Behind the scenes of ‘show-and-tell’ leadership

“Feeling a bit dazed.” “Cannot figure out the actual”. “It seems our boss lives in two worlds, one in the office and one on the social media”. These are comments from employees in a company that has gone through some good and rough patches.

The ups and downs are a norm. The company is still making decent money. However, the conversations happening beyond meeting rooms have started sounding somewhat patchy. If it was just a seasonal feel and things normalize nothing to worry, but if it lingers, the need to dig deeper is imminent. What you are outside and what you are inside must have some alignment. Leaders who are not real find it very difficult to create consistent connections. If your intent and actions are in conflict, trust is the first casualty.

Real and authentic leadership has to be mindful of how their words and actions reinforce each other. In today’s world a leader’s tenure is getting shorter. Leadership roles are getting tougher. They are under immense pressure to be quicker, faster, leaner. These pressures have made most leaders resort to quick-fix mode. The focus is to do some media amplifying quickies to get the buzz going. The world today is brimming with the “show-and-tell” leaders. The main focus is to “image perfect” their work and life.

Many leaders hire a personal social media team that creates a carefully curated persona. They are “shown” as people of intent and values. They are seen in the right places. They are getting the right podcasts with well-known interviewers. Their social media team is sitting with a well crafted agenda. This is not really real leadership as the intent is only to create a great image for the leader. There is no doubt that social media is a business imperative. Leaders must be savvy on using it. However, the “one man show” is not what real leadership is all about. The problem with the OMS or one man show is that it may not align with real leadership. The social media is making many leaders fabricate the following images:

Image#1: The sporty Leader – The trend for fitness is a big craze in today’s world. Many leaders love to show themselves in the gym. It is an excellent way of keeping up with your fitness and inspiring others to follow. The only problem is that many of these images are just for the image. People can pick out a real fitness freak and just a poser.

Image#2: The people’s man – Another favourite Instagram caption that leaders love is “teamwork is dreamwork”. They hashtag it with a wonderful picture of sitting casually with the team and laughing with them. Great picture that will get many likes. The only problem is when the reality is different. Some employees who are disgruntled may tag the picture and say he is the opposite. Even those who do not go on this route feel disconnected and disenchanted with this personality fake up.

Image#3: The intellectual – Another image fabrication is the intellectual leader. These leaders fantasize themselves as the philosophers and poets. Their social media team creates posts that use deep discussions on values, history and science etc. Such posts are very appealing. People get impressed by the depth of the words. The irony is that all these leaders are those who would have a shelf full of the best hardbound leadership bestsellers that they have never read. That is why many times such intellectual stuff gets laughed at. These AI crafted messages by their PR team are too perfect and distant from a man who in reality can hardly utter a few meaningful lines.

Image#4: The nature lover – Another profile is of the outdoorsy leader. Special photographs of mountains and trees are taken. Some pictures show animals and birds. The leader is feeding them. Sitting in serene surroundings he or she is musing over the beauty of the nature. These are great attractions. Unfortunately, many times they are only part of the PR campaign. Recently somebody posted a video of such a leader going in his big black car in a park, a worker carrying his umbrella to protect him from the sun, posing for a few shots and rushing back to his air-conditioned car. That was the unpleasant end to the nature lover campaign.

This is not to say that projection is not needed for real leaders. This is to say that the image leaders present have to be real enough to distinguish it from reality TV comedy. Social media needs to be used astutely by the leaders. With its massive reach real leaders need to treat it as a tool to spread their message. With a balanced approach the leader needs to ensure that all the examples of the vision and values that he wants others to follow are reaching his target audience by:

Real Leaderhip#1: Connect to the purpose – Real leaders will always make the organization bigger than themselves. Real leaders will always make the purpose bigger than the organization. This intent is visible in most of their interactions. Meetings will be more about gaining more about aligning to the purpose draining people about the leaders own glory. Townhalls will start with the larger picture. Social media will be highlighting employees as heroes rather than the leader.

Real Leadership#2: Living the values stories – Real leadership is all about living the values they choose for their organization. If the value is equality, their actions and their social media will show them standing in line to enter through the general driveway of the office. If their value is respect, and somebody is caught in an offensive action, the story will highlight how he, regardless of the rank, was penalized.

The era of Artificial intelligence has made it so easy for leaders to become artificial leaders. It is like the DP photo people have on their profile. Many a times it seems as if it is of another person. Yes, social media can improve your image, it can connect you far and wide. Artificial intelligence can change your look, background, dress, hair style. What it cannot change is the heart, mind and soul of a leader. That is why “real” intelligence will always have an edge over artificial intelligence.