Social Media Influencer vs Leadership Human Influencer
Leadership Influence - Part 3
I was driving home alone tonight and this post’s title came into my head. I made some voice notes and quickly finished it when I got home. Every once in awhile like a songwriter this happens and it was awesome it happened tonight.
This is Part 3 in my series of Leadership Influence.
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Social Media Influencer vs. Leadership Human Influencer
In our algorithm obsessed world, the word “influencer” has become shorthand for anyone with a large online following.
The world seems to be scoring themselves on their number of followers, their post impressions, and hoping their post goes viral.
That’s social media influence, but it’s not leadership influence.
Leadership is not created in 10-30 second video clips, texts, or tweets.
In leadership, the influence that matters most isn’t measured in likes, it’s measured in key moments. Similarly, it is measured in followers.
As a leader, your team decides very early on and in regular intervals whether or not:
“I trust you. I’ll follow you. I’ll go to war with you.”
Here’s where it gets “real” - what I wrote about last week… drum roll please... BUT»»»»»
»»»» What if they decide the opposite?
Two Very Different “Influence Markets”
Social media influence is a broadcast game with its currency being visibility. Their product is attention.
Leadership influence is a trust game. Here your currency is credibility. The product is relationships.
In online social media, the algorithm decides who sees you with text and video being the only means of influence
In person, you influence through your human-ness. You have a much deeper ability to deliver critical context. You influence through unspoken signals you model everyday. The best leadership signals say, “I understand you, I have your back, and I’m committed to winning together…” many times without actually using those words.
Your leadership influence game is about depth not breadth.
The Science of Small Followings
In real life, influence works on a completely different scale backed by science. You may have heard of “Dunbar’s Number”. Anthropologist Robin Dunbar’s research clearly shows humans can only maintain less than 150 meaningful relationships at once. That’s the opposite of social media’s “more is better” mindset.
In leadership, you don’t need millions of followers; you need the right 150 people to trust you, understand you, and act on your direction.
Social media chases breadth. Leadership and your network of relationships thrives on depth.
When you operate inside your Dunbar number, every interaction compounds your credibility (or deflates it). That’s the real algorithm of human influence.
The 3 Things All Great Leaders Do:
I’ve watched leaders with virtually zero charisma dominate the “trust currency” of a company by doing three things consistently:
Modeling Behavior: Nothing travels faster inside an organization than hypocrisy. And nothing builds influence faster than walking your talk and being “real”.
Asking Powerful Questions: You can’t influence those who you aren’t connected with. You cannot connect with people without a shared language of understanding and desired outcomes. The best leaders ask powerful questions and listen intently in order to create the proper context of the problem before providing their own point of view or making a recommendation for a solution.
Being There in the Hard Moments: Real influence isn’t built in easy wins. It’s forged in customer crisis moments, tense board meetings, or the late-night “we might not make payroll” call.
If you’re a leader, your version of influence isn’t a trendy hashtag; it’s earning your company’s trust in the most critical moments.
Where Social Media Skills Hurt
I’ve met leaders who think their online persona is enough to carry them.
That’s not what people want. In fact, it’s usually the opposite.
If your team sees more of your leadership philosophy on LinkedIn or Twitter than in the weekly staff meeting, you don’t have leadership influence.
How We Can Learn From Social Media Influencing
It’s the Storytelling.
Crisp, clear, consistent storytelling not only builds an audience online, it also builds a following inside your company.
The big difference, however, in leadership, is you can’t edit your live feed.
Your Real “Follower” Metric
The day will come when the business or your team hits turbulence.
That’s when you’ll learn who your real followers are.
Not the online kind. The human kind.
The ones who stick with you when the game is on the line. When you are down on the scoreboard, the clock is running out, and everyone’s looking to you to call or make the play.
Social media only gets you noticed.
Leadership influence puts the ball in your hands at crunch time.
💡 CFO Coaching Sidebar: In leadership, your true influence score comes from a mix of credibility capital (the trust you’ve banked over time) and decision velocity (how well you lead in high risk or high crisis moments). These are measurable and trainable skills I can coach you on.
