Social Media – Technology’s Leadership Innovation

Technology has provided innovations in business, education, agriculture – virtually every field and industry. Finally, through social media, technology is also a cornerstone of innovation for leadership.

Leadership is Influence

“Leadership is influence, nothing more, nothing less.” – John Maxwell

As leadership great John Maxwell explains, to lead is to influence. To lead well, you must be a servant leader. To serve others, you must have an effective means of communicating with those individuals.

For centuries, it’s been easy to communicate to large groups, but communicating with a mass has not been easy. Before social media, it was not possible to communicate with the masses.

Influence Requires a Dialogue

Old world publishing enabled mass-messaging but the communication was unilateral. There was no effective tool by which you could receive feedback from those masses. This continued until recent history. Social media solves this problem.

Now, leaders can broadcast their message in a public forum. Recipients of that message can respond quickly and publicly. Then, the masses can rate up or down responses. If thousands agree with a response, it is quickly “liked”, “plus oned”, “favorited”, “hearted”, “loved”…. whatever. The leader has real-time feedback from the masses.

In short, the leader is, for the first time, able to hold a massive dialogue.

Massive Dialogue Enables Massive Influence

Through this new communication technology, leaders conduct massive dialogue. A massive dialogue enables a leader to have greater influence. The leader who sends communications to the public, engages and supports feedback, gains trust and influence with stakeholders.

Massive Influence is Massive Leadership

As the leader’s engagement in social media grows, so does their engagement in massive dialogue. As massive dialogue grows, so does their influence. As leadership is influence, the leadership grows to the degree of their influence.

Throughout history, technology has served virtually all industries and fields. Thanks to the evolution of social media, technology is finally serving leadership. Thank you, technology.

Question: How else has technology served leadership?