Leadership can be defined in many ways, but the common factor is to do with enabling a group to follow a direction. Taking a direction implies some sort of effort and change: since ‘going with the flow’ doesn’t really require much leadership?  Anything which helps groups to identify and accept, or agree, a direction and to take action toward it is relevant to leadership.  Social media – conversations in public – are one set of ways (though not the only set of ways) of getting groups to take a direction.  This means social media matters to leaders?

To explain why social media matters and to understand more about how it matters to leaders, it’s useful to think about the other ways there are of getting groups to follow a direction.  These include:

• having authority based on controlling a resource – money, information, preferment, membership of the group etc. – which members of the group want and which can be offered as a reward
• being able to exert a pressure – ridicule, peer pressure, social embarrassment, isolation from the group etc – which members of the group do not want and which can be used as a threat
• having the means to persuade by rational argument – intellect, gravitas, strategic insight etc – which members of the group understand and respect
• having the means to persuade by other character traits – charisma, oratory, parentage, status, buying a lot of TV adverts etc – which members of the group understand and respect
• having the means to know what the group thinks and feels – opinion polls, focus groups etc – in order to predict what it is most likely to go along with.

These ways have various shortcomings.  Two of which they probably all have in common:

1. they all depend on having special access to something in limited supply – and if you don’t have the money, power, enormous brain, beauty or insider knowledge to use them, they won’t work
2. they can all, depending on the circumstances, seem a bit morally suspect – and if you don’t want to bribe, bully, confuse, dazzle or wheedle your way into power, they might not work.

Talking about things in public – social media – by contrast, doesn’t depend on having special access to anything – just fairly normal access to the people you want to influence.  Similarly, it’s hard to see how having a chat – listening, learning and suggesting ideas – can be seen as immoral?  Social media is very widely accessible and morally transparent way of getting a group to take a direction.  Its shortcomings may actually be seen as advantages:

• it is collaborative – which could be a problem if you want the group to move particularly fast in an emergency etc, but in most circumstances this would probably be seen as a benefit
• the direction it leads to is co-created – which is to say it might not be much good if you want to group to move very definitely in a particular direction in line with ideology etc, but in most other circumstance would probably be seen as a good thing.

In an emergency, or if the direction you are taking is firmly ideological, social media probably isn’t much use (and you might be better off looking at the list above to find an alternative).  In relation to most real-world decisions, social media is a rather good approach?

 

How Leaders Can Use Social Media

In contrast to how leaders use authority (they tell people what to do with it), social media – conversation – is a rather flexible tool.  There are at least six ways you can use it based on:

• what you say – you can use it to share your ideas, views and suggestions
• what you echo – you can use it to share other people’s ideas and views etc with which you agree
• what you filter – you can point out the important bit in all this is being said
• what you explain – you can explain the important underlying factor in all that is being said
• what you put together – you can draw two or more things that are being said together to make a point
• what you ask – you can use questions and listen to answers in order to find out more.

 

Local Leaders in particular?

Social media has been used by leaders at all levels and in all types of situations.  It may, however, be of particular use to local leaders because:

• it is very accessible (you don’t have to be a Government department or run a multinational company to use it) and so it gives local groups and their leaders the power to share, learn, create, collaborate, and solve problems, without relying on conventionally important institutions to help them get it done.
• it works well when different channels of communication converge – which is when, for example, you use a Facebook group to talk about a local park which you can also meet people in face to face and organise a community conversation about at the local school (which you can report the results of via Facebook).  Different sorts of face-to-face conversation can feed into, and from, online conversation in a local setting.  This works locally, but it is hard to do at city-wide, national or European levels.

 

Command-and-Control v Collaboration

Social media matters to leaders – perhaps to local leaders in particular.  You can use it to listen and learn before you speak and you can amplify your words across different conversations. If you use social media well, it can give you a kind of ‘sixth sense’ to tell what is going on beneath the surface in your neighbourhood. You can use it to find out what is happening behind the scenes – who is doing what and what could be achieved.

Research suggests that using social media effectively can change the relationship between councillors and the communities they serve: it leads to a more collaborative style.  Command-and-control type leaders might not gain much by using social media, but co-operative local leaders might gain a great deal.  Bear in mind though that one of the important factors in effective social media at local level is likely to be the extent you are able to make it converge and fit in with good community dialogue and face-to-face local meetings.  Co-operation works best when the co-operators have lots of channels to communicate with.

 

Now, where next?

Back to the section on Community Dialogue

Off to the section on Local Meetings and Forums

On with this section to look at Social Media facts and figures

Take a diversion to listen to two great leaders who used social media

OR – follow the menu on the right to have a look at other parts of the guide.