Open Leadership
Charline Li’s book, Open Leadership: How Social Technology Can Transform The Way You Lead is about how social media is changing the way that leaders and their followers must interact in order to be effective. It provides rules or guidelines that will help one to maintain command, while having relationships within the world of social media. Li uses examples of companies that have open leadership, and how they have developed strategies to be effective in this environment. Blogging, Twittering, Facebooking, and use of other platforms are quickly becoming the normal way that people and organizations build and establish relationships with each other. Within ministry, social media often adds a layer of complexity that many organizations, pastors, and churches are not equipped to deal with.
Christian organizations are operating in a culture in which people have great distrust and cautious attitudes. With increased use and availability of social media, ministry efforts are constantly in the spotlight. Although social media is a highly effective tool if used properly to its full potential, organizations must be alert to inherent risks. “It seems not a month goes by without a social media brouhaha involving a high-profile Christian leader. When used properly, social media should make organizations and leaders more transparent and more connected with the people they lead.”[1] If an organization demonstrates strong ethical standards through it’s people and operations, then social media can be used to enhance the transparency expected by the public. Alternatively, organizations that fail to put appropriate policies and safeguards in place may face ethical, political, or legal issues. Any time an organization fails in these areas their reputation and witness to Christ can be impacted, lending to potential collapse of the organization and distrust in Christianity.
Li suggests that organizations follow a strategy and define limits for how they will and will not use social media to meet their goals. To do this, they should
- Identify the goal or objectives for using social media. Engage with a purpose.
- Understand how the value will be measured, and how progress will be made toward reaching goals.
- Operationalize the plan, but create a ‘sandbox covenant’. This means defining limits on how open you will be, and then engaging openly and freely within those limits.
I’ve spent many years working within the church environment, and it seems that churches and pastors often struggle to keep up with the pace of cultural change and technology. Some are late adopters of technology and haven’t yet engaged with people on their website, let alone through social media. Others have made attempts to utilize it, but haven’t always been successful. I’ve found too few have used social media to add real value to ministry efforts. One strong message that Li conveys in her book is that leaders must “give up control”. This resonates strongly with my own observations in both business and church environments. Churches often fail to move forward due to fear of change or unwillingness to relinquish control. Pastors often fear becoming vulnerable. Li offers suggestions for leaders to help develop traits that will help them to become more open, transparent and authentic when they engage through social media. Pastors need to be authentic in there interaction with others. I’ve heard long time pastor’s make comments that indicate “pastors cannot or should not develop close friendships with others in the church”. This conflicts with the need for today’s culture to be personally connected. Social media, used in the right context, may be a great avenue for pastors to begin engaging within the confines of the “sandbox covenant” structured social media use.
[1] “The Rise of the @Pastor,” Barna Group, last modified June 12, 2013, accessed May 25, 2014, https://www.barna.org/barna-update/congregations/615-the-rise-of-the-pastor#.U54XKhZTrO9.
About the Author
Richard Volzke
7 responses to “Open Leadership”
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Hi Richard,
Good blog! As you rightly state, “Although social media is a highly effective tool if used properly to its full potential, organizations must be alert to inherent risks.” I totally agree.
I’ve seen (as I’m sure you have) social media tools abused by church members that have deeply hurt other fellow believers in their church. But the same can happen in other contexts too.
I think it’s true, as Li explains, that social media requires leaders to operate with greater transparency and authenticity. But how far should a leader go? Should they be selective in who they develop authentic relationships with? Not every employee or customer is easy to work with and has pure motives. Indeed, guidelines and safeguards need to be put in place to protect any leader. Just a few thoughts.
Anyway, thank you for your post!
Liz,
I believe that leaders may need to be selective with who they seek out relationships with, because we are influenced by the people we hang out with. If I surround myself with negative people, than I risk becoming like them. However, social media allows a leader to influence those whom they won’t be influenced by. For example, I can have a lot of followers on Twitter and Facebook who use these sites to get to know me, my leadership style, my church or organization, and my reputation. There are some followers that engage with my personal thoughts, but whom I don’t engage with beyond what I am posting. There is a careful balance between being transparent and authentic versus exposing every detail about one’s personal life. There are also rules surrounding social media use that should be followed, like showing respect for others, not posting in all caps, etc. We teach people to think before they speak, and the same is true within social media. Li’s book has some good insight on this when she talks about using the sandbox covenant.
Richard …
I appreciate how you have synthesized the reading this week and interacted with the church environment.
Thanks for your good thoughts … you brought some concepts home for me in your post. 🙂 You wrote, “Churches often fail to move forward due to fear of change or unwillingness to relinquish control. Pastors often fear becoming vulnerable. Li offers suggestions for leaders to help develop traits that will help them to become more open, transparent and authentic when they engage through social media.” You followed up my reminding us that pastors need to be authentic. What I thought was interesting is that Li relates that characteristics – values-traits such as humility and authenticity are not determined by the individual leader but are affirmed and recognized by others. Which means the leader (me) might think she is authentic but others (parishioners, community or church staff) might not see me in that way. If we were to take Li’s wisdom and advocacy into our personal “realms” of influence do you think it would be appropriate for us to consider the levels or degrees of authenticity we should expect to have? Or is it really that authenticity flows from who we are at all times, in how we approach and are present with others so that our social technology persona is indeed consistent with who we are?
Carol,
I believe that authenticity should flow from us all the time, but it is often difficult. As someone with dyslexia, I often struggle with getting my thoughts out into a format that is presentable. I rely on my family to help edit before I post things in writing. This way, they can help to relay back to me what they perceive I am saying. I think this is a difficult thing for people when using social media…they don’t always intend their comments to be perceived in the manner they are. This is where people often get into trouble. Entire organizations have posted things and had consequences because they were misunderstood. When I think about authenticity, I also think about the picture we are trying to portray to others through our words. Li’s book helps to put strategy behind what we are doing in social media so that we can strive to be authentic and accurate.
Richard
Richard, thanks for your thoughtful post. Church and Christian organisation leadership is tricky business and I appreciate how you are able to speak in the matter. Today’s pastor cultural encourages leaders to protect themselves from the challenges of connecting at a personal level. Yet Pastoral and ministry work require levels of connectivity with people. Your sentence about the pastors you’ve heard say, “pastors cannot or should not develop close friendships with others in the church” is a great example. I believe that many leaders are afraid of being hurt and criticized, but as you referenced Li saying that proper policies and procedures can help with enhancing connectivity and still control unhelpful attempts. Bill also wrote about the concept of “confident humility” and how such a posture can prepare a christian leader for challenging times and criticism too.
Thank you
Michael,
Thanks for your thoughts. I am not sure why our culture is propagating the notion that pastors must not develop close ties with others. I think it is out of fear or keeping “professional distance”. To do our jobs effectively, we must be in a relationship with Christ and others. Sometimes this means we must be vulnerable, yet transparent. There are professional safeguards that we put into place as pastors outside of social media. For example, I never meet with a female alone. If we put similar safeguards in place for social media, we can still share our heart and be transparent in a manner that is vulnerable and accountable. Sometimes people need to know that we aren’t perfect and that we make mistakes too. They need pastors to be real.
Richard
Hi Richard, you succinctly summarize Li’s book. I totally agree with your observation that social media does add a layer of complexity that many ministries and churches leaders are not equipped to deal with. The biggest challenge to adopt social technologies as you say is fear of losing control. I think if leaders can look at social media as an important tool to connect and engage with others, they will be able to thrive in this new environment.