do not see eye to
eye. These two qualities are evaluating and disagreeing and were significantly different than
my perception. This may be because I am not the best at considering people’s emotions when
giving feedback, but if evaluation is not done in the correct way it may come off as negative.
In regard to disagreeing others notice that I am more likely to step back when approaching
confrontation, which is true in some respects. Knowing where I stand in a situation and
appealing to someone’s emotions will be a focus of mine from here on out.

2. Core Values
Growing up in a family-orientated household I have been lucky enough to wear my core values
on my sleeve. I have an older brother who challenges me to work harder every day and he
consistently reminds me that I will never beat him in a one on one soccer match, but I have
always been dedicated to proving him wrong. I received responses that are in direct correlation
to my values. These responses included that I value hard work, kindness, and dedication in
every aspect of life. This not only reflects me but reflects the way that my family was persistent
in instilling these values into my life.
Perception
The way in which others perceive you plays a large role in understanding your true personal
brand. The major perception from the respondents was that I am passionate about everything I
do and that I am very goal driven and won’t give up until the task or goal is met. While
perceptions can be positive there was an important suggestion about how I can improve. This
suggestion is to be patient, which is a very good piece of advice because I am usually working
at a high pace while others may not be caught up to speed with me, so realizing this and focusing
on it will be helpful moving forward with my personal branding.
While analyzing the feedback I was given by past and current colleagues and teammates I
noticed a response that made me think in a unique way. This response said that in a group I am
perceived as one is who willing to do all of the work if that means we get the assignment or
task done. I am guilty of this; however, I never thought of it in a way that it may make me look
like I don’t mind that people are free riders. This may be because I know I can count of myself
to do the work, but now that I am aware that it can be perceived in that way, I am going to focus
on trusting others more and distributing the work evenly amongst the team.
With these responses from people who I have worked closely with has taught me a very
important lesson. In the past I have always been told I am a natural leader, but I have not always
been confident being that voice, so I tend to lead by example. I have noticed a consistent trend
in the responses I received that I am a leader and need to be more confident in using my voice
to lead as well. With this knowledge I will be able to speak up while being confident knowing
that the people who I work closely to view me as that figure and trust me enough to guide them
in the right direction.
Reflection
Throughout the course of these three months I was able to dive deeper into my personal brand and
see the similarities and differences with how I view myself versus how others view and perceive
me. The self-assessment, people-styles/culture-map assessment, and the feedback from former
colleagues/teammates aided me in better understanding myself. The growth I have endured over
this semester is something I am proud of and will be able to build upon for success in my future
internships and career.