What is Social Media Leadership?
December 14, 2011 1 Comment
Note: The idea for this post came from a reader’s comment about how new the area of social media leadership is to the leadership community (Thanks Justin!).
What is Social Media Leadership?
We are learning our way through this new area of leadership, which involves:
- Thinking completely differently about what we do and how we do it
- Integrating work in new ways that blur the lines between communication, marketing, research, customer service and customer engagement
- Engaging in transparent real-time communication with followers, colleagues, critics and customers
- Leading change in an area where we may not yet be fully comfortable, but where the organization needs to go to stay current, relevant and viable.
This collection of resources that I have collected for you will help you and your teams:
- see the value of joining the social media information wave
- lead individuals and groups through engagement with social media, and
- lead your organizations through successful integration of social media into daily business.
How we Think About Social Media
The Six Attitudes Leaders Take Toward Social Media by Anthony J. Bradley and Mark P. McDonald, Harvard Business Review,  blogs.hbr.org (this article includes a social readiness assessment)
How it’s Changing the World and How we WorkÂ
Leaders & Social Media: 5 Reasons to Engage by Linda Fisher Thornton, Leading in Context Blog (One of my popular recent posts!)
How We Need to Lead Social Media
How to Change From a Social Media User to a Social Media Leader Kissmetrics.com Blog
How we Begin to Integrate Social Media Into Business
The 10 Stages of Social Media Business Integration by Brian Solis on Mashable.com
Five Ways Corporate Culture Determines Social Media Success by @markwschaefer, businessgrow.com
What it Takes to Succeed in Social Media Leadership
To be successful as social media leaders, we will need to demonstrate humility, a willingness to learn and a desire to keep ourselves and our organizations competent as the world changes.
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About the Author
Linda Fisher Thornton is CEO/Owner of Leading in Context, a leadership development firm publishing learning tools that clarify what it means to lead ethically in a complex world.
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How Can Leading in Context® Publications Help Our Business?
You are invited to access the full benefits that Leading in Context provides to customers and subscribers:
- Access selected publications via Slideshare
- Develop ethical leaders using the materials in our Digital Store (via Payloadz.com)
- Participate via twitter @leadingincontxt
- Connect via the Leading in Context Facebook Page
- Connect on Google Plus
- Subscribe to the Leading in Context® Blog, which addresses ethical leadership issues in engaging weekly posts designed for business leaders
- Contact Linda Fisher Thornton at Linda@LeadinginContext.com
Ways That Leading in Context® Publications Meet Our Needs #7:  “We need a frame of reference for talking about what respect is and how to treat each other respectfully.”
Products That Help You Build a Respectful a Workplace Include:
    GR #001   Graphic  “Ethical Interpersonal Behavior”
Read More About This Graphic and see an excerpt in the articles “Ethical Interpersonal Behavior Graphic: Red, Yellow and Green Zones” and  “Ethical Leaders Care Part 2: In Action”
This stoplight graphic can be used as a tool to engage your leaders in a discussion about:
- Which behaviors are we seeing in our company that are in the red zone (behaviors that have no place in the workplace)?
- How often are we supporting one another and operating in the green zone?
- How can we communicate the expectation that everyone in our organization needs to be operating in the green zone (the ethical ceiling) and the yellow zone (caution – the ethical floor) and not in the red zone?
About Linda Fisher Thornton
Rather than helping leaders lead, we taught them to flaunt themselves in front of the media on the media†s terms.