- In your journey to become a digital leader,
one of the most difficult things you'll have
to learn how to do is how to engage.
To engage with the people who are following you as a leader.
That's because engagement changes not only
what people are engaging with you,
but also how you feel about yourself,
and the nature of that relationship
that you have with followers.
There are three major ways where engagement,
especially in the digital era, is really changing
how you become and show up as a leader.
The first one is really about distance,
and in particular, power distance.
In traditional organizations before the digital age,
there was this distance between where you sat as a leader
and wherever that follower is,
the person who reports to you.
There might be layers within a hierarchy,
but what happens inside a digital space
is that that transparency, that access,
that openness actually breaks down that power distance
and brings people closer to you.
In many ways, leaders are feeling very comfortable
with that distance because it gives them this sort of
cushion between when somebody interacts with them
and when they have to actually respond and come up
with a particular goal that we want people to reach,
a particular request that you want people to make.
But with that power distance decreased,
it becomes much more familiar and that relationship changes,
and that is a significant change
that many leaders have to deal with.
A second way that engagement is different
in the digital space is that
the direction of that engagement changes.
In traditional leadership, it's very hierarchical,
it's top-down, you as a leader initiate things mostly.
Nobody would ever think to knock on your door and say,
hey, I need to talk to you about something.
That just isn't done.
But in digital, anyone at all levels
throughout the organization and outside the organization
can initiate that engagement, and in many ways
that can feel very challenging to you as a leader.
What are you doing strolling up to my door,
asking me a question, this audacious question?
Nobody ever dared to ask me that before.
And the fact that this is being done in public and that
everyone is waiting and watching to see how you respond.
The third area where engagement is different
is around frequency, it is a 24/7, always on,
everything is happening around you,
and the expectations in some ways can be set that
you as a leader is going to know everything that's going on
and have the ability to respond to everything.
And the key here is to understand
what kind of expectations will you set
about what you will engage in?
Because frankly, it is impossible,
absolutely impossible to engage with everyone
on everything that people want you to.
The results of all of this is that
what we've seen in our research is that
engagement is the hardest thing for a leader
to master in the digital space,
and it is one thing that in particular I think
you as a leader in this digital space
are going to have to really comes to terms with,
in terms of understanding
what will that engagement look like?
And the reality is, every single leader is going to have
a different level of comfort and need to engage.
Some leaders want to get right into the middle of things,
that's the kind of leader they are,
and also the type of goals and objectives
that they have set for themselves that will require
that they have that deep, digital, frequent engagement.
Other types of leaders, because of their goals
and the way that they lead, will be able to sit back
a little bit further, preserve more of that power distance.
The key for you to figure out is what kind
of engagement strategy is going to work
for you as a person, but also very importantly,
help you achieve the objectives that you have set forth
for yourself as a leader of your organization.