My hosts Eng. Bashayer Al-Awwad and Eng. Fadhel Abulhasan of IEEE organized a STARS knowledge café in Kuwait on a topic near and dear to me:

"How should leadership change in the age of social networks?"

A group of Kuwaitis and expatriates came to the café to discuss leadership style, skills and attributes, both from the aspect of good leadership characteristics and in relation to the impact of social networks. This is a highly current topic in the Gulf States and various Arab nations as recent events in Tunisia, Egypt, Libya, Bahrain and in fact the broader Arab world. The participants were highly engaged and many opinions and facts were discussed.

Some of the relevant comments were around how society can shape leadership, the changing view of what is a good leader, how different generations (age) modify risk taking behaviour, the use of new technology, team spirit, shared values and goals, the way vision and mission as well as the cultural view is shifting, teamwork, importance of communication and language, demonstrating leadership, 'walk the talk' inspiration, confidence, informal and emerging leaders.

For me one line summed up the recent tumult and emerging leadership:

One line in facebook started the revolution in Egypt.

thanks to all who participated.

Han

The STARS knowledge café views are shown here. Click for full size image.