Employer branding and leadership? Who knew it could be a strategic leadership opportunity!
What if I told you your employer brand already exists—and it’s quietly speaking volumes about your leadership, your business strategy, and your company’s future?
Now ask yourself: is it telling the story you want it to?
If employer branding is still sitting in HR as a support function, or at marketing as an occasional effort to push out a bigger recruitment campaign your business is leaking value, trust, and clarity in every direction.
You need to consider employer branding and leadership united.
If employer branding is still sitting in HR as a support function, or at marketing as an occasional effort to push out a bigger recruitment campaign your business is leaking value, trust, and clarity in every direction.
In this episode, I’m going to reveal a secret and share something about employer branding that could become your secret leadership power.
This is so unbelieveble yet so logical that you are going to shake AND nod your head at the same time thinking why on earth haven’t we seen employer branding like this.
If you listen to this episode taking it into your heart what I’m revealing, you have opened the magical door to reclaiming employer branding as a strategic leadership function—one that connects the dots between the business mission, vision, strategic priorities, customer promise, the company culture, and organizational behaviour.
When it’s done right, your employer brand becomes the AI of your organization—silently guiding your people in how to act, decide, lead, and grow. What’s more, doing it right is based mostly on communication and messaging that over time alter the way your people think, feel and act!
Episode 193: Employer Branding and Leadership: How Stories Can Fix Disengagement In Your People
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Hi my friend, and welcome back to the Story-Driven Business Podcast—where we decode what it really takes to build a magnetic business from the inside out.
I’m your host, Susanna Rantanen, known as the world’s leading modern employer branding expert and strategist, creator of the Magnetic Employer Branding Method™, and your personal guide to story-driven leadership and branding.
Today’s episode might just reframe everything you thought you knew about employer branding [as a business leader].
Because it’s time to stop treating employer branding like a recruitment campaign and start seeing it for what it really is:
A major strategic leadership opportunity that aligns your people, culture, and brand from the inside out.
Strategic Employer Branding and Leadership: The Invisible Compass
Let me share a story.
A company was struggling to implement a strategic shift. The leadership team had outlined a new direction, but six months in… nothing had changed.
People were confused. Morale was dropping. Some teams doubled down on old habits. Others were frozen in uncertainty.
The CEO was asked, “Have you connected your new strategy to how people are expected to behave now? What will ‘doing our work well’ look like in this new era?”
He blinked.
“Well… no. We’ve just communicated the vision.”
Here’s the thing: vision without behaviour is just a poster.
Story-Driven Employer Branding solves this. It links the strategic shift to values, values to behaviours, behaviours to the ways of work appealing strongly to the kind of people who will thrive in your future.
That’s when transformation begins.
The Business Leader’s Struggle: Clarity, Cohesion and Culture
As a business leader, your everyday reality is filled with decisions:
- How do we communicate this change?
- Why are our people disengaged?
- How can we attract the right kind of talent?
- Why are some teams excelling while others underperform?
At the root of most of these challenges is misalignment.
Misalignment between strategy and behavior.
Misalignment between values and everyday decisions.
Misalignment between what leadership says and how culture feels.
Employer branding and leadership forming a leadership function, fixes this.
But only when we redefine what employer branding actually is.
Add Story-Driven and Learn What Employer Branding Actually Is
Story-Driven Employer Branding is not a campaign. It’s not an ad. It’s not about visibility alone.
It’s a strategic narrative.
One that translates your business mission, vision, and values into lived experiences:
- Into how your people work – and are expected to work to deliver results.
- Into how leaders lead. – to set an example to their teams on how to behave according to values an how to get to the expected goals
- Into the vibe in your meetings – that empowers the participants to make decisisions, take ownership and excite others around them to follow!
- Into how employees describe your company at a dinner party – spreading your business tunes, mission and values forward outside the company.
It’s about creating clarity that cascades from the top— Clarity about who we are, what we believe, how we behave, and what kind of person thrives here.
- That clarity turns into culture.
- Culture becomes your internal compass.
- And that compass becomes your employer brand.
This is why I say: your employer brand is what people say about your leadership and culture—especially when you’re not in the room. It’s time to unite employer branding and leadership.
Connect Employer Branding and Leadership: Impact Business Metrics That Matter
When your people understand the mission deeply… they self-lead.
When your teams see how their work supports strategy… they focus.
When your culture attracts the right behaviours… performance improves.
And when all of that is visible to the outside world?
You attract people who are already bought into the journey.
This is where employer branding goes far beyond HR:
- It affects performance
- It impacts retention
- It shapes customer satisfaction
- It fortifies your competitive edge
Think about it: your weakest corner—the misaligned team, the unclear leader, the disengaged employee—that’s where your brand leaks, the success potential flushes away ounce by ounce.
When you build your brand story intentionally from within, those leaks become magnets.
And suddenly, your people don’t just understand what you’re doing—they know how to be while doing it.
Read also: Strategic Employer Branding: The Leadership Tool You Didn’t Know You Needed
Leaders: This Is Your Opportunity
Imagine a company where:
- Every employee knows the mission, believes in it, and knows how to contribute.
- Every manager embodies the values in their leadership style.
- Every candidate you hire already resonates with your way of working.
This isn’t utopia. This is what happens when you own your employer brand as a leader.
And it starts with this:
- Connecting your business strategy to your culture.
- Translating that culture into behaviours.
- Expressing those behaviours as the story of who thrives in your company.
Your employer brand becomes a living system.
Not a poster campaign.
Not a buzzword.
A system that runs through every interaction, decision, hire, and act of leadership.
The Vision: Employer Branding and Leadership Forming The Organizational Intelligence
Here’s the ultimate vision when connecting employer branding and leadership:
Your story-driven employer brand becomes the AI of your company. The invisible intelligence that helps everyone know:
- What to prioritise
- How to act
- What “success” and ”great” looks like
It helps customers feel the consistency of your promise.
It helps employees feel aligned and valued.
It helps new hires get it from day one.
And it all starts with leadership choosing to step up and own the narrative.
This isn’t HR’s side job anymore.
It’s your opportunity to lead with story.
What do you say? Is the unity of employer branding and leadership starting to sound compelling?
#189 Brand People Like Best Companies Do, Not Just Products
Read The Book, Join The Movement
If this resonated with you, the mechanism to everything I shared today is inside my book Story-Driven Employer Branding: Introducing the Magnetic Employer Branding Method™.
You’ll learn exactly how to:
- Build a culture-led strategy
- Define your ideal organizational behaviour
- Translate your mission into a brand that leads
- How to unite employer branding and leadership as the powerhouse internally and externally
You’ll find it on Amazon or at storydrivenemployerbranding.com
Thanks for listening to the Story-Driven Business Podcast and this episode explaining why connecting employer branding and leadership is the next big thing in leadership.
If you found this valuable, share it with another leader in your network. Because this isn’t just about branding. It’s about building the kind of business people want to follow, work in, and buy from.
My name is Susanna Rantanen, and I bring you story-driven branding in a world where attention is no longer a default.
Until next time, keep leading with purpose and stay story-driven.