The Six Dimensions Of Social-Media-Literate Leadership

Many organizations have been responding to that new reality, realizing the power and the potential of this technology for corporate life. Internal blogs, discussion boards, and YouTube channels encourage global conversations and knowledge sharing, sophisticated viral media campaigns engage customers and create brand loyalty. Next-generation products are co-developed in open-innovation processes, and corporate leaders work on shaping their enterprise strategy.

This radical change has created a dilemma for senior executives: while the potential of social media seems immense, the inherent risks create uncertainty and unease. By nature, unbridled, these new communications media can let internal and privileged information suddenly go public virally.

We believe that capitalizing on the transformational power of social media while mitigating its risks calls for a new type of leader. The dynamics of social media amplify the need for qualities that have long been a staple of effective leadership, such as strategic creativity, authentic communication, and the ability to deal with a corporation’s social and political dynamics and to design an agile and responsive organization.

Leaders need to excel at co-creation and collaboration with the currencies of the social media world. Executives must understand the nature of different social-media tools and the unruly forces they can unleash.

The Leader As Producer: Creating Compelling Content

As video communication rises in importance, effective leadership will increasingly require the kind of creative skills we know from the world of “auteur” filmmaking—an authentic voice, imagination, and the ability to craft compelling stories and to turn them into media products that make people take note and “lean forward.” To engage in real-time on a personal level, executives will also need the technical skills to master the basics of digital-multimedia production, including how to shoot and, if necessary, edit videos.

To thrive in the world of social media, leaders need to acquire a mindset of openness and imperfection, and they must have the courage to appear “raw” and unpolished—traits that may be as challenging for them as developing creative and technical production skills.

The Leader As Distributor: Leveraging Dissemination Dynamics

As the (vertical) broadcast media and the (horizontal) participatory media converge, leaders need to master the interplay of two fundamentally different paradigms: those of the traditional channels, which follow the logic of control, and of the new channels, where it is essential to let the system’s dynamics work without too much direct intervention. Since executives won’t be able to govern or control a message once it enters the system, they must understand what might cause it to go viral and how it may be changed and annotated while spreading through the network. Distribution competence—the ability to influence the way messages to move through complex organizations—becomes as important as the ability to create compelling content.

The Leader As Recipient: Managing Communication Overflow

In traditional corporate communications, consumption is a mostly passive act: you are pretty much left alone to make sense of messages and to assess their authenticity and credibility. In the social-media realm, information gets shared and commented on within seconds, and executives must decide when (and when not) to reply, what messages should be linked to their blogs, when to copy material and mash it up with their own, and what to share with their various communities. The creation of meaning becomes a collaborative process in which leaders have to play a thoughtful part, as this is the very place where acceptance of or resistance to messages will be built.

The Leader As Adviser And Orchestrator: Driving Strategic Social-Media Utilization

To achieve this goal, leaders must become tutors and strategic orchestrators of all social-media activities within their control, including the establishment of new roles that support the logic of networked communication—for instance, community mentors, content curators, network analysts, and social entrepreneurs. Organizational units that leverage the new technologies in a coordinated and strategically aligned way will become more visible and gain influence in a corporation’s overall power dynamics.

The Leader As Architect: Creating An Enabling Organizational Infrastructure

Leaders who have steeped themselves in new media will testify that it requires them to navigate between potentially conflicting goals: they must strive to establish an organizational and technical infrastructure that encourages free exchange but also enforce controls that mitigate the risks of irresponsible use. This is a tough organizational-design challenge. Most companies have a defined formal organization, with explicit vertical systems of accountability. But below the surface of org charts and process manuals, we find an implicit, less manageable “informal organization,” which has always been important and now gets amplified through social media. The leader’s task is to marry vertical accountability with networked horizontal collaboration in a way that is not mutually destructive.

The Leader As Analyst: Staying Ahead Of The Curve

As companies start to digest the consequences of the Web 3.0 revolution, the next paradigm shift is already knocking on the door. The next generation of connectivity—the Internet of Things—will link together appliances, cars, and all kinds of objects. As a result, there will be about 50 billion connected devices by the year 2025. This transformation will open new opportunities, spawn new business models, and herald yet another major inflexion point that leaders must manage.

Organizations that develop a critical mass of leaders who master the six dimensions of organizational media literacy will have a brighter future. They will be more creative, innovative, and agile. They will attract and retain better talent, as well as tap deeper into the capabilities and ideas of their employees and stakeholders. They will be more effective in collaborating across internal and external boundaries and enjoy a higher degree of global integration. They will benefit from tighter and more loyal customer relationships and from the brand equity that comes with them. They will be more likely to play leading roles in their industries by better leveraging the capabilities of their partners and alliances in co-creation, co-development, and overall industry collaboration. And they will be more likely to create new business models that capitalize on the potential of evolving communications technologies.

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