Socially Savvy Leadership: Ted Coiné's Influencers

On yesterday’s episode of Smashing the Plateau, three-time CEO Ted Coiné discussed how we’re moving into a post-industrial economy into one driven largely by social networks and social intelligence. Here, he shares part of his own network of people near and far who helped influence his path:

1. “My father”

“Taught me more about leadership than anyone, and more about being a good human being than anyone besides my mother.”

2. Bernie Turner (http://www.waldenu.edu/about/who-we-are/history)

Coiné writes that Turner—a founder of Walden University—is a “Friend, mentor, inspiration.”

3. Richard Branson

Coiné writes that Branson is “my favorite business exemplar.” In yesterday’s interview, he described how Branson “has 50,000 people in his organization, roughly 500 different brands under the Virgin group—and he just loves being out there in the limelight; he loves talking to people. And he did that before “social” ever started, before anyone had ever invented “Web 2.0,” or before MySpace was ever a twinkle on somebody’s eye, not to mention Facebook, LinkedIn, and Twitter. This guy has just gone social because he’s like ‘wow, this is a great way to connect with even more people—more of my employees, and more of the public.’ “

4. Tim Harford, author of Adapt 

“Why failure is so important, and how to get it right. This book keeps coming up in conversation after conversation. I’m coming to think people shouldn’t be allowed to go back to work until they have read it and taken a comprehension test.”

5. Adam Grant, author of Give and Take

“Give and Take is my favorite business book. Yes, including my own. Good karma is good business. This is the science behind that fundamental truth.”