Yesterday morning, I went to an SCNetwork event on how to leverage social media. I figured it was a “must attend” for me since I’m flailing around in Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter and my recent foray in blogging.
Definitely an interesting presentation on how companies can leverage these various platforms to engage with employees (on a side note…the SCNetwork always has great speakers and the membership fees can’t be beat). I thought back to the conversation we’d had at the October PowerRoundtable event on managing the generations. One of my personal big “a-ha’s” was around the idea that we have entered an era of “pull vs. push” messaging.
People are becoming more conditioned to seek out the information that they want, when they want it vs. wait for us as leaders to communicate from on-high.
Interesting implication therefore around leadership transparency… especially for those in the C-suite, but also for those coming up the ranks. How accessible are you making yourself (and your team vision) to your people? How much are you encouraging active discussion and debate about your ideas?
Jim Estill, CEO of Synnex Canada, has a CEO blog that he uses to reach out to his employees, vendors and clients. It was interesting to hear his take on how the blog has worked for him on both a business level and a personal level.
When asked when blogging had done for him, he actually shared that it’s created a “aura of stardom” with certain suppliers and made him more approachable/accessible to his team.
It seems that (assuming your companies legal department can green light it) corporate blogging can be an interesting communication tool for executives at all levels to explore. Jim had some great tips for those considering executive blogging including:
– Decide on your niche… what are you going to blog about? His personal niche is Time Leadership leveraging his C-Suite lessons on how to be efficient (he’s even written a book about it!). Definitely check out his site… it’s packed with quick hit tips.
– Keep your views on what’s happening in the business personal (eg. don’t say “I think we’re going to have a strong 4th quarter” but rather “the hammering of the loonie is definitely keeping me up at night wondering about which strategies are going to make sense.”)
– Avoid politics and religion
– Don’t be fake.
And, if you don’t like writing and can’t spend at least 2 hours a week on your blog… don’t bother. Maybe try being a guest blogger for someone else when you have some time/something interesting to say.
If you do decide to blog, be patient. Jim said his first month of blogs were throwaways and it took about 4 months to get the momentum/readership up.
Are you an executive blogger? Send me your links and maybe I’ll include it in my monthly leadership newsletter The Roundtable Recap.
Happy leading!
