Julian Stodd

An interesting and insightful look at leadership in the Social Age.

In this book, the author describes the Social Age as "the environment we inhabit today: it's a time when the very nature of work is evolving, changing to reflect a revised social contract and the advancement of technology to facilitate sharing and community."

Author Julian Stodd often writes about aspects of the Social Age on his blog, and this book is an in-depth look at leadership and what it should look like in the Social show more Age.

Part one of this book looks at the foundations of social leadership, including defining the Social Age, looking at the concept of the "social business", the "social contract" and social collaborative technology. This sets the stage for exploring what leadership looks like in the Social Age.

Part two gets to the heart of this book and focuses on what the author refers to as the "NET Model of Social Leadership". This model is built around three key areas: Narrative, Engagement, and Technology. Each of these areas are further broken down into three components that comprise the skills, concepts, models, and attitudes of social leadership, as follows:

Narrative: Curation, Storytelling, and Sharing

Engagement: Community, Reputation, and Authority

Technology: Co-Creation, Social Capital, and Collaboration

Each of these three components is even further broken down into three smaller pieces. For instance, the "Curation" component of the "Narrative" area comprises three facets: "Discovery,", "Perception," and "Interpretation." While I appreciate the goal of breaking down each piece of the model into smaller chunks, at times I found myself a little lost in terms of where in the NET model hierarchy I was.

I enjoy reading about business and leadership, and this book offers a distinctively different look at leadership through the lens of the social age. I especially like how this book combines traditional ideas around leadership, such as authority and collaboration, with some less traditional ideas, including curation, storytelling, and co-creation.

Anyone looking for ideas of what leadership will look like in the coming years will find good, insightful ideas in this book. This is a book that benefits greatly from being read more than once. There is a lot to digest in this small book, and many of the ideas and how they can be applied may not be evident to the reader upon an initial read.

I do have a couple of minor quibbles with the book, but neither of these is anything I would consider major. First, I read this initially on my Kindle, and many of the illustrations and mind-maps were difficult to read. This is more of an issue with my using a Kindle than with the book's content, but is something that Kindle readers should bear in mind. Secondly, most of the book is more theory than practice, and I think the book would have benefited greatly from more real-life examples of some of the principles discussed. Again these are both minor issues, and neither of these should discourage people from reading this.

I recommend this book to anyone interested in leadership in general, and the role of leadership and the skills needed to master it in the Social Age.

[Disclaimer: I received a complimentary copy of this book for being a member of the author's Learning Forum group on LinkedIn.] show less