Open Leadership

How Social Technology Can Transform the Way You Lead

By: Charlene Li

Narrated by: Sean Pratt

An essential guide for leaders who want to use social media to be "open" while maintaining control.

"Be Open, Be Transparent, Be Authentic" are the current leadership mantras - but companies often push back. Business is premised on the concept of control, and yet the new world order demands openness - leaders do not know how to be open and yet in control. This must-have resource will help the modern leader understand how to lead in the new open world - where blogging, twittering, facebooking, and digging are becoming the norm. The author lays out the steps that leaders must take to transform their organizations and themselves into being "open" - and exactly what that will mean.

• Shows how to use social media to become an open organization
• Offers basic advice for leaders who are adapting to the new era of openness in the marketplace
• Offers reliable expertise - the authori is one of the foremost experts on social media and technologies
• Helps leaders (in easy-to-understand language) orient themselves to social networking and other technological advances.

©2010 Charlene Li (P)2010 Gildan

Social Media causes alot of problems but maybe you'll make some money?

This book tries to have it both ways by saying that it's empowering the employees to talk about the company but throws them under the bus whenever they fail. You want to allow failure for execs but anyone else gets destroyed. It takes great strides in talking about the wins but doesn't cover that those same companies had losses that exceeded all gains. Some good points on trust but this book is outdated on all other metrics.

By the Author of Groundswell

In this book, Charlene Li (also the co-author of Groundswell available from Audible) once again applies her keen insight to issues related to virtual communities and social media. There are leadership traits and skills available to all leaders in the past which will still work she says. However, Li considers aptitutdes which she contends are needed to be learned in order to navigate the new electronic environment.

A particularly interesting segment to me was her discussion of organizational models applicable to oragnizational openness (organic, centralized, and coordinated). Then she suggests that those who start out with a centralized organizational form will move toward development of the coordinated form. That makes intuitive sense to me at least though I would have not have readily thought of it on my own..

Her essential point - I think - is that the advent of social media will force organizations to be open in order to survive. If you are new to social media, listen to Groundswell first and follow it by this book. The book is clearly written and expertly read by Sean Pratt. It is very informative and will provide benefit to a wide audience.

Open Leadership is the best book on Social Media

I've read a dozen books about social media this year, and Charlene Li's latest book "Open Leadership: How Social Technology Can Transform the Way You Lead" is hands down the best book available on the topic to date. In my experience developing social media strategies and tactics for F500 companies, the biggest challenges are in the minds of the traditional marketer and Open Leadership hits them head on with no hold's bared. Charlene has assembled a systematic process to identify needs, and list specific actions that need to occur within an organization's leaders. The obstacles to success are clearly called out, along with a corresponding plan to overcome them. She spells out a refreshingly new method to evaluate the ROI of your social media efforts and references several web based methods evaluate your specific situation. I downloaded Open Leadership from Audible.com for myself, but this is one of those books that I've also purchased from Amazon.com so that I can share with my colleagues in hopes that it will never return to my desk.

- Pete Radke