Have you noticed how you can actually differentiate between those people whose egos are driving their social media communications? And those who communicate with a genuine spirit of meaningful connectedness?
The incredible response to social media tells an amazing story about how the social media conversation is satisfying a huge psychological need. Social media is such an extraordinary phenomenon because it fills the primal, psychological, innate need for recognition. Millions of children, teens and adults have been feeling starved of recognition. The home, school and corporate environments are often not conducive to recognizing others for the unique beings that they are.
Enter Social Media
We can now be recognized by hundreds, thousands, even millions of people for exactly who we are. We own a little piece of the universe in which we are somebody unique. That’s the good news. But there is no good news without a downside which is that people respond to recognition in different ways. Some people take recognition in their stride, they feel humility, and they don’t let it go to their heads; while others develop overinflated egos.
Think of the development and maturation of social media as being the same as the process of metamorphosis from an egg to a butterfly.
Each stage of the metamorphosis gets us closer to that magnificent butterfly. The first stage for social media has been achieved – it has been adopted by millions and millions more are coming on board. We have laid the eggs and become caterpillars. It is now time for us to move to the pupa stage where the body of the caterpillar transforms itself. The pupa stage for social media is to understand what ‘being connected’ truly means and to learn how to manage our egos so that we can use the power of social media in the best way possible – without abusing it.
Or do you have a Laager Mentality? (Camp protected by a circle of wagons).
One of the finest characteristics of spirited leaders is that they have a strong partnering mentality. This is what makes them true leaders. One of their innate values is collaboration – you know that because they think, act and speak collaboratively. They are superb team players. When you interact with them you hear a great deal of ‘we’ and ‘us’ and very little of ‘me, my and I.’ Spirited leaders thrive on the energy of teams and comradeship and are constantly on the lookout for synergistic relationships and strategies.
What I really love most about collaborative people is that they have a spirit of abundance rather than scarcity. They don’t feel the need to protect their database, their ideas and their territory. They operate with the knowledge and the belief that when they combine efforts, resources and information, the personal, professional and financial outcomes will always be far greater than their efforts individually.
Sure there is the danger of being abused by others who are seeking to connect with you with only their own goals in mind. But spirited people are usually very intuitive and can quickly tell whether someone is entering the relationship with a true partnering mentality or a self-serving one. And they avoid the self-serving people.
Who comes across as being authentic, open, honest and collaborative …
Someone who isn’t constantly in self-protection mode, self-promotion mode or self-serving mode…
Someone whose talents you admire….
Make a list of these people in your life and approach them about a partnering project that has equal benefit for you and them. I guarantee something great will happen!
I find that students are such an exciting audience. They are discerning and open, forthright and respectful, curious and imaginative. That’s how I found the leadership faculty and students to be when I spoke at TCU’s Neely School of Business. The topic was Spirited Leadership and how this differs from ego-driven leadership.
One of the issues we discussed is how leaders, in business and congress, had made self-serving, short-term decisions that helped create the recession. I shared my belief with them that USA leaders will need to go through a transformation from thinking about ‘Me, My and I’ to thinking about ‘Us and We’.
What is happening in the country at this very moment can help inform leaders in organizations about how their employees are feeling and what they need to do differently as leaders. It would appear that values and behaviors such as transparency, authenticity, straight talk, openness and honesty are perceived by the people as being in short supply in the current socio-economic-political environment. This will reflect directly on how they feel about the leaders in the organizations they work in and what they expect from them.
Corporate leaders will need to learn how to replace their egos with their authentic spirit so that they can ignite the hopes, energies, talents and spirit of their employees. To achieve this, leaders need to learn how to recognize and manage the language and behaviors of their egos and instead reconnect with their own authentic and creative spirit.
The students seemed to resonate strongly with this idea. They are still so spirited and optimistic and full of great visions about the future. And the faculty at TCU are great role models of spirited leadership! It was a great privilege to spend time with them all and share ideas.
Below are some clips from the presenttation I gave and I do hope you will take some time to watch and comment on them.
Here is a fun (yet serious) way to check your company’s deficits and assets using the alphabet.
How does your company score?
Did you know that in the vast majority of cases, when an organizational assessment is completed by leaders and by employees, it is like they are living in different worlds because they see the company so differently?
This is a great time for you to discover your company’s assets and deficits are, as seen by the leaders and the employees, so that you can put the right steps of action into place, for the right reasons.
Schedule an assessment and discover how to recognize your deficits, increase your assets and create economic growth.
I sometimes wonder why making great decisions seems to be such a challenge for many leaders and their teams. Consider this scenario. There are four key decision-makers in a meeting speaking about a process that is not working. Feelings are running high and there is a great deal of heated debate. Everyone has a different take on what the problem is and what the best solutions should be. And they are all putting forward a strong case for their way of seeing and solving this.
Fred thinks it is because people are not following the policies and procedures. His solution would be to write more articulate procedures and offer an advanced training program.
Melissa is convinced that the problem is due to the fact that the process now being used has outlived its usefulness and is a dinosaur. According to her ,the solution would be to reinvent the process so that it meets the new demands of the business.
“Huh!’ Says Joe. Policies, procedures, dinosaurs, you guys are smoking something! The problem is that we are measuring the wrong things and this is causing us to focus on the wrong aspects of the process. We need to align our process measures with our strategic goals. Come on guys! It’s not quantum physics. What you measure is what you get!”
“You gotta be joking,’ Amelia says. It’s the culture in this company. We don’t have a culture of quality and excellence and cohesion and pulling together. I say we need to explore our values and change our culture so that we are more team, process and performance oriented.”
Four key decision makers in the room and four diverse viewpoints.
Good news or bad news?
This is great news because, as all great leaders know, if you have four people in a room who all agree on what the problem is and how to solve it, three of them are redundant.
This brings up three critical questions for leaders:
If you are going to make decisions that have a high statistical chance of being innovative and profitably executed you will need four types of thinkers in the room: (check if you have these in your team)
A talented visionary. Someone who understands future trends, and who easily imagines new concepts and ideas.
Someone who can ask critical questions evaluating the business value of these ideas and whether they can be supported financially, technologically and logistically.
A person who has a strong ability to think about the necessary steps of execution, resources, quality, regulations and procedures.
A relationship builder who supports and motivates the team members, who is great with communication and customer relations and builds a positive culture.
More than one of these thinking styles may be present in a single individual. But all four styles are a basic requirement for ensuring that the decision will take the business forward. Which way of thinking do you bring to your team?
Have you noticed how you can actually differentiate between those people whose egos are driving their social media communications? And those who communicate with a genuine spirit of meaningful connectedness?
