Leadership Exercises

At this leadership exercises session this group of HR executives explored a number of interesting questions such as:

• How is social media changing the context for leadership to an “open leadership” model that drives change? (Charlene Li in “Open Leadership” describes the characteristics of Open Leadership as “Having the confidence and humility to give up the need to be in control while inspiring commitment from people to accomplish goals”). Are our leaders connectors that are authentic and transparent, inspiring trust and engaging at all levels – or at least evolving in that direction? Do they share information openly and support responsible risktaking? Are we as leaders of our companies people strategies at the front of this change, examining and integrating the new values into our current and planned leadership development initiatives. Interestingly, it did not seem that the majority of executives in attendance felt they are as proactive as they should be in bringing many of these issues to the attention of the C-Suite in an intentional way or examining leadership development programs from that perspective.
• What are the things we as HR executives are concerned about in terms of giving up control? While most HR executives felt they are shifting their companies mindsets from “taming the beast” to figuring out how social medial can be embraced in the overall context of society at large becoming more open, more public, more quickly, they are still struggling with questions such as how fast do we need to change, exactly how do we need to change, and what is the right amount of structure and control? Issues such as privacy continues to be very complex and even more so because of distinct generational differences – younger folks seem to have a lot less need for privacy than babyboomers.
• From a business model perspective, we need to look into the future and really understand how younger generations adopt new technology and means of communication – really understand the space where they live and meet them there? It can seem daunting to try and keep up with the younger generations as they adopt new apps continuously (Snapchat, Instagram, Pinterest seem to be the favored areas to hang out right now). As HR executives we need to figure out how the new technologies are morphing and how we need to adapt business models and modes of communication within our companies. Are you still using e-mail? In some companies e-mail is totally yesterday and employees text, use collaborative tools and emerging apps to communicate.
• Does one person need to lead the charge for social technologies within organizations? Or, do champions and knowledge matter experts grow organically as organizations realize that the use of social media needs to support specific business strategies. What roles do HR/Marketing and Technology functions play? There was consensus amongst participants that the way for social technologies to gain a footing within our organizations is to make sure we lead with business strategy and then evaluate technology as one of many tools and have champions for tools grow more organically within our organizations. Several organizations are successfully hiring interns to help integrate social media better.

As the leaders of people strategy in our organizations we need to keep up with changing technologies or risk becoming dinosaurs. These executives discussed a number of different ways to up their own personal games, ranging from simply reading Charlene Li’s “Open Leadership,” to asking their C-Suite to participate in an exercise (from Li’s book) to assess how individual leadership styles align with open leadership values.

My Favorite Quotes From This Session:
• Marketing and HR together! Who did you upset?
• What is the cost of not participating in social media?
• A few years ago employees in my organization were fired on the spot if they were caught on the internet. Period!
• Why do we have to play in the social space? Because people are looking for you.
• We have to speed date in social media. We cannot get married to anyone tool. The landscape is changing at lightning speed.
• “Open” does not mean that the workplace is one BIG PARTY! We still need structure. In fact structure provides freedom.

Resources
• Open Leadership by Charlene Li
• http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R4vkVHijdQk&feature=player_embedded
• Trust Agents by Chris Brogan and Julien Smith
• Switch by Chip and dan Heat
• The Social Economy by Mckinsey Global Institute

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Open Leadership Exercises