Is Social Media A Leader's Popularity Contest?

I absolutely love being on Facebook and Twitter. It's fun, it's a creative outlet for me, and it's just one more place that I can spread some of my (over-abundance of) energy out. My mind seems to work overtime, my thoughts travel around my brain like it's NASCAR, and most of them do collide before they ever hit my blog or other social media outlet.

But, as a leader in life management, I began to wonder about how social media plays into leadership. I know for myself that receiving input is on most days a good thing. I like to see that people understand what it is I am writing about, tweeting, or commenting on. It produces a sense of validation, correctness, and likability.

But what happens when leaders become focused on responses to social media?

• Does no response equal a disliked thought process?
• Does the fact that no one has "liked" your status updates on Facebook equal dislike?

Leaders who do not settle for the status quo or brown-nose models for acceptability for what has been the norm may not receive squat in the form of social media feedback. But lack of feedback doesn't necessarily mean anything. Consider Twitter's Follow Fridays where users are given props in a #FF (Follow Friday). He who has the most is the biggest leader. The most popular. The most successful. Seriously? Is that really what it means? Social media has become a popularity contest? Yep. All of the sudden in some aspects (but not all), social media has become a popularity contest.

I think it should make any leader ask himself/herself some tough questions:

• Does a small following mean that we are not needed?
• Does it mean that individuals are failing as a leader if response rates are slow or low?
• Will leaders start basing every move they make on social networking likability?
• As leaders are we going to base everything we lead, do , or say on the number of re-tweets we receive?
• As leaders are we consulting our social media outlets more than we are consulting God and His will, word, and direction?

I know I have seen myself slide into this. And it's so easy. At times I find the best way to control the leader in me who seeks to follow what social media finds popular, I must unplug from time to time. Social media is not a replacement for seeking God. Nor is it an accurate measurement of how well we are doing by the number of followers, likes, or dislikes we have.

If we as leaders do not stay focused upon God and our missions, we will become focused on our own popularity. And when leaders become focused on themselves, they can't lead others effectively no matter what social media says.