Leadership

Social Media Roundup: Stop Riding Someone Else’s Coattails

Why you shouldn't pitch your own big ideas using your leader's name. Also: employee management processes that encourage cultural change.

Sometimes, being the genius at the top comes with big problems.

For one thing, others may try to give you credit for things you never said yes to, in an effort to sell their ideas or increase their influence within the organization.

And that’s a problem one leader is struggling to nip in the bud. More details in today’s Social Media Roundup:

Leveraging Someone Else’s Name

Twitter and Square mastermind Jack Dorsey has a big name, and it carries a lot of weight—especially within his own companies. But he’s not a fan of employees who use his name to sell ideas.

In a self-leaked internal memo he posted on Medium today, Dorsey emphasized that ideas within Square need to succeed on their own merits—not his.

“Simply: If you have to use someone else’s name or authority to get a point across, there is little merit to the point (you might not believe it yourself),” he writes. “If you believe in something to be correct, focus on showing your work to prove it. Authority derives naturally from merit, not the other way around.”

Think he’s right? Read the full post over this way. (ht @jyarow)

Culture vs. Process

Relevant to Dorsey’s point is a blog post from consultant and author Jamie Notter, who argues that if you’re running into a cultural conflict within your organization, it might be time to think about the underlying management processes that could be at fault.

“If you want to change the culture, then you MUST change some management processes,” Notter writes.

He suggests two places to start: human resources, responsible for hiring and managing the performance of the people within an organization; and internal collaboration, the communication processes that drive overall culture.

Notter’s post poses an interesting question: If Dorsey is facing a cultural problem of employees hiding enthusiasm for their own ideas behind his name, what processes could Square implement in hiring, performance reviews, and internal collaboration to solve it?

That’s the kind of question that might prove useful for your own organizational efforts. (ht @jamienotter)

Twitter and Square cofounder Jack Dorsey, currently facing an internal culture headache. (photo by Johannes Simon/Getty Images New/Thinkstock)

Ernie Smith

By Ernie Smith

Ernie Smith is a former senior editor for Associations Now. MORE

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