Social Media and Leadership -- what's the impact?

Recently I've been spending a lot of time learning and investigating social media. Don't get me wrong. I've been in LinkedIn for a few years, in Facebook for the last two, and in Twitter for about a year. Recently I joined XeeSM, a social network site aggregator that allows me to have my sites in one place (more is planned for the site, so keep an eye on them). Needless to say, Social Media is here. Take a look at this YouTube video if you have doubts.

What does that mean for us leaders? It's hard enough being a leader face-to-face. Harder when using the phone and email to communicate with team members. But, now we have to deal with social media and its impact on our efforts? What kind of leadership presence can we project through these sites? Until now, most of these sites have been personal (that is, focused on one person) although many organizations have Facebook pages. How can we use Facebook and similar sites to help our efforts?

I see these sites as being able to allow leaders to build their personal, relational, and contextual leadership by sharing information about themselves, connecting with others, and explaining the context within which the team does its work. Properly done they may even be helpful in the inspirational aspects of leadership.

But, does that mean we "friend" everyone in our team to our Facebook page? Do we create a page just for the team? How about issues of external vs. internal access? If our team is internal to the organization, how to we set up such social networks? If both inside and outside, a Facebook or similar page may be better.

With no current project to use as context, my preference would be to set up a site for the team. Similar in a way to what organizations do currently with file sharing services (e.g., Sharepoint) but with more ability for people to post personal information. But that may not be the best approach. This is a new set of technologies. What do you think?

A very good leadership model

Last week I had the opportunity to attend a leadership workshop at Duke University. Led by Sim Sitkin and Allan Lind, two Fuqua Business Schools professors at Duke, psychologists by training, it taught leadership from what I would consider one of the most complete leadership models I've seen (an overview and article are available at Delta Leadership's site).

The model uses a pyramid with six leadership domains to describe the behaviors a leader must exhibit and the impact such behaviors can have.

At the base of the pyramid are the foundation of all good leaders: personal, relational, and contextual leadership.

Personal Leadership addresses the leader's personality, which must be real. It includes expertise, and creativity and innovation among other. It leads to Credibility of the leader by his/her subordinates.

Relational Leadership addresses how leaders relate to their followers, peers, and superiors. It leads to Trust.

Contextual Leadership addresses how leaders simplify and explain to subordinates the situation and mission. It leads to a sense of Community.

On level up on the pyramid are Inspirational and Supportive Leadership. They build on the leadership domains below. If the domains below are not strong, these domains can be impacted.

Inspirational Leadership addresses the behaviors of the leaders that inspire his/her subordinates and leads to high Aspirations by the followers.

Supportive Leadership provides the support that subordinates need to take the Initiative.

At the apex of the pyramid is Responsible Leadership. This domain addresses the ethics, governance, and other ares of responsibility of all leaders and it leads to Stewardship. Like Inspirational and Supportive Leadership, it depends on the domains below it.

This is but a very brief description of the model to provide an idea. Please refer to the article available at Delta Leadership for details. A book is still "in the works" which would provide a more complete description than an article is able to provide. If you have the time and the resources, I strongly recommend the six-day workshop. It includes personal coaching using a 360-degree assessment based on the model as well as the development of action plans to improve your leadership. Delta Leadership does provide customized, shorter training. Contact Carol Land for details.