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What Twitter Can Teach Leaders

I love Twitter... ever present on my iPhone, my Twitter page keeps me connected. To some it’s a communication tool, to others a gossip aggregator, and to others a beloved time-waster. But I believe that the way in which Twitter works should remind leaders of some truths about effective leadership. Thankfully, in many places, the old command and control style of leadership is pushing up the daisies. As Sony puts it “we live in exponential times” and I believe these times call for a serious rethink of our leadership models.

So what can we as leaders learn from Twitter?

People follow you by choice (and can opt out any time)

There’s nothing I can do to make people follow me on Twitter. They choose. In fact anyone can choose to follow me whether I know them or not. And most importantly, they can silently opt out of following me at any time. Today’s effective leaders realise that people are following only because they choose to. Gen Y get a lot of bad press for being less loyal to their employers, but all too often they are simply leaving leaders who appear to think that they can force people to follow them.

You’re being watched

Common sense says “watch what you tweet”. It amuses me when people are shocked that some employee gets fired for Twittering that they’re at the beach after telling their boss that they’re sick. I believe true leaders understand that accountability isn’t just a fact of life; it’s something they signed up for when they accepted the role of leader. Instead of fighting that reality I want the realisation that I’m being watched to cause me to lift my life and leadership to a higher level.

Say it in sound bites

Twitter forces you to distil your ideas down to their essence – 140 characters. That’s a good discipline for leaders. As a speaker I use the one sentence test… don’t speak for one hour until you can explain your point in one sentence. In a day of overwhelming access to content, only the well-crafted sound bite has a fighting chance of being remembered… let alone acted upon.

People retweet what you say

I always think of it as a compliment when people retweet what I say on Twitter. In that moment my words are exposed to an audience with whom I hadn’t had direct contact. Of course even my misguided ideas, spelling mistakes and general ignorance can be broadcast too (think: Hugh Jackman’s tweet about the “Sydney Opera Centre”). Leaders must remember that everything they say has an audience beyond the immediate. So craft what you say with retweeting in mind.

Leaders follow others as well as being followed

My favourite people to follow on Twitter follow other interesting people themselves. By contrast we can sometimes subscribe to the stereotype of the leader that follows no-one. They don’t care what others think; the only thoughts that matter are their own. Yet the best leaders have heroes too. There may be thousands following you, and just a handful that you follow, but all the more reason why those influencers should be well chosen because…

Who you follow says something about you

I can’t choose who follows me but I can choose who I follow. Something I seem to do by impulse whenever I look at a person’s profile is to see who they are following. On some instinctive level I believe that I can tell a lot about a person by looking at who they choose to follow. So do the people you follow represent you well?