What 3,593 LinkedIn Professionals Are Teaching Us About Identity

We thought we were building a personal brand assessment.

What we’ve realised is that something much bigger is happening.

Over the past three months alone, 3,593 professionals from LinkedIn have completed the My Brand Academy Personal Brand Archetype Assessment. 

Every assessment represents a person.

A career.

A collection of experiences.

A story.

At first, we simply wanted to help people better understand their personal brand.

But as more people completed the assessment, a different picture began to emerge.

We weren’t just helping individuals.

We were beginning to observe patterns.

Patterns in how people understand themselves.

Patterns in how people describe their strengths.

Patterns in what holds people back.

Patterns in what people aspire to become.

It made us realise something.

Perhaps we’ve spent years talking about personal branding, when the real conversation has always been about identity.

This is the first edition of The Identity Intelligence Report, where we’ll share what we’re learning from this growing global community of professionals and what those insights tell us about the relationship between identity, story and personal branding.

The biggest insight wasn’t what we expected.

If you’d asked me before launching the assessment what the biggest challenge would be, I might have said confidence.

The data suggests something different.

It suggests clarity.

Across all completed assessments, more than eight in every ten people fall into just two archetypes. 

• 51.4% Emerging Leaders
• 30.5% Overthinkers 

On the surface, those appear to be very different people.

One is eager to grow.

The other often hesitates before taking action.

But beneath both sits the same question.

Who am I, really?

Not…

How do I get promoted?

How do I get more followers?

How do I write better content?

But…

What makes me different?

What should I be known for?

How do I explain the experiences that have shaped me?

Where am I going next?

Those aren’t branding questions.

They’re identity questions.

Regional observations.

While this is only the first quarter of data, a number of interesting patterns are already emerging.

Europe

The United Kingdom showed one of the strongest proportions of Overthinkers within our largest country samples, suggesting many professionals are balancing experience with uncertainty about what’s next. 

The Netherlands showed one of the strongest proportions of Purpose Seekers, perhaps reflecting an increasing focus on meaningful work and long-term fulfilment. 

North America

Participants from both the United States and Canada were predominantly Emerging Leaders, with Canada also showing one of the strongest proportions of Purpose Seekers in the dataset. 

Africa

Nigeria recorded one of the highest proportions of Emerging Leaders at 57.2%, pointing towards a strong sense of ambition and future potential within our current sample. 

South Africa presented one of the most balanced distributions between Emerging Leaders and Overthinkers, reminding us that confidence and uncertainty often coexist. 

Asia

India closely reflected the overall global pattern, with Emerging Leaders and Overthinkers making up the overwhelming majority of results. 

Although these observations are early, they reinforce something important.

Identity may be deeply personal.

But the search for it is universal.

The Archetype Is Only The Beginning

One of the biggest misconceptions about assessments is the belief that a single label tells the whole story.

It doesn’t.

Your primary archetype simply describes the dominant pattern we currently observe. It’s the headline, not the full article.

Every person who completes the assessment also receives a much deeper identity profile, exploring the unique combination of strengths, behaviours, motivations, communication patterns, opportunities and development areas that sit beneath their primary archetype.

Two people can both be classified as Emerging Leaders.

Yet one may naturally inspire through creativity, another through strategic thinking.

One may be highly visible and confident, while another possesses the same potential but still struggles with self-belief.

The archetype explains where you are.

The deeper profile helps explain why.

That nuance is where meaningful personal growth begins.

Identity Is Layered

Our research increasingly suggests that identity cannot be understood through a single label.

Instead, it exists across multiple layers.

Layer One Your dominant archetype.

Layer Two The behavioural patterns that shape how you naturally show up.

Layer Three The experiences, beliefs and stories that have formed your identity over time.

This is why two people with the same archetype often communicate differently, make different decisions and build very different careers.

Understanding those layers is what transforms information into insight.Your story is your strategy.

Your story is your strategy.

One of the biggest lessons from analysing thousands of assessments is that people already have everything they need.

They simply haven’t connected the dots.

Every success.

Every setback.

Every opportunity.

Every difficult decision.

Every relationship.

Every chapter of your life has contributed something to who you are today.

The challenge isn’t creating a better story.

It’s making sense of the one you’ve already lived.

That’s why we’ve always believed…

Your story is your strategy.

Not because your past defines your future.

But because understanding your story gives you the clarity to shape it intentionally.

Identity has no borders.

Although every participant discovered the assessment through LinkedIn, the responses already span professionals from across Europe, Africa, North America and Asia. 

Different countries.

Different cultures.

Different industries.

Yet the questions remain remarkably similar.

Who am I?

What makes me distinctive?

What strengths do other people already see in me?

How do I build a career that feels authentic?

The percentages vary.

The stories don’t.

Identity appears to be one of the few truly global conversations.

Perhaps we’ve been asking the wrong question.

For years we’ve talked about building personal brands.

Maybe personal branding has never been the starting point.

Maybe it’s the outcome.

You can’t communicate what you don’t understand.

You can’t build a reputation around something you can’t articulate.

And you can’t build an authentic personal brand until you’ve first understood the person behind it.

That’s why we believe personal branding begins long before someone writes a LinkedIn post, launches a business or updates their profile.

It begins with understanding yourself.

Looking ahead.

This report marks the end of the first quarter since launching the Personal Brand Archetype Assessment.

Over the coming months, we’ll continue to publish insights from this growing global dataset, exploring what it teaches us about identity, story, self-awareness and personal branding.

Our ambition isn’t simply to build one of the world’s leading personal brand assessments.

It’s to help shape a deeper conversation around Identity Intelligence.

Because before you can become known for who you are…

You first have to understand who you are.

Thank you.

To everyone who has already completed the Personal Brand Archetype Assessment, thank you.

Every assessment helps another individual better understand themselves, while also contributing to a growing body of insight into how people around the world are making sense of their identity and story.

If you haven’t yet taken the assessment, we’d love you to be part of the next edition of The Identity Intelligence Report.

Take the free Personal Brand Archetype Assessment here

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