There is no doubt that many people among us will become leaders in our career life. Since a leader is the key to the performance and harmony of a group, I am therefore motivated to look at the relationship between leadership and social network.
One particular number that I learnt before first came into my mind. Do you know that to be a successful leader, how many percents of time you need to spend on communicating? It’s surprisingly 90% according to Project Management Institute. No matter the communication is proceeded in forms of oral or written, official or unofficial, this implies that a successful leader needs to pay attention to the networks around him.
[Communication]
The notable marketing professional Seth Godin defined the groups of people that share a common interest and have a way to communicate as tribes. An effective leader in a tribe should improve the communication between tribe members and the leader. It should be avoided for leaders not being open enough to allow members to contact them. A strong network within a tribe should have fluent communication flows, either horizontally or vertically. By doing so, the network can reach high tightness. [Source: 1, 2]
[Emotion Management]
In the research paper, The Ties that Lead: A Social Network Approach to Leadership, there is an interesting point saying that leaders are responsible to maintain the emotional health of all employees. It is because isolates and structural holes in network usually signal the existence of emotional distress which will result in the damage of the network. [Source: 3]
[Close Guanxi and Fear]
There are studies, however, on how close network in work environment can cause negative impacts, particularly the Guanxi concept in traditional Chinese culture. Guanxi refers to the relationship with others from self perspective. On the other hand, guanxi for most Chinese people is a channel of favor exchanging. It is said that in a network close guanxi can affect a leader’s decision. Take job hunting for example, people tend to refer to friends or families with stronger guanxi first. [4, 5]
Nevertheless, I believe that there’s necessity for an effective leader to take care of social network within a tribe. Now the problem is HOW? Some suggestions to tighten the networks are below:
1. Open for communication
People like to be heard. Leaders need regular face-to-face communication as well as online communication platform. This is NOT to monitor the activities of the network, but rather to manifest a willingness of communication.
2. Create positive emotions
A successful former-CEO in Taiwan ever told me, “I build up relationship with subordinates by going to Karaoke with them. And, I always learn one or two popular songs even if they are difficult for me.” Of course, approaches in this vary from one another and should be adapted to cultural difference.
Finally, it will be interesting to look further at how the leadership in a tribe changes when some individuals change (behavior or position).
By Cheng-Feng, Chung 鍾正峰
Sources:
[2] Review of Tribes
[3] The Ties that Lead: A Social Network Approach to Leadership
[5] Negative Externalities of close guanxi within organizations
3 comments:
You start off on an interesting idea: what is the relationship between leadership and social networks? You bring up several sources, but you really don't develop a convincing argument. And I'm not sure that you grasp some of the key concepts; for example, structural holes and isolates can indicate some problems but they can also be positive indicators; they certainly do not "usually signal the existence of emotional distress." I wish you had said more about the second guanxi article, as you never address the heart of the matter, the "social dilemmas." There is some rich ideas in here that need a bit more consideration.
Response to Dr. Tunnard,
Guanxi indeed is a topic worthy of further discussion. I here added some thoughts of it that readers may find interesting:
In Chinese culture, when a favor is given, credits (or we call it “Ren-chin人情”) go to the favor giver from the receiver. In other words, favor receivers will feel strongly obligated to return the credits (the favor), and as soon as possible. This brings up the issue of social dilemma, which refers to a situation in which a person faces a conflict between his/her own interests and the collective’s. Imagine that a subordinate who has close guanxi with you helped you in finding a good deal of house (which is always difficult!), when he/ she comes to you for changing a job assignment, it is very likely that you may say YES even if the decision may reduce the interests of others in the same team.
To avoid this dilemma, people, especially in Chinese culture, may try to decrease the need of guanxi as much as possible. As a Chinese saying goes, “Each person should sweep the snow from his own doorsteps and should not fret about the frost on his neighbor’s roof.”
Take me for instance, when I was a child I had been taught by my parents, directly or indirectly, to avoid close guanxi with others outside of family. They do not like to return favors to others because it’s too troublesome and they don’t know the cost of returning favors. On the other hand, they do not like receiving returning favors because they may not like the returns but need to accept for the reason of guanxi. This thought made them prefer doing everything on their own. (We have all changed in later years ;)) This symbolizes again that individuals, including leaders, may want to avoid social dilemma by loosening the tightness of network.
It is obvious that avoiding guanxi is nearly impossible since “people” is a key element in a group.
Therefore, I’d like to add one more suggestion so that leaders can not only maintain guanxi and tightness of a network but also avoid social dilemma :
3. Transparent Decision Making.
In the guanxi paper, the researchers suggested three solutions to social dilemma: the structure of payoff system, institutionalized ethical standards, and transparent decision making. I would like to focus on the effectiveness of transparent decision making here.
Being transparent decreases the level of guessing, which is often one of the reasons why subgroup coalition is formed. I have a friend managing a ward and he told me his subordinates very often go to him to gossip on others, especially when he is arranging the shifts. This may be just an example of different group culture, but it also hints how transparent decision making may be important in such situations. When the rules are crystal clear and all members are aware that shifts are not easily changed by parties of close guanxi with my friend, they can all concentrate on maximizing group interests.
Resources: [5]
Response to Dr. Tunnard,
It's interesting that you mentioned the positive effects of structural holes and isolates. It is another point of view from what I read. But I guess this is the fun part of online interaction, you learn something new quickly.
In addition to finding more info later, I'd like to remain my argument for now to pinpoint the importance of emotion management.
Thanks for the suggestions :)
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