Oct 1
How Does Web 2.0 Affect the Way we Grow Leaders?
I have decided to continue using my blog as a space to share thoughts around my PhD topic on the Collision between Web 2.0/3? and Leadership Development in organisations. We have created a blog for the ongoing Business Acumen for Artists programme at http://gsbexecedblog.uct.ac.za/baa/
So those wanting to enrich their own artistic journey through a deeper undestanding of business acumen need just go there for updates and insights. It is a wonderfully engaging group of artists we have this year and I’m sure they won’t mind you popping in and posting your own stumbling blocks and/or insights and questions. My blog is going to be solely around the question posed in the title.
I have decided to change my topic which was previously on Ecovation for a number of reasons…none of which I want to go into now. But I think this collision is one which is a good fit because leadership development is the area I work in and design programmes around, I am increasingly involved in open source and I see the visible changes that mass collaboration is effecting on senior leaders in organisations. So deep breath - into the wild…
Any leftfield Jack London commentary to start me on my journey?
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Web 2.0 allows leaders and followers greater access to each other. It nurtures a more participative leadership style.
Bloody marvelous!! What a deliciously relevant topic for your Phd.
So much flooded to mind, but one that really moved me was Phil Zimbardo’s talk at TED on the Lucifer Effect
(disturbing image warning BTW). Within 18 minutes he offers profoundly clear evidence to look at leadership at the systemic level rather than an individual level.
How the conditions, shaped by leaders, allow for collaborative evil or set the framework for everyday heroism.
This has been a theme that I’ve seen evolving through Web2.0. As we move to radical transparency, to owning our own identity online it’s evident that you can’t lie for very long online. Those who choose to operate anonymously are treated with suspicion. Primarily because hiding behind a mask increases the likelihood of bad behaviour (90% more according to Zimbardo).
We naturally cluster and swarm online and more than ever we need curatorship of the crowd, those who can conduct the flow of intelligence.
Unchecked, mob behaviour descends into the entropy of rewarding the lowest common denominator, as long as its entertaining enough to get our attention or serves the few who have vested interest. Howard Rheingold has some fascinating case studies on this.
Social Media, to be truly understood (and applied in business) needs to be seen through the lens of sociology rather than technology.
Fundamentally the paradox that the machines are making us more human is mind-warping.
[hahaha just realised I feel fairly impassioned about all of this. More of a post here than a comment]
As we know, with Web 2.0 cont. a leader faces a situation which may no longer be under his control or guidance. This world is all about sharing information, so not only are there perhaps better alternatives to the existing leadership which followers have easy access to, but followers may know more, or think they do.
My thoughts are that the successful leaders will be the ones who encourage and nurture sharing allowing the organisation to grow organically by supporting their followers to pursue natural off-shoots, with the leaders vision empowering them, and without either party feeling threatened, because the leader acknowledges he can learn from the little people…and the little people have the security to offer more.
I am in complete agreement with you. I think that the result of this sharing is the very powerful notion of co created learning in organisation - which seems to be having a massive impact on further decision making.
Hi there Ellaine
I’m going to speak on very simple terms.I disagree that leadership needs to be executed systematically. I’m finding the system I work in to be ineffective, inhumane, controlling, time wasting, confusing, demoralising, uncollaborative, full of conflict and finger pointing etc etc.
Systems are created to control to whatever extent. The company I work for is a great case study of how this in effect is resulting in breakdown , in part to capacity issues but these have arisen as a result of the effects of long term control and subsequent disempowerment of the workforce. Very few people care.Resignation is rife.
I believe that leaders are born and that each of us is born to lead in a particular way if and when given the chance. I wont go into it right now as I feel I’m missing some necessary jargon.
I think the reinforcement of transparency as mentioned above is key, that it’ll reinvent democracy, bring a sense of being human back into the workplace and force us to be more authentic. Funny how not being present to eachother in the flesh may bring us to be more comfortable with being present in general.Like we’ll have nothing to hide because we can’t be seen.
Also I find that the presence of another or groups of others impacts on t he way we behave and therefore inhibits us from being authentic ( not all of us but many) Egos in the presence of other egos is something else entirely and to some extent, depending on the characters can be totally counterproductive. i’m surrounded by managers who manage managers and more managers who manage more managers.
Perhaps when behind a screen in a safer space we can all eb a little more real, feel safe.
I suppose what I’m trying to say really is that to some extent leadership presupposes superiority and that in and of itself is not always a good thing especially when you are a leader being lead.It can be disempowering and take away potential from individuals. If we were all trusted ,the bad apples would soon be left behind. It’d would be a case of survival of the fittest. We’ll all have to lead and possibly want to lead. Is this possible?