- As you're sitting there thinking about
how you are going to become a digital leader,
there are probably a couple objections
running through your mind right now.
All the reasons why this is just not a good idea.
Let me share with you some of the most common objections
that I've heard, and how to think about them.
The first one is, I don't have the time.
You're thinking, this is gonna take a huge amount of time.
The people who are really successful
at doing this are probably on digital
and social media channels all the time.
Well, I encourage you to think about
how you can just find 15 minutes to just listen
to whoever the most important people are
to your leadership objectives are saying.
This is finding 15 minutes throughout the day
to just simply listen, because if you do nothing else
other than just listen, you never do sharing and engaging,
you'll be so much further along
in terms of becoming a digital leader.
So I think you can find 15 minutes in a day,
spread throughout the day, a few minutes here and there
to be able to engage with the most
important people who you are leading,
the people who really need to make sure
that their voices are being heard.
Another really key objection I have is,
who cares what I had for lunch?
And that's because we're oftentimes seeing people
taking pictures of their food and putting it up online,
and they're thinking, this is not very useful.
And I would absolutely agree with you,
I don't care what you had for lunch.
What I really care about is what you talked about at lunch.
Because you probably had a pretty interesting meeting
about something that was really important to you as a leader
and I want to know what's on your mind as a leader.
I want to know what's important to you,
because what's important to you is gonna be important to me,
because I want our team to be successful.
So yeah, please don't post pictures of what you had
for lunch, please tell us what's on your mind.
What did you think about, talk about over lunch?
What was it that is important to you?
And please share and engage in that discussion with us.
Another key objection I often hear,
it's not my job as a leader, it's marketing's job.
It's their job over there, it's digital, right?
It's marketing, they engage
with customers, that's their job.
And I think you already know the answer to this.
Being a leader is your job,
and this is about being a leader in the place where you are
and being credible as a leader and using
these digital, mobile, and social channels
to be able to engage with the people who are following you.
No one else can be a substitute for that.
Another objection I hear is, it's not about me.
People don't really want to hear about
what I'm doing tonight, or what I did for the weekend,
or what I'm working on, and I absolutely agree again.
It's not about you, it's about your leadership agenda.
How are we doing, are we meeting the objectives?
Give us examples of how you think
that we are doing a good job,
or if we're not doing a good job.
Don't hold back, please share with us what you are thinking
and care about and are passionate about,
because we want to hear from you more as a leader.
We don't want to hear about you and what you are doing,
we want to hear about things from a leadership perspective.
And the last objection and the biggest one
that I hear most often is,
I don't want to get my company in trouble.
And I hear you on this, this is a new space and new way
of interacting that we've never gotten training on.
No one ever told us this, no previous leaders ever set
the stage on how to be a leader in this digital space.
But I think fundamentally, you know so much
about what it means to be a leader.
You understand what it means to develop a relationship
with people, you know how to develop that trust,
to get people to feel empowered
so they can take action against
those objectives that you have set as a leader.
The key now is to extend that leadership
into these digital channels.
You know what you can and cannot say.
Use that same judgment that you have developed
as a leader over all of these years being successful,
and bring that same judgment to digital.
I look at how many people share in content all the time,
and very rarely do people ever get in trouble.
In fact, most people, and I believe you will exercise
tremendously good judgment because you do it every day.
Now here is the opportunity to bring that into this digital
channel and be able to share that with the followers
who are so much looking forward to engaging with you.
If you think about all the different objections
that are out there, there are so many more
that you could probably think of, but I think the key thing,
the most important reason to get over those objections,
is to think about the relationship
that you want to develop between you as a leader
and the people who are following you.
This is your opportunity to be able to develop
this whole 'nother dimension of that relationship,
and I hope and wish you well on that journey.