The Facebook Effect of Leadership

Lucian Tarnowski (@LucianT), Founder and Chief Executive Officer BraveNewTalent.com.
He is a Young Global Leader with the World Economic Forum. 

For the first time young people are an authority on something that matters to the world's economy and global leadership. Young people today are the authority on social media, the Internet and new technologies that are changing the way we live, work and communicate.

Through this new communication medium young people are empowered with a new way to have impact.  Young people are inheriting more global problems than any generation before them.  It is fortunate that they are equipped with new tools that maximize their impact.

Facebook now has over 750 million members and is one of the pillars of change behind the Digital Enlightenment. I would argue that the social networks are having an impact on the way the next generation will lead – I call the The Facebook Effect.  The Internet has democratized access to information and, to some extent, relationships. Leadership relies on effective communication, and communication is what the social networks are all about.  

Historically, information was power. Information was harder to find, and often tied to relationships. If your circle of contacts was small, your view on the world was more likely to be narrow also.  Effective Leadership requires continuous learning. The social networks enable people to multiply the number of sources they have to learn new things and gather viewpoints.  

It is in the diversity of perspective that we find new solutions. Historically, people's networks tended to be in specific fields so this meant that their approach to problems might have been from one lens.

The Facebook Effect allows young people to explore new perspectives and see the world with different lenses. It allows people to reflect more on their own value system, to question it, to break it down, only to build it back up again, stronger. To go further, the increased diversity social networks can offer can mean that the capability to change perspective can happen faster.

Facebook operates a development process 'Move fast and break things'. People who learn to break down and build up perspectives quickly can deploy the concept I call 'iterative leadership'.  Discussions can now happen from anywhere in the world, bringing in new perspectives, information and data points that will unquestionably impact the way leaders of tomorrow will have their impact. The iterative leadership approach has its strength in fast feedback loops from a diversity of sources. One can now quickly source opinions and thoughts from a much wider audience in real time.   We are now more likely to get a contradicting opinion as well as spot a trend. This helps people get to a more informed and balanced decision point. 

The Facebook effect is making leadership and impact more accessible to young people. It's not about your age any more, and it won't be in the future. It's about your network, and how you use it. It is changing the way young people view their world and have impact in the world, and it will change the way we all lead – and who leads us.  With 50% of the world’s population under the age of 27 it is a good thing that we have new ways of taking a leadership role in shaping the world we will inherit.