Actively managing your personal brand is critical if you want to make a significant impact in the areas of your life important to you. What you say and what you do influences how people perceive you, so take note that your personal branding will determine how successfully you’ll be able to make an impact in life.
In January 2022, Professor Attila Brungs was appointed as University of New South Wales Sydney's incoming President and Vice-Chancellor. Attila Brungs was the former Vice-Chancellor and President of the University of Technology Sydney. He was appointed to the role in July 2014. Attila has been a researcher in both industry and academia with interests in the area of heterogeneous catalysts.
Attila is an elected Fellow of the Royal Society of New South Wales and an elected Fellow of the Australian Academy of Technology and Engineering. As Vice-Chancellor of UTS, he was instrumental in the university's rise to Australia's position among the world's top young universities, including supporting the transformation of the UTS campus with the addition of the Dr Chau Chak Wing Building designed by Frank Gehry, the Faculty of Engineering and Information Technology Building, the Vicky Sara building, and the UTS central building through a $1.5 billion campus master plan.
Central to Brung’s approach at UTS has been collaboration, engaging with industry to tackle real-world research problems, and the community to tackle social justice issues. Under his stewardship, the university's commitment to delivering positive social good has been strengthened through the creation of UTS' social impact framework. Professor Attila Brungs is a senior leader in the higher education industry and a passionate advocate for innovation.
He believes the universities not only have a responsibility to prepare students for the jobs of the future but also to help create jobs for them to go to. Attila grew up in Sydney and is married to artist Kate Gradwell and shares two children together. He is a member of the Sydney Sabre and UTS Fencing Club.
Attila Brungs As A Brand
As a scientist, Attila doesn’t necessarily identify with the word brand. But based on conversations we’ve had before, how I define a brand and how Attila defines reputation, character, and authenticity are the same which is a much richer, fuller, more authentic and coherent understanding of self.
So for Attila, his reputation as a scientist is incredibly important. Many things happened in his life. He’s got a broad range of interests. Things happen to him and he can’t control external circumstances.
“But what I can control is how I react to the world around me,” he says. “I can control what my aspirations are and I can control how I try and achieve my goals. And as we see, a lot of these are, “How can I make society a better place?”
There are so many things, particularly about the last two years that are entirely out of his control and as he becomes older and wiser he hopes he can have more wisdom.
Attila read a book once that says wisdom is knowing those things which you can change, and those which you can't change and the ability to tell the difference between them.
Back to the conversation of reputation, scientists question the universe, they use evidence, they solve problems, and then they publish.
They try and bring that knowledge to change and improve society. Now, unless they're trusted, unless they have a reputation, that becomes incredibly hard to do. That’s why he believes that reputation, authenticity, and character are very important.
According to Attila, perception is very important too. When you think about your reputation, when you think about your character, for Attila, perception becomes fact.
As a scientist, he knows that there are facts and there are perceptions. But for him, to underestimate how other people view the world and what their perceptions are and to write them off by saying, “I know that this is X, the person may perceive it to be Y but it’s actually X,” is unhelpful because through their lens and their life experiences, they think it is something else and that's what their perception is.
One of the most important things that Attila has found, particularly in leadership is how he makes sure that he’s trying to understand people's different backgrounds, their different characters and perceptions because that is critical in being able to connect and engage and communicate with people.
As we have seen in society recently, there’s a lot of debate around vaccines. According to Attila, saying to people they’re an idiot if they have problems with vaccines, because they may read on social media that a vaccine is a ‘Microsoft chip to control your brain’, is one of the worst things you can do.
“Their perception is different to yours,” Attila says. “What we need to do is understand where they’re coming from, understand their perception, and understand the drivers and environments that help them get to their perception and then engage with it.”
As it relates to reputation, not only do you have to be mindful of being authentic and coherent in all your actions because, for Attila, the best way to manage your brand or your reputation is to be who you are, to be authentic, and to be coherent about that.
Attila then brought up one of my favourite quotes from Jeff Bezos, “Your brand is what other people say about you when you’re not in the room.”
So for Attila, if you’re very coherent in your actions and it’s truly authentic, that’s how you influence people. It’s not just as simple as that though because as an example, he may act one way towards me and he may act exactly the same way towards his children. But his children and I have different worldviews, and so both of us will view his actions in a different way.
Therefore, what he’s got to do, is work out if this action got this desired outcome, or he’s showing this part of his character which is authentic to him, he’s got to think of the best way of showing that to me. Similarly, when he showed it to his kids, it’s the same point but he may show it differently.
According to Attila, “Your words, your actions, and your values need to be perfectly aligned. But it’s not just as simple as making sure they’re aligned. If you want people to perceive all of their coherence, you’ve got to go to the next level of sophistication.”
As an example earlier, given that I and his kids are coming from different worldviews, if he acts this way towards me or acts this way toward his kids, do we both view what he’s trying to communicate? Maybe not, so he may have to do something subtly different but still authentic with him, his values, and his coherence so he can still connect with me or his kids in a slightly different way.
Building Reputation
Attila has spent many years around students and young people aspiring to great careers and being ambitious. These students start off wanting to develop a career.
They haven't got much of a reputation, they've actually got to build their brand first. So reputation is actually an outcome of them taking the steps to get there and Attila concurs with that.
Sometimes, parents get grumpy at Attila Brungs as the vice Chancellor. They say, “What should little Jane or Johnny do? Should they go with accounting or engineering because there’s a lot of jobs in that?”
Well, what Attila asks them is, “What does Jane or Johnny passionate about? What do they really love doing? What can they throw their whole self into?” These questions should be the basis of some of the choices.
If someone comes to Attila and said they want to be an astronaut and they’re passionate about being an astronaut, he provides them advice that there aren’t many astronauts, particularly in Australia, so if someone wants to pursue it, they’ve got to be quite sophisticated as they go.
Attila thinks that one of the most important things is what you’re passionate about because that then carries from the job to different organisations you work for.
If we look at Attila’s career, there are certain values and aspirations that he has that he tries and uses his talents to help society that no matter where he goes, those are there.
How Others Perceive Attila
Particularly in Attila’s last couple of roles, as a leader, for him, one of the responsibilities of leadership (there are two) is to make sure you walk your talk.
So if he says this is important for UNSW, CSIRO, or for UTS and if he doesn’t live to those values and doesn’t project those things that are important for the organisation and important for the organisation to do to society, then they will immediately see a perceived coherence gap.
That doesn’t necessarily mean personally that he has to be exactly aligned with the exact same set of values of all the organisations he belongs to.
Say, for example, not all aspects of the character of UNSW are aspects necessarily in Attila’s character. He’s very aligned with UNSW’s values and a lot of them speak to his personal values that’s why he joined UNSW.
It’s a similar journey with UTS because it thrives for a social purpose like UNSW and it’s something that speaks to him as well.
But as a leader, there are times when you need to think through this audience at this time and these issues facing us and ask yourself, “What part of my character do I need to maybe bring to the fore? What’s something that I need to focus on?”
Attila doesn’t necessarily manage his reputation or brand but what he does manage as a leader is what are the things in his character are important and when should they come to the fore.
The Importance of Reputation
What Attila recognises is how critical reputation is to the success that he wanted to have.
There are times that it’s safe to hide parts of your character, to fit in with the flow, or do things differently.
Attila is a pragmatic person and he thinks sometimes, you have to compromise but there are things about yourself and your character that you got to be cohesive from one room to the next.
He considers himself fortunate because his father is also an academic, and his father had a reputation for being scrupulously honest, caring, and a good problem solver.
Attila observed how that reputation of being honest, caring, and a great problem solver assisted him in getting done what he needed to get done and how important that was. He then realised the importance of integrity in any role, specifically as a leader.
His mother has also a reputation. Attila is the oldest of seven kids, so his mum had quite a challenge in raising and looking after them giving them all they needed. His values stemmed from his parents, his family, and his broader family and he’s grateful for that.
His mother, he observed, would be herself in whatever company. She’s quite outgoing, she’s incredibly caring, and she could engage with people brilliantly. Just by being herself, she would disarm people and she could connect with people. She’s got that reputation for her authenticity and her integrity.
How Attila Established His Values
Attila is the eldest, but he has learned incredible lessons from his siblings and he continues to learn and get inspired by them throughout his life even when they were very young.
He remembered when his sister was only four, she taught Attila a really important lesson about life just because of how wonderful she was.
Attila’s values were formed early on and haven’t changed but his worldview has changed somewhat. How his values manifest themselves, and how they connect have somewhat changed.
He came from a particular cultural background (his mum is Hungarian) and he went to UNSW and he met people from so many different backgrounds and worldviews.
He thinks that the way he views the world fundamentally shifted during his time at university. When he went to Oxford for a while he then again, met people from all around the world with different real world views, different perspectives, and different lived experiences.
It gave Attila early on insight into how powerful true diversity of thought can be and the importance to have inclusive leadership which is making sure that everybody contributes to that diversity.
Shifting Values
As Attila has gotten older, his tolerance increased. As a young man, he mentioned that he was intolerant, excited, and passionate.
Being passionate is a wonderful thing but sometimes passion can breed a little bit of stubbornness about what you want to do.
According to Attila, “I can’t necessarily say that my values have shifted, but we can see how values are manifested in behaviours. If you look at the underpinning value of respect, how we show each other today that we’re respectful, is perhaps quite different to 30 years ago.”
That's why coherence and authenticity are so important. For example, Attila can behave to me in a way that appears to be respectful. But if he goes around the corner and then relies on my character or acts to my disadvantage, he’s not being respectful in the slightest.
What really is the intent of people in terms of what they see as respect or lack of respect is becoming far more prominent in many of the social issues today.
What Attila thinks is wonderful in today’s society and in our universities, is the importance placed on how others regard your actions.
Let’s go back to what he said at the beginning that you got to know your character. How he acts with me, versus how he acts with his kids may be slightly different because he’s trying to make sure that we recognise that respect.
Lost and Tested Values
Attila’s values have been tested a lot of times in both his career and home life. He has aspirations of trying his hardest. He said, “We do things that we regret throughout our lives. We wish we had done differently.”
As a leader, he’s trying to be authentic. He would never say anything behind people’s backs. He will try to be open and transparent and make sure that his words, actions, and deeds are coherent.
According to Attila, “I believe that actions are so much more important than words. Unless you act in coherence with your values, it doesn’t matter what you say.”
In some respect, words are also important at times. But one of the things that he does particularly as a leader is that it’s very important to spark a wonderful team and to trust and give them autonomy.
But if something goes wrong, he’ll talk about it with them. But that’s on Attila and not them.
He remembered at one time in one of the divisions of CSIRO, it happened that something did go wrong with one team member, so Attila went back and fixed it.
Attila built this deep relationship with this division and they trusted him and that things were going well.
It would have been easy for him if he said “It’s just X. He’s new. Sorry about that. Let’s go on.” And that probably would have been fine and X wouldn’t have gotten in trouble and their relationship could have been stable.
But Attila took the responsibility and said, “I stuffed up and I did wrong.” That damaged his reputation in that division because he had a reputation for delivery, and he had failed to deliver. It took him a good six months to rebuild his reputation.
But Attila still thinks that even in hindsight or even on the surface he lost his reputation, what he did was still true to what he believes is important.
So rather than acting in a different way to try and preserve his reputation in some respects, it was better to lose his reputation in that regard, because he remained coherent with what he believed his broader character is about.
Keeping the Brand Whole
Attila considers himself in a fortunate position in that he has certain aspirations around what he wants to do with his time and talents, and that he gets a choice of where he works.
So the choice he makes is to make sure that the organisation he works for has a core of very aligned values to what he thinks is important. Universities as a whole share a set of values as public institutions.
UTS is a university of a public institution that exists for social good and he said the same thing at UNSW, because he passionately believes it as well.
What attracted him to UNSW is similar to UTS. They have this passion for social impact. They put three pillars in their strategy which are excellence, research, and social impact.
Attila said, “I'll only work in an organisation where there’s a very strong set of values but what’s different however is the way the two institutions are going around to deliver their missions which is great because then they’re complementary.”
Next, what is important to the institution at that time? If we look at UNSW for example, there are aspects of what Attila thinks is important that he didn’t need to focus on at UTS, but he’s now focusing on UNSW because they regarded it more important than UTS did.
So for him, it’s not about different values or even repositioning himself. It’s about if core values are very similar. It’s about which parts of the UNSW strategy they want to achieve. Does Attila need to provide support? Does he need to promote? Does he need to push?
Therefore, people will perceive him slightly differently from the Vice-Chancellor of UNSW to the Vice-Chancellor of UTS. He’s hoping that people will always perceive him as Attila regardless of where he goes but because he has a different set of priorities at UNSW than he did at UTS, naturally, people will look at him differently.
How People See Attila Outside of His Profession
According to Attila, "Again, that goes back to our very first part of our why it's important just to be authentic, I have a broad set of interests, you have a broad set of interests, and parts of your character come out in different circumstances."
For example, when Attila is fencing, no one would see him as a professor or vice-chancellor. 18-20 years old who are so much fitter and more agile than him, crush him. They view Attila as a slightly old man who they like beating in fencing. So that’s one particular view of him.
He’s got another view of when he was a surf lifesaver. People viewed him as someone on the beach. His family also views him in a very different way.
Even in the university, some parts of UTS knew him for years when he started more as a scientist on the research side, hence they viewed him as a fellow researcher.
Other parts would view him as vice-chancellor, and other parts view him as a friend.
Attila said, "So that's where the complexity of reputation - and it goes back to what we said right at the beginning, is it's not just about you being authentic, it's about how people are also viewing you and people will do to their own worldview, see different aspects of you, as authentic as it is that resonates with them.
People from UTS perceive Attila as a leader in the educational field and he’s hoping that people will similarly view him that way at UNSW.
He wants to be viewed as their cheerleader for the wonderful staff, a colleague who will support to do their aspirations, and their champion outside the organisation because the vice chancellor’s role is very important because one of his roles is to talk to the government, talk to business, and be a real champion of the university's aspirations.’
Attila’s Mentors
Attila is very grateful that he has his parents, siblings, supervisors, teams, and people he met at work that have been his mentors.
He doesn’t deliberately mention any names, because he’s come to recognise how much he can learn from everybody around him.
He recognised how fortunate he is to always be in these rich and dynamic environments where there are lots of people around. And as long as he keeps his mind and heart open, he can learn from everybody around him regardless of what their role is.
The Value of Mentoring
Attila believes that having a mentor is so important. He encourages people to have mentors because mentors are super helpful but he doesn’t only do that. He also said, "To be generous to others, because if you're generous with your time, it's amazing what people can be back to you."
Attila has seen people be very mercenary about finding mentors and networking yet the people that he found the most successful are those who are generous. Because if you're generous to others and you build communities, you can draw on that community that can put you in a great position of resilience and strength.
Final Message and Outro
I want to thank Attila Brungs very much for taking the time to really share his wisdom and insights.
Thank you for listening to this episode. Please leave a five-star review and subscribe for more episodes if you enjoyed it.
If you'd like to learn more about developing your personal brand, please visit garrybrowne.com.au to get in touch or grab a copy of Brand New Brand You.