Humanizing yourself is one of the most important reasons for a CEO to be active on LinkedIn, especially CEOs of larger companies. But it is also one of those phrases people use without being very clear about what it means.
Does it mean talking about your family? Sharing vacation photos? Admitting mistakes? Posting pictures of your dog? It could include any of those things, but it’s more than that.
Humanizing a CEO means helping people see the person behind the title. You are giving employees, customers, partners, investors, candidates, and others a better sense of who you are, what you care about, how you think, and what it might be like to work with you.
CEOs can easily seem remote, especially as companies grow. Employees may rarely interact with the CEO. Customers may know the company well but know almost nothing about the person running it. Potential employees, partners, and investors may have very little information beyond a formal bio and whatever they hear in meetings.
LinkedIn gives you a way to close some of that distance.
Key Takeaways:
- Humanizing a CEO means helping people see the person behind the title. It gives employees, customers, investors, and candidates a sense of who you are and what it would be like to work with you, which matters more as the company grows and the CEO seems remote.
- Humanizing does not mean getting personal. Share professionally relevant stories instead, like a mentor who shaped how you lead or a mistake that taught you something.
- The easiest ways to humanize are through everyday signals such as enthusiasm, humor, specific pride in your team, curiosity, and accessible hobbies. Specificity matters. “So proud of this team” says nothing, but naming what they did shows what you value.
- The person online has to match the person people meet in real life. If you seem warm online but employees don’t experience you that way, it damages your credibility.
Why humanizing the CEO matters
People are more comfortable with people they feel they know.
When they understand something about your personality, values, experiences, and leadership style, it becomes easier to relate to you and easier to trust you.
- A CEO who seems approachable is more likely to get honest feedback from employees.
- A CEO who regularly recognizes the contributions of other people reinforces a culture where those contributions matter.
- A CEO who talks thoughtfully about customers makes it clear that customers are more than revenue numbers.
- A CEO who shares some of the experiences that shaped their thinking gives people more context for the decisions they make.
There is also a broader communications benefit. Company news is generally more interesting when it comes from a person than when it comes from a corporate account. The same is true for industry commentary, leadership ideas, customer stories, and recruiting messages.
When people have some sense of who you are, they are more likely to pay attention to what you have to say.
Humanizing does not mean getting overly personal
CEOs hear that they should be authentic or vulnerable on LinkedIn and assume they are going to have to talk about things they consider private.
You do not have to do this. There is no reason to talk about your children, your spouse, your health, your finances, or anything else you would rather keep to yourself.
The goal is to share enough of yourself that people have a sense of the person they are dealing with.
For example, you might tell a story about someone who gave you an opportunity early in your career and explain how that affects the way you mentor people today. You might talk about a mistake you made as a young manager and what you learned from it. You might share something a customer said that changed your thinking.
Those are personal stories, but they are also relevant to your professional role.
Start with what you want people to know about you
Before you decide what personal stories to tell, think about what you actually want people to understand about you.
- How do you want customers to experience you?
- What do you want employees to know about the way you lead?
- What should a potential senior hire understand about your priorities?
- What do you want investors or partners to know about the way you think?
For example, you may want people to understand that you listen closely to customers. Or that you are willing to change your mind when the facts change. Or that you care deeply about developing people. Or that you have spent 20 years working on the problem your company solves.
Once you know what you want people to understand, it is much easier to identify stories that support that impression.
What kind of content humanizes a CEO?
When people talk about humanizing a CEO, they often assume you need personal stories: a challenge you overcame, a mistake you made, or an experience that shaped you.
Those stories can make great posts, but they are also hard to write. Most CEOs do not have a ready supply of meaningful personal stories they are comfortable sharing.
Here are some ways to humanize yourself that are easier and more comfortable to write about:
Enthusiasm
Show what you are genuinely excited about. Maybe you just saw a customer do something fascinating with your technology. Maybe your team solved a problem you have been working on for months. Maybe something new is happening in your industry that you think is going to change everything.
Enthusiasm comes through, and it is appealing. When a CEO is genuinely excited about something, you get a much better sense of the person behind the title.
Humor
A sense of humor can do the same thing. An amusing observation, a little self-deprecation, or a funny photo from an event can make you much more approachable.
Pride in your team
Most CEOs already do posts about their employees and culture, but specificity makes a big difference. “So proud of this amazing team” could have been written by anyone. Tell us what they did. What impressed you? What did someone handle particularly well? What made you proud? Those details tell us something about the team, but they also tell us something about you and what you value.
Curiosity
Talk about something you are wondering about, something you are starting to notice, or a question you keep hearing from customers. You can ask other people what they are seeing. That kind of post feels much more like a conversation, and it gives people an easier way to engage with you.
Surprise
You can also let people see what surprises or delights you. A customer may be using your product in a way you never anticipated. Someone on your team may have come up with a clever solution. A new employee may ask a question that makes you rethink an assumption.
Day in the life
Everyday glimpses of your job can be fascinating. A photo from a customer visit, a trade show, a company event, a team lunch, or even you being a tourist after a business meeting can show people a little more of your world without requiring you to share anything particularly personal.
Sports and hobbies
Running a marathon, playing in a band, coaching a team, gardening, or volunteering can give people another way to connect with you.
Note: I would avoid sharing hobbies that are expensive and inaccessible to most people. Talking about skiing in Gstaad or sailing on your new yacht can make you less relatable.
Engagement is part of this too
What you post is not the only thing people notice. A CEO who only broadcasts and never interacts will still seem fairly remote.
If someone leaves a thoughtful comment, respond when you can. Comment on posts from employees, customers, partners, and other people in your industry. Congratulate people. Thank them. Join conversations where you have something useful to add.
Where humanizing a CEO can go wrong
There are risks that you need to consider.
The first is simply sharing too much. You can disclose information that you or your family later wish you had kept private.
There is also the risk of inconsistency. If you present yourself online as warm, accessible, and deeply interested in employees, but that is not how employees experience you, your LinkedIn presence can actually hurt your credibility. The person people see online needs to be recognizably the same person they meet in real life.
You also need to think carefully about controversial topics. CEOs are certainly entitled to have opinions, and there are times when taking a position makes sense. But personal opinions can have consequences for the company, so it is worth considering the potential reaction from all of your stakeholders.
One way to test
When you are considering a post that is more personal than your usual content, ask yourself: What will someone understand about me after reading this that they did not understand before?
If the answer is something such as how you lead, what you value, why you care about a particular issue, or what shaped your thinking, the story probably belongs in your communications.
Humanizing a CEO is about allowing people to know you well enough to understand the person leading the company.
It means showing enough of your personality, enthusiasm, humor, curiosity, values, and relationships that people have a sense of who you are and what it would be like to work with you.
Because when people know the person behind the title, it becomes easier to trust the leader, connect with the company, and want to be part of what you are building.