Hamburg, 16 February 2017 –
One theory is: if you are a people leader you do not need profiles in social networks like Facebook and Hospitality Leaders. Counter-argument: The ones, who can manage to live without those profiles, either excellently delegated this task or will soon be sorted out.
Opinions differ sharply in terms of digitalisation: quite a few top managers avoid to directly communicate (peer-to-peer) via social media channels. They want to achieve some kind of attractiveness, by still completely agreeing with the “long-serving” personnel consultant. Meanwhile, communication has seen enormous changes: CEO Postings and Podcasts have long spread internally and externally in “real time”, influence developments on the stock markets and have a great impact on the very important topic of employer branding.
This can be clearly seen in the current example of “Amazon Alexa”: this voice-driven gadget (“Alexa, where is the next available hotel room?”) initially only enthused the so-called “early adopters”. The sceptics of innovation (the majority) reacted with frowns and open-result questions about “spying”. But the benefits outweigh.
Information, which is queried by tools like Alexa, Siri and Google has today already been listed a thousand times in the clouds. There is still a strong need in terms of data protection. Nevertheless, it not helpful to again strictly increase the high standards of the EU (buzzword: storage of IP addresses), as this would stop essential innovations.
If you tend to dismiss useful gadgets like Amazon’s language assistant “Echo” with the argument that it is a spying device, you are misjudging the enormous advantages of progress. There are in fact more and more little helpers intercepting us, like smartphones with Siri and Google voice search. Also Samsung TV devices keep on monitoring their audience. Careful data handling is more important than ever. And: Undesirable hacker and government institutions can likewise gain access to your system. Remember: we can be found via our mobile phones for a long time already.
A company will rarely function without digital communication in the future. It would be an error to believe that top managers do not need profiles in the social web. Because every good leader needs to precisely control internal as well as external communications to be able to hold the reins firm in his hands. Therefore: The ones, who are not interested in managing their messengers and other individual messages via Facebook, Whats App, LinkedIn and Hospitality Leaders themselves, need to carefully delegate the task to their closest team members.
An obvious task for the personal assistant…
Leadership is based on an excellent communication: direct, straightforward, sometimes also in an informal discussion – and very fast via digital tools. The ones, who are willing to follow this way, need to be prepared for the most technological benefits of digitalisation. “I don’t need that” as a strict rejection leads to the end of your career. You will then quickly hear: “There is no need for you anymore.”
About the author: Carsten Hennig, born in 1970, started his journalistic career with a typewriter and has been experiencing the computerisation from the 64-bit device up to artificial intelligence very closely. As the anchorman of HOTELIER TV & RADIO and managing editor Europe of Hospitality Leaders, the keynote speaker positions himself as a lateral thinker. You can contact the author via email: [email protected]