Benefits and pitfalls of a CEO’s personal Twitter messaging

Abstract

Purpose

This paper explores the benefits and pitfalls of a CEO’s personal messaging on Twitter.

Design/methodology/approach

The paper draws on recent professional and scholarly literature that has explored Twitter use by executives. For empirical support, some personal tweets of Uber’s CEO Dara Khosrowshahi and Tesla’s CEO Elon Musk are cited.

Findings

Twitter enables the exercise of leadership through language, especially by CEOs who learn how to harness its benefits and avoid its pitfalls. Communicating via a CEO’s personal Twitter account can help establish the actual and perceived organizational culture of a company; build and maintain the CEO’s reputation as an honest broker of information; and influence how a company’s business model and priorities are perceived.

Originality/value

This paper is one of the first to explore the implications of the use by CEO’s of their personal Twitter account for corporate purposes.

Citation

Craig, R. and Amernic, J. (2020), "Benefits and pitfalls of a CEO’s personal Twitter messaging", Strategy & Leadership, Vol. 48 No. 1, pp. 43-48. https://doi.org/10.1108/SL-10-2019-0154