Let us look at the incidents in the last sixty days:

Bernie Madoff Ponzi scheme was revealed with billions of dollars at stake

Lloyds TSB admitted that they were faking records of wire transfers to Iranian and Sudanese customers for years. Lloyds paid a fine of $350M.

The chairman of Satyam Ramalinga Raju admitted that he was forging accounting records for years in a $1B scandal.

I can talk about more – Enron, Worldcom and other incidents that suddenly tarnish a company’s brand – probably forever. Rarely do these companies ever come back to their original glory. Their brands are tarnished.

The above are major scandals but there are smaller ones happening almost everyday. Two days ago,  on a smaller scale, Belkin was accused of Mechanical Turk Shilling and the CEO apologized for what happened.

An organization is made up of individuals and to build an organizational brand everyone has to work in harmony. One person making a mistake and the organization pays and it’s brand will be in question. If you are borrowing your employer’s brand, please remember that you don’t have the control on your employer’s brand. The only brand you have some control of is your brand – your personal brand.

This is the time for all of us to take another look at our personal brands and do everything to invest in it.

A few resources:

My latest column at TomPeters.com: What a Personal Brand is NOT

Free ebook: Personal Branding for Technology Professionals (PDF, eBook, 40 pages, FREE)

All the best.