This Is Sparta…

Leadership, particularly in digital content marketing and social media strategy, is rarely about title or position, it’s about skills and personality. Even if you’re an unpaid intern clocking in a handfull of hours per week, you can still demonstrate leadership- be it directly, in taking charge of projects and tasks, or indirectly by collaborating with your colleagues authoritatively and confidently from a place of experience/expertise. When you factor in the title and position, your management style becomes all the more pertinent, as it’s literally your job to lead the team, project, campaign and/or department. I’m no expert in business management. I don’t have an MBA (yet) but one of the most important aspects of working in a team environment is leadership style. Are you a lead from the front or lead from the back? Or, in slightly more geeky terms: Are you a Spartan or are you a Senator?

What? You don’t wear a Mohawk helmet to work?

You may recall from Frank Miller’s wholly entertaining-though not exactly historically accurate- graphic novel, 300 (and subsequent film by Zach Snyder) that King Leonidas led his 300 warriors into battle, he was not doing so from an indirect vantage point, watching the events unfold on the battleground.  On the contrary, the ruler of Sparta was the first into the fray, leading the charges, fighting alongside his soldiers. He was a Spartan.

Casual Friday can, in fact, be taken too far…

Leonidas’ managers, in the story it’s the Senate council, never leave Sparta but instead brainstorm concepts and spend their time debating, pontificating and in the case of Senator Theron, scheming. They knew little of the situation impirically, and rather hid behind their stations, calling out decisions that had significant impact on the tale.  SPOILER ALERT: It’s their fault only 300 Spartans are sent to fight the armies of Persia, as their consultations with the Oracles (and Senator Theron’s treachery) lead them to hold back the full army pending further review.

This party is a total brodeo…

In your role are you a Spartan or Senator? Success can be had both ways, but achievement can only be had from the front. When things don’t go as planned, as they often do, are you there on the front lines to assess and revise immedeiately, ensuring that your audience and clients and customers are getting the fastest service possible, or are you waiting for more input, which in turn forces your customers and audience to wait for results as well?

Race you to the bottom…

In our modern marketing landscape, you literally can’t afford to wait. The public expects answers and responses as quickly as possible in real time, in all aspects of your business. When your new subscribers join do you immediately thank them? When you receive customer service correspondences, are you following up to queries within a reasonable window of time? When problems arise with the project, do you jump to action to alleviate the possible damage to the overall objective? Or are you and your clients loitering in digital purgatory? There’s no wrong way to handle customers per se, just ways that are effective at driving engagement, satisfaction and retention, and methods that drive customers to the competition.

See this chair? I built it using revenue from your dissatisfied customers…well, that and slaves, lots and lots of slaves

If you’re not using Spartan approaches to leadership, rest assured the competition, be it internal, external or both, definitely is. When you lead from the back, what you’re really doing is saying I don’t care enough about this activity to dive in, and as such, you’re allowing someone else to step up and take charge and achieve. In your current position, if you brought your boss original concepts that pushed the company forward versus bringing the boss someone else’s work that could push the company forward, in both cases, wouldn’t your boss probably lean towards the originator of the concepts?

Joe’s Myspace campaign idea was met with a less than favorable response…

The era of the middle man is long in the past. Someone is breaking new ground and leading innovation in your organization. Someone is assessing data, resolving issues and making revisions quickly and accurately. Someone is poised to bring about the next big thing in your company. Is that someone you?

If it’s not, it should be.