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Dec 11 2013

Leadership Lessons From Twitter

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Our city’s school superintendent is no fan of the state Secretary of Education. That’s no secret, but the superintendent found his mind wondering (his words) at a board meeting so he took to Twitter and tweeted a message that compared the Secretary to farm animals.

The lesson here seems obvious but it’s amazing how often leaders forget the instant reach of the internet.

Many executive leaders do get it. In fact, most Fortune 500 CEOs do nothing on social media. Of those that do, many have staffs that are responsible for ensuring mistakes don’t happen. Lots of leaders have been caught up in social media gaffs, often caused by a misunderstanding of the mechanics of the medium.

In the case of our school superintendent, he was in what might appear to be a private conversation with a local reporter. To her credit, I never saw a story by this reporter on this incident. That doesn’t matter though because there’s another, bonus lesson here. Nothing in social media, or anywhere else on the internet is private.