Leaders: Who’s Managing Your Social Media?

Posted on May 14, 2012 by C.K. Brechin

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Companies invest millions of dollars a year on their brand, whether they realize it or not.

Everything a company does – from how they engage their customers, to how they recruit employees and how they market their products — are all rolled up in a corporate brand and contribute to people’s perceptions of that brand.

But one aspect many companies simply fail to acknowledge as a significant part of their investment is.

This simple fact has two big word: social media.

What’s in a Word?

With the advent of social media, the value of “word of mouth” has gone up exponentially. That 1970s Faberge commercial that follows along the lines of, “I’ll tell two friends and they’ll tell two friends” has shifted at a pace comparable to Moore’s law and the progress being made with processing power.

In a recent Nielson Social Media Report (October 2011) it was found that 60 percent of social media users create reviews of products and services, and that consumer created reviews/ratings are the preferred source for information about product/service, price and product quality.

In addition, the report also found that 70 percent of social media users make online purchases, 12 percent more than other online users do.

The case in point is that your customers are out there talking about you. And they are doing it now.

They are either positively or negatively influencing others’ purchasing decisions regarding your product or service.

So Where’s the Training? 

A recent survey of HR professionals by the Society of Human Resources Management found that 68 percent of organizations have employees who use social media to reach external audiences, including potential customers and employees. That same survey (Social Media in the Workplace) also found that only 27 percent of employers provide social-media training to their employees. (Only 27 percent!!)

A company’s online brand must be responsive, authentic, and innovative in order to maintain both existing “fans” while also attracting new “fans.”

Due to the fast pace of change in the social media arena, companies must think ahead and create a plan that can evolve with the market.

Enhancing your Business and Brand

The beauty of social media is that you can use and tailor it to your needs. This flexibility gives you quite a bit of freedom when using the various avenues available to you to support and build your brand and business. However, you need to be doing a few key things to be utilizing it to its full potential.

It is important that you learn how to correctly use social media so that you don’t let it manage your brand; You need to manage your social media to enhance your brand.

Questions for Leaders

With that, we suggest you ask yourself the following questions concerning your enterprise:

  1. Do you have a social media policy for employees that represent your brand?
  2. Do you allow your employees to add your organization to their LinkedIn, Facebook or Twitter accounts? (Why or why not?)
  3. Have you, as an organization (or as an individual) offered or received training on the importance of social media and the positive and or negatives it may have on you or your organization? (Many companies have an employee termination clause in contracts around disparaging or inappropriate use of social media. Then again, many don’t.)
  4. Do you use social media for “brand-building?”
  5. What, if any, analytics do you track?

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Learn, Grow & Develop Other Leaders™

———————–
Kim Brechin is Principal at Look-Solutions
She manages & leads high performance teams within competitive markets
Email | LinkedIn | Facebook | Twitter | Blog | Web | 503-869-3304

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Hey Leaders: Are You Pushing or Pulling?

Posted on April 20, 2012 by C.K. Brechin

Pushing or Pulling

Recently, as I was looking for inspiring quotes on leadership, I found this gem and it resonated with me.

“The task of leadership is not to put greatness into people, but to elicit it, for the greatness is there already.” ~ John Buchan

On Pushing or Pulling

I had been focusing my efforts on a marketing challenge and was reading a great article that appeared in the Harvard Business Review titled Three Steps to Generating Social Gravity, by Mark Bonchek.

The article describes the push and pull concept of today’s savvy consumers and also touches on the concept that leaders these days need to take a note and apply some pull vs. push in their style.

It’s true… people don’t like to be pushed.

I certainly do not — whether it’s in a long line at the airport queuing up or in a boardroom — I find it’s rather uncomfortable and in said case, I often leave elsewhere my best manners, work ethics and creativity.

But when a great leader creates that wonderful gravitational field that attracts and inspires those they lead often, we are pulled into a state of inspired creativity and would motivate anyone to move the Earth to orbit that person’s influence.

Leadership like this is enduring and meaningful and inspires authentic relationships; we are drawn to it like flies to a bright light.

Creating Leadership Gravitas

There are multiple leadership books written on the topic but really it’s very simple to create this gravitational pull style of leadership:

1. Shared Purpose – Provides the “Why”

The focus isn’t on the immediate, but on achieving the shared purpose or goal, a sense of  accomplishment. This shared purpose attracts and retains those high achievers and many will bring along their like-minded achievers to rally and join.

2. Engaged Communications ( Platforms) – Provides the “What”

Engage your audience by providing added value in a platform they can use to their benefit. From HBR: “Engagement platforms are built from multiple layers working together. The identity layer recognizes the customer.

The data layer exchanges information to personalize the experience. The relationship layer enables connection among the brand and community members.

Finally, the value layer delivers benefits to the users.”

3. Collaboration – Provides the “How”

When we allow colleagues to be partners we are engaging a powerful way of amplifying and accelerating the common goals. It can multiply the efforts of teams and bring value to potential contributors and add credibility to reinforce value and build trusted relationships versus pushing a mandate.

People want to be asked to contribute and generally will give their best when they feel that they are being pulled into collaboration versus being pushed.

When combining forces, you can multiply value rapidly.

Leadership Takeaways

So, the takeaway message is:

Don’t push — Pull!

More often greatness is already in those we lead, and as leaders our job is to elicit it. My guess is that more often than not, greatness was there to begin with — it just wasn’t being engaged.

Are you pushing or pulling as a leader? In what ways have you been unsuccessfully pushed by a leader and what did you learn from it? What is one way you’d create the gravitational pull of leadership that was not mentioned in this post? I would love to hear your thoughts!

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Learn, Grow & Develop Other Leaders™

———————–
Kim Brechin is Principal at Look-Solutions
She manages & leads high performance teams within competitive markets
Email | LinkedIn | Facebook | Twitter | Blog | Web | 503-869-3304

Image Sources: wakeforestlawreview.com


Filed under: Authentic Leadership, Leadership Lessons Learned, Leading & Developing Other Leaders | Tagged: , , , | 5 Comments »

Leaders: The Big is in the Little

Posted on April 2, 2012 by C.K. Brechin

Leverage

In leadership, little things can bring BIG results…

In the story of the Tortoise and the Hare, we learn that slow and steady wins the race. A similar analogy can be made in the case of leadership:

The little actions are most often what create big results.

Bigger, Faster, Worse

In the same sense that faster isn’t always a better way to get where you’re going — bigger isn’t always the best way to get the outcome you want.

The problem is that, as leaders, we often seek to make big changes and large strategic shifts in our approach.

We frequently lead with big, bold steps when in search of big, bold results.

When one reviews the latest leadership advice from The NY Times bestseller list, the impression we get is that results are created through programs to foster major changes and through the implementation of new strategies.

Smaller, Frequent, Better

Yet often when researchers talk to individuals in organizations, we continue to re-learn that it’s the smallest behaviors, when done consistently, that can have the most meaningful impact with people and that can really drive results.

The flip side of this point is that consistently using the wrong little behaviors (i.e., what we sometimes perceive to be little and insignificant behaviors) can also leave people uninspired and demoralized.

Simple, Easy, Results

What are the right little things to do that will create big results? They are really quite simple and often related to the “how” we would like to be treated (you know, the Golden Rule):

* Treat others in a courteous manner.

(Be friendly; say good morning rather that rushing by with your head down straight into your office.)

* Commit yourself to the moment.

Whether it be a 30-second conversation through to a one-hour meeting, put the Smartphone down, turn away from your computer and engage the person.

* Be consistent with both your intent and actions to build trust in your team, no matter what the issue.

Often, this transparency is reciprocated and leads to stronger teams and effectiveness.

* Seek to understand someone’s perspective, issue or concern before acting or judging.

You don’t need to solve every problem – just support your team and show empathy.

* Remember that we manage “things” and lead “people.”

Find out what your teams needs to feel valued, supported and motivated, and then deliver it to them on a regular basis.

Acting Like a Leader

Recently, when working with a team of technologists, we had an opportunity to conduct a 360° debrief of their current leader.

Many of these individuals described how one little behavior of their leader – the checking and responding to emails on his Smartphone during face-to-face meetings – left them feeling inconsequential.

In other words, this leader said that individuals were important, but acted just the opposite by focusing on emails and texts when dealing with team members.

Strong leaders seize the little moments to engage and interact with their teams.

It’s Your Choice, Leaders

The result, through genuine engagement, is that team members feel like an important part of the organization and are more confident when called upon to contribute directly and honestly.

The opposite behavior will often silence them and push the team to minimal interaction and correspondingly weaker results.

  • Use the soft skills we listed previously
  • Listen to your people
  • Commit to the moment
  • Thank your team when appropriate
  • Treat them well and they will be motivated and engaged, which will allow them to deliver amazing results.
  • Let team members know that they are a priority for you because when you help them succeed, it directly drives your own success.

It’s clearly a win/win situation.

As leaders, we invest an incredible amount of time to achieve success and to reach our desired outcomes. Harness that energy and remain focused, but remember that sometimes the “Big is in the little.”

  1. Think about it; What are three daily “little” behaviors of your own that you can change to make a “big” difference?
  2. What’s one moment in your work life where someone did something little that made a big impact?
  3. Take time today to ask your team what you can do to make them feel more valued and inspired.

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Never miss an issue of Linked 2 Leadership, subscribe today!
Learn, Grow & Develop Other Leaders™

———————–
Kim Brechin is Principal at Look-Solutions
She manages & leads high performance teams within competitive markets
Email | LinkedIn | Facebook | Twitter | Blog | Web | 503-869-3304

Image Sources: trainingforwarriors.com

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Why is Leadership So Difficult?

Posted on March 21, 2012 by C.K. Brechin

Confused Leader

I’ve had the pleasure of being on vacation in a warm destination for the past ten days and have spent many hours lounging by the pool with one eye on my son and one ear eavesdropping on many conversations.

I’m always curious about people’s complaints about their work environments, especially about their leaders.

Nothing beats real world research to bring clarity to issues.

Amazed and Confused

After ten days of listening to these comments, and at times engaging in the conversations, I am left boggled with how many leaders out there just don’t “get” leadership and what the impact of this is to their staff and their organizations.

I heard so many comments about leaders that spent all of their time telling and very little time listening, leaders that did not treat their teams with trust or respect and yet expected them to act in a professional manner, and story after story that can easily be covered with the phrase “that’s not my job” which just shouts lack of engagement…

Leadership Do Over

Having spent close to 20 years in people leadership roles, I have definitely learned a lot over that time, and often wish I could go back and apologize to some of the first team members I worked with in my leadership capacity.

It definitely took me a few years to sort out the difference between management and leadership… And a few bumps along the way to help speed up the learning curve.

Over the last many years, I’ve become convinced the we seem to be making leadership more complicated, with all the different leadership books, websites, courses etc..

3 Key Points

When you boil it down to the basics, everything important falls under three key points:

  1. Set clear expectations
  2. Hold people accountable to the expectations
  3. Recognize the successes and coach forward to support the learning opportunities

As all of these observations were floating around my head today, I was intrigued to read the Harvard Business Review blog post by Tony Schwartz “Reward Value, Not Face Time,” which was like watching my thoughts flow out in word in front of me.

His observations about moving through our fear of management (the need to see everyone in front of us in the workplace), and lead forward through trust to create value is something that I hope every people leader can tackle — the rewards are many.

Leading People, Not Managing Minutes

As a leader, all of a sudden you will find capacity to tackle other projects or opportunities when you are no longer managing the minutes in front of you. As a team member, more often than not, people grab hold of the newfound space and reach for the moon to prove their capabilities.

The multiplier of these two simple changes results in increased organizational capacity, capabilities, and outputs.

So let’s move away from the newest leadership book or trend and focus on those three simple foundational items to help us all move forward.

In doing so, here are some questions to ask yourself:

  • How will you set clear expectations for your team today?
  • Will you write a list of those expectations? 
  • Will you engage your team in coming up with appropriate expectations?
  • How will you hold people accountable to the expectations you have set in stone?
  • In what way will you recognize and reward the successes you see moving forward?

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Never miss an issue of Linked 2 Leadership, subscribe today. 
Learn, Grow & Develop Other Leaders™

———————–
Lee Vincent is Principal at Look-Solutions
She serves in Change & Engagement Mgmt, Executive Coaching, Strategy Deployment
Email |LinkedIn | Facebook | Twitter | Web | Blog | 867-456-4562

Image Sources:  howtomakecollegecount.com

Filed under: Authentic Leadership, Leadership Lessons Learned, Leadership vs. Management, Leading & Developing Other Leaders, Leading Change, Sales Leadership, Team Building Leadership, Values-Based Leadership | Tagged: , , , , , | 6 Comments »

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