Analyzing Social and Leadership

Social Media Leadership

This study is designed to understand evolution of leaders' behavior and approach to leadership because of social media's pervasive influence on employees and followers. The study also investigates the effectiveness of leadership by analyzing flexible and adaptable authority styles and designating leadership methods based on circumstances encountered in organizations. The study attempted to demonstrate how leadership adaptability and effectiveness can be achieved simultaneously through the use of social media.

The research ascertained the leaders' standpoint on social media for their leadership practice and the benefits the organization accrues. The manner in which leaders steer their organizations, and the manner in which they choose to communicate, collaborate, build relationships, make decisions, and create new business opportunities is predicated on creating an environment of trust in their organizations. Leadership effectiveness within the social media context is based on the leaders' abilities to make real-time decisions necessary to effectively influence other's activities within and outside their organization.

This study promotes awareness of the benefits of social media for leaders and their organizations. Most research studies on contemporary, effective leadership have focused on studying leadership behaviors from standpoint of conventional environments, while only a few studies have focused on studying leadership behaviors commensurate with nontraditional, evolving environments. Therefore, this research study contributes more value and insights to the body of literature and the leadership model by presenting ideas and results by applying social media leadership to examine leadership behavior within the social media context. Thus, this research study seeks to project leadership models and practices to a new level by examining the leadership behaviors within and outside their organizations. It considered the relationship between leaders and outside people as leaders and followers in categorized relationships such as current clients and new customers.

The capability of the leader to adapt to an organizational environment and the way the leader deals with employees, customers or followers will reflect his or her behavior (positive or negative). It is difficult for followers to imbue, develop, and improve their knowledge and skills from an incapable leader (without self-confidence and knowledge in his or her domain), especially when the leader is inadequate in his leadership experiences. As a result, the transfer of knowledge and ideas can be difficult.

Leaders must have strong social skills and profess belief in the outcomes predicted through their job duties, especially when they are building relationship with people through social media. Softening one's leadership style does not necessarily weaken the ability of the leader to be effective; instead, it will make him or her real, humane, and responsive leader who has the ability to understand and acknowledge other's feelings and emotions. Thus, there is the need for the role of leaders to promote social media concepts within their organization to determine how it would encourage and inspire individuals to adapt social media concepts and the willingness of leaders to participate in the process and become active members of online community. Also, there is the need for examination of whether social media increases a positive contribution that facilitates relationships and opportunities to influence the outcome from which both leaders and organizations can gain insights, without jeopardizing private information.

In the Social Media world, the information flows from all directions. The effectiveness of leadership within Social Media world is dependent on the leadership willingness to participate in process, enhance and advance followers' engagement within open dynamic Social Media environment, adapt behavior to rapid environmental changes and thereby develop ability to respond swiftly to varied demands.

Leadership -- - -- can you help to select title for this section?

The development of leadership theories has taken place over centuries, and leadership models have been debated since ancient times. Leadership is a process based on modeling the highest standards of behaviors and capabilities to positively influence, inspire, collaborate, knowledge sharing, adaptation to changes while maintaining flexibility, motivate and coach followers to work collaboratively to achieve a common goal. Leaders can visualize, crystallize and induce change and influence the followers. The professional core values of leadership, therefore, then, are honesty, competency, and wisdom. Leaders inspire the whole group of followers to be more effective and seek benefits for the group's collective interest over and above individual concerns.

The advancement of social media has changed the way individuals and leaders connect and interact within and outside organizations. Social Media enables people to connect and interact with other easily, at will, independent of geographical barriers. It enables and empowers leaders and individuals with resources and capacity that exceed those offered in a traditional setting. Also, it allows individuals and leaders to be engaged in the process, make choices, and adapt to change at the same time sustaining flexibility. Therefore, it is reasonable to postulate that the ever-expanding role of social media as a leadership tool may impact leadership effectiveness and practices as leaders adapt their leadership styles to accommodate leading in a socially networked work world.

Understanding leadership behavior and approach are evolving as a result of social media's pervasive influence on employees and organizations. This book attempted to demonstrate how leadership adaptability and effectiveness can be achieved simultaneously through the use of social media. The manner in which leaders steer their organizations, and the manner in which they choose to communicate, collaborate, build relationships, make decisions, and create new business opportunities is predicated on creating an environment of trust in their organizations. E-leadership effectiveness within the social media context is based on the leaders' abilities to make real-time decisions necessary to effectively influence other's activities within and outside their organization.

E-leaders face special leadership issues created by the prevalence of social media; including bridging physical distance, with those who may never even see them, to convey enthusiasm and inspire people implementing goals and plans, and building trust. At the same time, however, the virtual environment presents unique communication, trust, relationship, motivation, and technology challenges that may impede primary leadership functions (Arnold, 2008; Bergiel et al., 2008; Lee, 2010). Successful leadership in the virtual environment requires complex e-leadership techniques, such as effective communication, relationship building, collaboration, and flexibility (Carte et al., 2006). Obolensky (2010) emphasized the importance of communication implements that enable real-time networking, while the increase in communication technology has greatly enhanced the complexity of the world recently. Samuel (2012) states that social networking websites have brought new opportunities for communication, knowledge sharing, and relationship building. Additionally, effective collaborations frequently require offering new services, expanding staff roles, or reaching out to new client groups, and not just co-locating services or combining standard services in new locations (Sviridoff&Ryan, 1997). These approaches require new relationships to be built on trust through mundane interactions -- personal introductions, meetings, sharing newsletters, reintroducing self to staff when there is high staff turnover, and helping each other solve problems (Campbell & Glunt, 2004).

Social Media has influenced how organizations function, transforming the role of leaders in order to deal with this new emerging technology. Leaders must address both internal and external considerations that result from business activities. According to Balkundi and Kilduff (2006), the relationship between leaders and followers is based "on the acuity of their social perceptions and the structure of their social ties" (p. 421). Social relationships among leaders and followers within organizations, and with followers outside organizations are of vital significance. An efficient and successful leader is able to gauge, appreciate, and exploit social network relationships among organization members, as well as between members and other stakeholders beyond the organization's boundaries and is able to leverage individual personal networks for the benefit of the organization (Balkundi&Kilduff, 2006).

Nature of the Issue and Challenges

The essential leadership objectives remain the same and deal with the same leadership issues. Accordingly, e-leaders contend with the same issues and context as traditional leaders while making use of and adapting to the spaces and issues created by the prevalence of social media. Communication media are now computers, smartphones, tablet devices, and their leadership style and approach must bridge physical distance; leaders must convey enthusiasm and inspire people electronically, implement goals and plans electronically, and build trust with peers and leaders remotely. On the other hand, the social media provides the leader with the ability to communicate individually or en masse via the network instantly.

Many businesses feel that social media are problematic when used by employees. Companies apprehensive of losing control of information flows and some organizations leaders are unwilling to embark on a personalized communications program that may raise expectations of employees. Further, they are inclined to worry about confidentiality and safety of sensitive issues and internal communication meant strictly for internal use. They surmise that such information could be leaked and spread over the Internet. Also, Leader-Chivee, Hamilton, & Cowan (2008), indicated that many companies remain skeptical that there is value in spending time online, and they worry about the risks associated with these technologies. Currently 65% of U.S. employers block certain Web sites from access behind the corporate firewall, and half of those specifically block access to social networking sites. This resistance is partially to keep employees from wasting time, but the veiled reason is also risk aversion (Leader, Chive's, p.44).

It is thus obvious that for social media to be used effectively in an organization a degree of trust should exist between management and the workforce. Guidelines need to be established to govern behaviors and decorum on networking websites as they are an extension of the work environment. By prohibiting access to this websites management could discourage people from using them to communicate and collaborate (Awolusi, 2010, p.3). On the other hand, there is a risk of workers wasting valuable production time if some employees can use social networking sites excessively and spend time on things that are not related to work (Caloisi, 2008).

The business gains and benefits of social media in the workplace are still very much underappreciated and underrated. Although some companies across the world have started to implement some of the facets of social media technology and gain the business benefits, fear, resistance and risk are the opinions that still dominate many organizations (Bennett, 2010).

On the other hand, there are still many corporations resisting losing control of information flows and fear that use of social networks for personal use could compromise corporate sensitive information and raise some issues related to corporate information confidential. Other companies block access to social media to keep employees from wasting time.Another issue of concern to the management is about protection of intellectual property, inside secrets, and company procedures that could be exposed to public or competitors via consumer social networking websites (Sarrel, 2010). Despite these risks, many companies generally avoid banning access to consumer social networks on company time (Caloisi, 2008). Research from Network Box concluded that streams from Facebook and YouTube accounted for more corporate web activity and used bandwidth than any other websites. This causes a real problem for businesses because streaming videos occupy and consume a huge amount of corporate bandwidth (M2PressWire, 2010).

It has also been pointed out that an organization's business reputation could be negatively impacted and damaged by current or former employees through the posting of inappropriate photo links, rumors, or otherwise unauthorized business strategy updates on the company's online system (Awolusi, 2010). According to an internet security analyst, the absolute volume of traffic from corporate networks to social networking sites proves that employees used social networking sites for personal reasons and not strictly for business purposes (M2PressWire, 2010). Concerns surrounding privacy issues also arise, when organizations allow their employees access to social networking sites. For organizations to sufficiently address these problems, they may require additional labor resources. These expenses could negate the positive benefits of participating in a consumer social networking environment when considered all together (Awolusi, 2010).

Open information sharing

In today's the open world of social media, leaders must evaluate new knowledge and build a solid foundation of community by engaging and transferring that knowledge to others. This will help leaders in gaining new knowledge and information, which will benefit them and their organization. Leaders should take the opportunity to examine their leadership style and learn from the experiences of others in order to improve and develop their leadership's effectiveness. Sharing and transformation of knowledge should be based on the benefits it brings to others, and to the community, while positively impacting and changing the global economy. The ability for leaders to adapt to new social situations, build a social network, collaborate with others (including crossing barriers to establish partnerships), exchange ideas and create a new channel of communication, benefits everyone overall.

Sharing information in the open world of social media is a new challenge for leaders. The information (that includes both, good and bad news) can spread quickly and widely across the entire social media platforms. The implication is that data and information flow is irreversible and cannot be erased. As such, leaders need to learn to be careful about their tone and content of postings, and avoid unacceptable online behavior. Social media can cause as much negative effect as it can as an advantageous, positive implement.

At times, open information works well to demonstrate the facts. For example, if people are posting a happening of an event on the web, then it gives the full details about what was going on. Though technology is constantly evolving, video or images can be altered, which nullifies the argument. For example, Facebook executives are willing to share information widely, but it remains sensitive to business realities. The executives have made it clear to employees that if they want to share information, they must keep it internal and treat this information with respect otherwise the privilege of sharing information would be at risk. In this example, Facebook is practicing one rule of open leadership, which holds openness accountable. (Li, 2010)

The aim of information sharing is to inform people about decision, direction, strategy, associates, and distributors, thereby raising belief and confidence that helps collaboration and homogeneity in the workspace and aligning it easily towards achieving common goals. Leadership needs to actively practice sharing with their employees to grow and shape the relationship. The key benefit of sharing information is aligning goals by sharing logic, thinking, and decision-making process. This type of sharing should happen more regularly especially when executives of a company descend to share results by using blogs and Twitter accounts that enable employees to share their thoughts and decisions (Li, 2010).

Moreover, social networking allows leadership to be engaged in the process, make choices, and adapt to change while maintaining flexibility. This style of leadership applies to complexity theory and open leadership theory, which allow leadership and employees to be more flexible and participative in the work environment, share more, and open systems to allow knowledge and information to flow freely through all layers of an organization in a flexible and proactive manner. This type of leadership is more effective and productive than traditional leadership and will lead to more flexible processes, ease work pressures, and improve return on investment by using a more open environment. Obolensky (2010) asserts that when people are very flexible (attitudinally, as idealized by leaders) and systems are open, information is shared freely and total transparency is achieved (p.27).

Develop Social and Emotional Intelligence

Leaders need to develop high level of social and emotional intelligence while using Social Media because any objectionable comment or behavior in the social media by the leaders will invite criticism and adversely impact leaders and their organizations. Leaders need to develop emotional skills and improve their self-awareness, self-regulation and empathy to develop and improve their leadership skill and become more effective and efficient leader in their domain.

Leaders develop their emotional intelligence through time and life experience. Emotional intelligence is associated with so many factors in people's lives, including their personal life, academic life, and occupational success. Leaders should develop and improve emotional intelligence and the ability to understand feelings, in order to acknowledge the feelings of others, and respond sensitively. Thus by involving them in discussion of the current issues, they would be creating ideal models of conduct. Using this technique the leader will gain their trust and commitment to the goals of organization.