By Jeremy LaCasse, gcLi Dean of Faculty, Assistant Headmaster, Taft School (CT)
The leadership of Facebook has recently been in the news. The Myanmar military used Facebook as a means of spreading disinformation about the Rohingya people, resulting in the deaths and displacement of hundreds of thousands of people. Russian utilization to influence U.S. elections has been a part of the national conversation since 2016. Much closer to home, each of our schools has seen social media be used in harmful and destructive ways.
The goal of this post is not to review the ways in which Facebook has been used for nefarious activities. Instead, the goal of this article is to consider how the leadership of Facebook worked in these moments and as a matter of principle and how we, teachers of leadership, can use this example to guide our own work with our students.
Our students need to understand how leaders often set into motion unforeseen or unintended consequences. When Mark Zuckerberg created Facebook – a follow up to Facemash.com that was a mean-spirited, peer-rating site akin to Yik Yak – he did not fully comprehend how this tool would be used. Really, none of us did. The mission of Facebook now is: “a social mission to make the world more open and connected.” That is the stated and intended goal of Facebook. While it may achieve that goal some or even most of the time, the leadership of Facebook – notably Mark Zuckerberg and Sheryl Sandberg – have culpability when the consequences do not match their intentions.
Leading, and teaching leadership, requires a clear moral compass and a willingness take responsibility for one’s self and the consequence of one’s actions. Facebook’s leaders seem to have failed on this account, according to an article in The New York Times, Delay, Deny and Deflect: How Facebook’s Leaders Fought Through Crisis It provides us with a point of departure and case study of leadership in action and under scrutiny.
As part of the Pedagogy of Leadership®, we need to help our students understand and see examples of places where leaders do and don’t take responsibility. We need to help them learn to navigate those moments where their goals and intentions become overshadowed by the impact of their actions. These are the spots of greatest difficulty in leading and the spots where we show the type of leader we really are.
We also have to help our students develop the pathways in their brains – as Dr. JoAnn Deak ascribes – to make sound decisions. Part of this work involves understanding how dendritic connections happen and how learning shapes a developing brain. We do good work when we help students expand their understanding of leadership and the actions they utilize to help their group achieve its goals. In crafting their response to criticism and challenge, the leadership of Facebook ran headlong into the mix of factors that influenced their decision-making, which provides teachers of leadership with a compelling case study.
The critical elements of this case involve the moral obligation that arise from connecting and leading literally billions of people and how even the best ideas can be co-opted for evil. Our young leaders often have trouble separating feedback about the impact of their actions from the intentions behind their work. As the leadership of Facebook demonstrates, adults often have the same challenge. Helping our developing leaders learn to take responsibility for themselves and others, for the impact of their actions, is critical.
Hearing you have caused unintentional minor harm is difficult, but learning to take responsibility there sets up a future adult to be prepared and resilient when the unintentional harm is much more significant. Most importantly, the learning leader can expand their capacity to help the group find solutions to new problems.
Facebook has 2.27 billion users. This case merely magnifies the reality of the impact of any leader. Facebook allows folks who would have difficulty remaining or being connected to do so. Having looked through many recent holiday images, I acknowledge the benefits there. Facebook allows the Gardner Carney Leadership Institute to connect with graduates and share content that furthers the Pedagogy of Leadership®, a positive in my estimation.
Still, our choice as an organization to utilize this platform is not without consequence, intended or otherwise. We too are responsible for our choice and engagement. One might ask, “how do we help leaders balance the positive and negative impact of their actions as they lead?” For the positive, no other platform allows us to connect so easily and so effectively with those doing the work of teaching leadership. As we look to support this group, we need a tool like Facebook.
Similarly, the gcLi has chosen this platform and, as a result, has some culpability in acknowledging its limitations and in helping our larger community do better for each other. Our hope is that the benefits to those teaching leadership will far outweigh the costs of our utilization of this platform. We cannot force Facebook to take responsibility, to change their work, to avoid future evil. But we can take responsibility for our use of this platform and work to help our students lead positively in the world, hoping to solve or mitigate some of the issues made apparent on Facebook.
Jeremy is the Dean of Faculty and former Executive Director of gcLi. He eats, breathes, and lives teaching leadership, hoping to help the next generation of leaders be better prepared to face the challenges of tomorrow.