Someone asks, "So what do you do?"
And you give them your job title. Or a list of the projects you're on. Or three minutes of background that starts with the year you joined the company.
Any of those answers is fine, but none of them sticks.
Why this matters more than it seems
Your career moves forward in rooms you aren't in. A calibration meeting. A hiring manager forwarding your resume. A VP asking your manager, "Who should lead this?"
In each of those rooms, somebody describes you in a sentence or two. If you haven't given them that sentence, they'll make one up. It usually sounds like "She's great, she's really reliable." That's kind, and it won't get her promoted.
A leadership brand is the sentence you want them to say. You have to write it first.
The sentence
Here's the structure I give the women I coach:
I help the business [do what] by creating [what], which results in [what outcome].
There are three parts: the business problem you solve, the thing you build or change to solve it, and the result leadership cares about.
Something like: "I help engineering teams ship faster without breaking things by building quality into the process from day one, which cuts release delays and production incidents."
Or: "I help growing companies scale their operations by turning messy manual work into repeatable systems, which frees leaders to focus on growth."
Notice what's missing. There's no title, no years of experience, no list of tools. Those belong on your resume. The sentence is about the value you create, in words a busy executive gets in five seconds.
Why most women struggle to write it
When I ask women to write this sentence, the first drafts usually go one of two ways.
Some are too humble. They describe the team's work, soften every claim, and end up sounding like a job description.
Others are too long. They try to fit a whole career into one line, because leaving anything out feels like underselling.
Both come from the same place. The sentence feels like a claim you'll have to defend. It is a claim, and that's the point. You're telling people how to think about you. If you don't, they'll decide on their own.
How to find yours
Start with your receipts. Pull up your last two or three roles and list what you actually delivered and why the business cared. Old performance reviews help here.
Then look for the pattern. What problem shows up in almost every role? Maybe you keep getting handed the messy projects nobody else wants. Maybe you're always the one translating between engineering and the business. The thing that keeps repeating is usually your brand.
Write the sentence. Cut it by a third. Then say it out loud until it stops feeling strange.
AI tools can help with drafting. Give one your receipts, ask it to find the pattern, and tell it to push back on anything that sounds generic. Just make sure the final version sounds like you when you say it.
Where to use it
Once you have it, put it everywhere: the top of your resume, your LinkedIn headline and About section, the first line when you introduce yourself in a skip-level or at a conference, and the opening of your next self-review.
The more places it shows up, the more likely someone repeats it in a room you're not in. That's the whole goal.
A test you can run this week
Write your sentence using the structure above. Send it to one person who's worked closely with you and ask, "Does this sound like me?"
If they say yes, start using it. If they hesitate, ask what they'd say instead. Their answer tells you how you're being described right now.
People are going to describe you whether you give them the words or not. Give them the words.
If you want to see where your worth is leaking, the POWER Clarity Snapshot takes a few minutes at clarity.erikachestnut.com.