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Extending Your Influence: An Introduction to Engaged Leadership, with Charlene Li, Founder and CEO, Altimeter Group, Author, The Engaged Leader
The Engaged Leader
I believe that leadership today requires a different approach to the way leadership has traditionally been expressed – basically shaking somebody’s hand, looking them in the eye and being able to say, “Are we good in our relationship?” Today so many relationships are being formed through digital and social channels, and leaders need to be comfortable extending their leadership, their power and influence and those new relationships in these channels. So I define an engaged leader as somebody who can use all the power of these tools to be able to engage and build relationships in the purpose of achieving those leadership objectives that they hold so dear and important to them.
Step back before you dive in
When you’re thinking of becoming an engaged leader one of the temptations especially using these technologies is to just dive right in. And what I really recommend that you do is to step back and remember, what are you trying to achieve as a leader? What are the most important priorities you have? They probably number between three and five. Make sure that becomes the center of everything that you do.
And in particular, think through how would you understand and measure whether you’re achieving those goals. Sometimes they may be numerical – ROI, number of customers we’re reaching. But it may also be just this feeling that you just feel more connected to people. So whichever type of goal you have, define it first of all. And then make sure you write down how you would know you’re achieving that goal.
Understand the 3 steps to engagement
There are three ways to become more engaged as a leader. The first is to listen at scale. How can you listen to customers and employees or your key stakeholders at scale using these new tools? The second one is, how do you share to shape that relationship? – and sharing key stories that you hope will actually generate new actions. And the third, is how do you engage? How will you engage to transform that relationship so that you become closer – and they feel closer to you – in that leadership role that you have?
Lessons Learned by Ginni Rometty, IBM
One of the people I highlight in the book is the CEO of IBM, Ginni Rometty. And I think she’s the epitome of an engaged leader. Now, on the surface it doesn’t look like she is because she’s not active on very popular platforms like Twitter. But I think that’s the genius of what she does. She’s very intentional. She knows exactly what she wants to do, which is to transform IBM from the inside out. And that means putting all of her energy and efforts into engaging with employees and engaging internally. So while she’s not publicly engaged, she’s very active internally doing videos, actively engaging in discussion groups, reaching out to particular people around the topics that are important to her.
And more importantly, she measures this. She measures how many people are engaging, whether her messages are being heard by the employees, and do they act differently? So that’s the epitome of an engaged leader. Somebody who knows and is confident using these tools to be able to achieve their goals.