The Workplace Coach

I wrote an article last week about the beauty and the curse of social media, and how ideas, thoughts and opinions can start to get a life of their own if they are controversial enough.  Today I want to explore this a little further and look at it in the context of organisational leadership.

If you are a leader in your organisation, and particularly if you are well liked and are seen to have influence within the organisation, then people that work in that organisation will look to you for guidance.  In a way, you become a kind of sounding board. If you promote a certain stance on something, then people will likely adopt the same position. If you oppose a particular strategy, then others will likely oppose it too based on your opinion.

Now this can be very useful in promoting change and new ways of doing things in your organisation.  You may even be seen as a change leader.  You might use your personal and positional influence very successfully to effect change in your organisation (see Kotter’s 8 Step Change Model). In these situations, your words and the effect they have on people can be extremely valuable to the organisation, your stakeholders, your clients or customers, and your board.

Here is a scenario. It’s after dinner, you’re sitting comfortably in your favourite chair with your tablet on your lap. Half watching some current affairs program on tv.  A story comes on that is getting a lot of media attention, and you find yourself getting a little worked up about it.  The longer the report goes on the more you feel a sense of outrage or disgust or sadness or something… you are having an emotional reaction to whatever it is. And that’s okay.

You open your favourite social media app on the tablet, and you start to compose a post about how you are feeling, your opinion on the topic.  You list all the things that are making you feel the way you do, and what the government, or the police, or the public or the world ought to do about it.  You present your argument in a rational and well thought out way, and even though some of your ideas might sound a little edgy or a bit out there, you feel like you want (no you need) to make a point and that people need to hear it.  

You hit submit.  You feel better having got all of that off your chest.  Throughout the course of the evening your post gets a lot of likes and comments.  Of course, there are some ‘trolls’ who try to take a shot at what you are saying but you just delete their comments and block them.  You are getting a lot more positive feedback than negative, so it’s all good. You feel good and somewhat vindicated in your views.

The next morning at work as you are settling in with your first cup of coffee and starting to get through those emails that somehow always seem to arrive in your inbox overnight, the CEO’s executive assistant pops her head in the door and asks if you can come up and see the boss right away?  You reply sure thing, you have a great relationship with the boss and think nothing of it.

You walk into her office with a cheery greeting, and you realise that she has the General Counsel sitting in the chair to the left.  The CEO greets you and indicates that you take the seat on the right. Your spidey senses start tingling. The CEO explains that she had a call late last night from the Chair, who was very concerned about a social media post by a senior leader in the organisation (you).  The post had been forwarded to the Chair by the head of one of your key client organisations, with some fairly pointed questions. Your post most certainly did not align with organisational values.   

The post unfortunately really got some mileage, it was shared publicly many times, and it could potentially end up in the media.  The Chair expressed concern that your publicly expressed personal opinions might damage the reputation of the organisation, polarise the customer base, negatively affect relationships in the marketplace, and have a disastrous impact on the bottom line. 

The CEO acknowledges that you were on your own time, expressing a personal opinion, and not once did you mention the organisation in your post. The problem however is that on that social media platform you are friends with many people from the organisation, including the CEO. Plus, in your profile, it is very clear who you work for and what your position in the organisation is.  The General Counsel informs you that, regrettably, he is going to have to commence disciplinary proceedings against you. Possible sanctions include a range of unpleasant things like a fine or demotion, all way up to potential dismissal.   

The above scenario is NOT a hypothetical.  It happens far more often than any of us might think, and you might say but surely we have the right to express our own personal views, don’t we? I mean we should be able to say whatever we want on our own social media account in our own time, right?  Our employers don’t own us 24/7 do they?  

This scenario I have outlined above has a few key takeaways for leaders, or aspiring leaders. Firstly, as a leader, those parts of your private life that you choose to make public through social media can, and will, impact your reputation and standing at work. This is not something that is quickly forgiven or forgotten by your employer.  The years that you have spent building trust and influence at work can be undone overnight with one emotional outburst on the socials.

So if you absolutely positively must have your say or else your head might explode, then be sure to change the setting on the post from Public to a select group of friends that you want to share your feelings with.  The best advice however is to not let your amygdala hijack your neo-cortex in the first place.  Draft your post, think about who the audience is… and then wait for 10 minutes before you post it.  Its amazing how often you will find yourself simply deleting the draft.  It was the writing of it, not the publishing of it, that was needed to make you feel better.

At The Workplace Coach we take a structured approach to helping you identify those behaviours that are not serving you, and work with you to develop more of the constructive behaviours that will.  For more information on our services reach out to info@theworkplacecoach.com.au

The Workplace Coach