You can get me at kieron.shawATgmail

http://www.completetosh.com/we.....i-complex/

….let me offer what I’ve seen happening on this in the corporate world during my research, as a marker of where this might lead (or is leading) for you. There, where CEOs are very aware that the odd slipped-word internally can suddenly be on the front page of the WSJ the next day and cause the share price to drop and them to have to give back the Learjet by the end of the week, there has long been a guardedness. For the last few years that’s become a paranoia, as open blogs written by employees (e.g., Robert Scoble) have become widespread. As you say, candour has taken a hit precisely because information and publishing capability has become more available.

On the other, there is truly a parallel recognition (worry?) that this is an age where the conversation from leaders (political and corporate) HAS to be different – more down-home, more authentic, more “someone like me” – because the Gen X/Y audience demands it, won’t listen to anything else.

So the paradox is recognised. And yes, the result is that openness from CEOs and senior leaders has become situational and stage-managed, as I think it has in politics.

But if any leader needs to sell 50% “my policies,” 50% “me”, then the first part gets the “official”, formal, carefully-managed communication treatment and the second part (albeit while also often carefully managed) gets the less official, less formal, less guarded approach.

Sensitive policy issues are bled out with a very anus-puckered mindset, with communication protocol rigorously followed and everything even more uptight and diplomatically worded than ever before.

And then the other 50% of the leaders’ kitbag (engaging your audience) is done in the polar opposite format: “Hey, let’s just have a little folksy chat here over a cuppa, I’m just a regular guy like you.”

It works, but leads to the kind of utterly Jekyll & Hyde persona you see in many politicians today (Brown, Blair, Clinton, etc.). And the line to that, I think, can be traced back to this revolution of citizen journalism in recent years – or, at least, it is something that has amplified it hugely.

The sad thing is, Jekyll&Hyde works with the vast majority of the population – if only because they want a leader who seems super-capable and super-dynamic, but also just a little bit like them…

Kieron