How is your leadership… on Social Media?

I’m really interested in how leaders on social media and especially Twitter “show up”. I’m particularly interested in how they are succeeding, or indeed failing, to show up as they want to. It’s that constant question of what is your leadership presence creating.

If I followed online them what might my experience of their leadership be like?

If I knew them well enough would I get a hollow online experience, a socially engaging one or something in between?

If you are using social media in your work, how you show up is actually a mark of your leadership. So although there is a mindset approach to using channels such as Twitter, where sharing socially is key, some leadership fundamentals still apply:

1. Know what you want to achieve. What are you trying to foster, create or achieve? Know your “why”.
2. Look to your measures of success. What will show you are succeeding or failing in what you are trying to foster, create or achieve? Know your measures of success.
3. Be sure not to carry all the weight. Are you carrying all the weight or are you bringing others with you? Create advocacy and support for your “why”.
4. Ensure your presence actually creates value. How are people experiencing you and your pursuit of your “why”? Get specific and contextual feedback.
5. Be yourself. In your leadership role can you be anything but yourself? Be yourself as you truly need to be.

My sense is that we can all struggle at times with maintaining such clarity and focus, perhaps especially so on Social Media. So taking time to stop and think about what you are actually doing with our leadership is always a worthwhile investment.

But don’t I need to be social?

You’ll possibly have noted that I’ve not advocated being “social” above. It’s for good reason…

• Firstly, I think if you weren’t interested in being social in some way, shape or form then you just wouldn’t use channels like Twitter. You wouldn’t see the value, yet.
• Secondly, our sense of “social” is very personal and contextual. It needs to sit within the above, in the manner that you choose, with the relationships that you choose. You need to be your social self, not someone else’s imagining of what you should be.
• Finally, I think understanding how you are social online is a far more important than an assertion about “needing to be social”.

In my next post I’d like to share some further perspectives on this question of how are you social as a leader on Social Media.

If you’d like to talk confidentially about your own leadership and how you “show up” on social media, please do get in touch. I’d be very happy to chat further, share my thinking and help you further if I can.

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