Leadership and Social Media Digital Presence

Lawrie Phipps

Some definitions

...it's not just twitter….

defn: forms of electronic communication (as Web sites for social networking and microblogging) through which users create online communities to share information, ideas, personal messages, and other content

Neither [effective] Leadership, nor [effective] Social Media is a popularity contest

Individual as Institution

Individual as Institution

“Access to a ready means of publishing, social media is being used by a cohort of academics and academic related staff that can be identified and recognised through the online promotion and increased visibility of their work.”

Phipps (2013)“Assessments of influence in networks

are individually-centered, rather than institutionally-centered.”

Stewart (2015)

You need to make a decision about where you are on social media, do you blog at your institution or your own domain?

You have a choice.

Authenticity

The illusion of unityHorning (2012)

“The capability of social media to document more and more of what a given person does and store that data, make it available for processing and redistribution, makes it harder to sustain the illusion of a unified self.”

Unification by default: inconsistent by natureHorning goes on to point out a paradox, that all the data activity

from our social media accounts gets assigned to the same Profile, unifying it in a sense by default.

However, he argues that the activities of different “selves” are forced to cohere, making the body of data incoherent and “inauthentic”. By imposing a single persistent identity on users, social media companies inevitably confront them with their own inconsistencies.

So our use of social media will inevitably lead to the highlighting of our own inconsistencies.

The Resident Web and Its Impact on

the AcademyLanclos and White (2015)

“We value those moments where we find the antidote to the uncanniness of the disembodied Web in what we perceive to be indisputably human interactions.”

Leaders gain authenticity by becoming perceived as “human” rather than cloaked by the deliberately de-humanised unemotive management voice.

Credibility“on the internet everybody knows you’re not a dog”

The Poly Social Self Stewart (2012)

“Contrary to much of the digital identity scholarship of the 1990s, which tended to emphasize the fluidity of identity uncoupled from the gendered and signified body – the “on the Internet, nobody knows you’re a dog” theme – the concept of networked publics has given rise to a far more enmeshed notion of reality.”

If you pretend, or try to be something you’re not online, people will find out

Engagement

Engagement

“The sound of one person talking is not, obviously, a conversation. The same applies to organizational conversation, in which leaders talk with employees and not just to them. This interactivity makes the conversation open and fluid rather than closed and directive. It entails shunning the simplicity of monologue and embracing the unpredictable vitality of dialogue”

Groysberg and Slind (2012)

Leadership is a conversation it doesn’t matter what space you are in, be that physical or digital. In order to be an effective leader you need to talk with people not at them. Sometimes in the online spaces we forget this.

ReferencesHorning, R. (2012) "Notes on the “data Self”." The New Inquiry. Accessed 8 Oct. 2015. <http://thenewinquiry.com/blogs/marginal-utility/dumb-bullshit/>.

Lanclos, D and White, D (2015) "The Resident Web and Its Impact on the Academy - Hybrid Pedagogy." Hybrid Pedagogy. Accessed Web. 8 Oct. 2015. <http://www.hybridpedagogy.com/journal/resident-web-and-impact-on-academy/>

Stewart, B. (2012) "Digital Identities: Six Key Selves of Networked Publics." The Theory blog. Accessed 8 Oct. 2015. <http://theory.cribchronicles.com/2012/05/06/digital-identities-six-key-selves/>.

Stewart, B. (2015) "Contributions and Connections | Higher Ed Beta | Inside Higher Ed." Contributions and Connections | Higher Ed Beta | Inside Higher Ed. Accessed Web. 8 Oct. 2015. <https://www.insidehighered.com/blogs/higher-ed-beta/contributions-and-connections>

Groysberg, B and Slind, M (2012) "Leadership Is a Conversation." Harvard Business Review. Accessed 8 Oct. 2015. <https://hbr.org/2012/06/leadership-is-a-conversation>

Phipps, L. (2013) Individual as Institution. Educational Developments 14:3