Charlene Li shared with the World Business Forum 2010 audience thoughts from her excellent new book “Open Leadership.” Charlene focused her talk on relationships, leadership, and preparedness.
Business is all about relationships. All healthy relationships are not based on control. Leaders must learn how to give up control but still be in command. To fully utilize the new tools of social media, companies must learn how to stop thinking about how to control what people are saying and focus instead on crafting a strategy around the conversation that will organically emerge inside and outside of the company. Disciplined openness in your approach to relationships with all your constituents is a powerful advantage.
Leadership is about how much influence you have, not how much control you have. Influence in your company is widely distributed and highly networked. People that are the “connective tissue” in your organization contribute as much or more leadership than people that simply occupy positions. Social technologies redefine leadership by dramatically changing the dynamics of influence. Change driven by opportunities created by social technologies will happen independent of your endorsement – you cannot control it. The conversations enabled by social technologies make the boundaries of your company considerably more permeable. That’s great news, but only if you are prepared.
Preparedness requires discipline about being open and social in our business. Make sure you know what to do when good things are said about your business, when bad things are said, and when customers have suggestions for improvement. Don’t let any of these behaviors by the people connected to and by your company be a surprise. Leading companies are preparing for a wholesale transformation of the way you do business. As a leader, unless you are personally prepared to share (yes, that means YOU), you cannot fully appreciate the power of open leadership.
Click this link to watch a clip from Charlene’s presentation.
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