HCI Blog

Leadership in the digital age: growth through discomfort

Leaders today will face, from now on, a different challenge than those who came before them.

With the advent of the digital age and social media exposure, they now can be seen much more clearly than before. Leaders, until a few years ago, were manily composed of a name and a position with came along with its function and salary, making it seem as if the leader was a sort of unknown figure who oriented the companies direction. This form of “anonymous leadership” is slowly dissapearing.

Today, leaders now are much more exposed and have the possibility of having direct contact with their employees all around the company. A research shows that 76% of global executives consider the exposure of their CEOs online to be important, giving the position of the CEO a higher degree of accountability.

comfort-zone

This all implies in taking a big step of the comfort zone. This higher degree of transparency and accountability will require a truly ethical conduct on behalf of CEOs, making the position less attractive to certain individuals who do not like the idea of having to link their personal image to certain decisions they make.

Such exposure will result in a certain openness of the CEO and the company on many different fronts such as consumer complaints, competing companies, shareholder pressure, etc.

In summary, the new age of leadership will be one in which the leaders ego will do him no little to no good. Positive exposure of his own image aligned with social media tools will force leaders to leave their comfort zone in order to conduct their bussiness in an ever so ethical manner, as the eyes of the world, and from those within the company, will be watching.

 

BASED ON: Harvard Business Review