Deck 6: Reflective and Resilient Leadership of Social Media Storms

Question 1

What means to have a reflective approach to social media storms?

Answer 1

Many organizations end in a social media storm situation without knowing why. When managers repeat current norms and practices without considering what their stakeholders are thinking and feeling, the negative consequences of decision-making typically only become obvious in hindsight. In times of market disruptions, it can be helpful for managers to stay aware of the force of preferred thinking to scrutinize their basic assumptions, and to adjust their strategic thinking and acting accordingly in order to successfully interact with their stakeholders. Furthermore, many organizations also end in a social media storm situation without knowing what to do. Taking control over own emotions can be an action that during a social media storm can help to restore a sense of control and overcome feelings of helplessness.

Question 2

Why should managers prioritize time for critical reflection during social media storms?

Answer 2

Managers should be aware of the emotions that the social media storm evokes in them and their peers. The resistant and resilient framings direct managerial attention towards central aspects that promote this emotional awareness. They further enable managers to fundamentally redirect organizational attention from damage-controlling to potentiality-seeking behavior. Healey and Hodgkinson (2017) underscore how important it is to gain emotional situation awareness as it can help managers "understand what steps are needed to enable the executive team to process information more deeply and critically, while keeping an eye on the bigger picture." This is likely to offer a more adequate perspective of strategic adaptation from the lenses of psychological foundations. Setting emotions on the management agenda and scrutinizing sensitive issues are definitely conducive to building emotional intelligence and resilient leadership.

Question 3

Briefly discuss the importance of valuating customer voice and emotions during the social media storms.

Answer 3

A social media storm requires a larger portion of empathy and emotional stamina from the organization. One important step that leaders need to take to accomplish that is to acknowledge the situation based on analysis of the resistant and resilient approaches, while acknowledging the emotional mechanisms that are activated in the management team when a social media storm hits. Valuing the customer anger that drives it is an important part of the process as well as building value congruence. This "mirror exercise" of taking a stakeholder perspective not only helps the managers to understand the impact and nature of emotions on human actions in general; but it also eases the process of building a transparent organization. This is vital, because when organizations reject or "distort" certain actions, or lie to the public, it consequently triggers a stakeholder call for transparency. Managers can express empathy for the uncertainty that the members of the organization experience and share with them the process you are using to get more information about the evolving situation. It can feed more empathy in the stakeholder communication. Transparency will help people to manage their anxiety inside as well as outside the organization. Tell people what you know and what you do not know as well as what you do in the process, rather than giving promises you cannot keep.

Question 4

How emotional intelligence (EQ) can help managers develop organizational resilience and craft social media storm responses?

Question 5

How the leadership perspective helps building resilience during social media storms?