The Power of Presence: Rethinking Leadership in the Digital Age
Great Leaders, a new business launch from Great Influence, has helped global companies activate their leadership teams at scale on LinkedIn — equipping them with the strategy, tools, support, and confidence to show up consistently and make an impact on their industry.
We sit down with Founder Ash Jones to discuss what it truly means to be a great leader today, how leadership visibility has evolved, and why platforms like LinkedIn are essential for leaders looking to build trust, attract talent, and drive business growth…
1. Ash, what does it mean to be a ‘Great Leader’ today, and how has that evolved over the past decade?
Being a great leader inside a company is no longer about just doing the job. It’s also now in the telling, promoting, speaking and championing of that job. The evolution of the online world over the last decade has brought with it a need for leaders to be more visible, acting as a champion for their team(s), their company, and giving insight into who they are individually, the things they care about, and the things they see as important in their industry.
It’s no longer enough to simply be a great leader offline, as it would have been in 2015. And there are so many different opportunities for how those who want to be great leaders in 2025 and beyond can show up as such online.
We’ve entered a new ‘social first’ era where a leader’s visibility, voice and presence online is essential. And I say that for a number of reasons: One, to be able to connect with their teams and people on a more regular basis, where you might have leaders who are managing teams of hundreds of people they never see in person, and the online element of leadership today has unlocked a level of visibility and connection for them. Second, being that voice and having that online presence turns you into a valuable asset and channel for the business, which also benefits you in terms of your own career and development.
On the other side, do I think you need to be radically transparent online as a leader? No, I don’t think you do in the slightest. It depends on what you’re trying to do, who you’re trying to be, how you’re trying to show up in the world, the audience you’re trying to build and the voice you’re trying to develop. But you don’t have to be vulnerable and open to be able to build a profile online. There are many people who are doing so by simply being educational, entertaining or valuable or insightful, and they’ve kept vulnerability and openness away from what they do. It comes down to what you’re comfortable with as a leader, and some people are more comfortable with higher levels of openness than others.
2. Why should companies see personal branding for leaders as a business investment, not a PR play or ego boost?
Personal branding serves a number of different functions across organisations. Personal branding for leaders specifically can play a huge role in recruiting and retaining the best talent, for example. If we take leaders building personal brands on LinkedIn, people get way more attention than brands, so if a brand is trying to promote its EVP or its employer brand messaging, that messaging is getting way more attention when it’s coming from an individual’s page than the company’s page.
But also, the scope of what an individual can talk about, and in turn, how they can showcase firsthand what leaders are like within a company for external talent to see, makes them a source of insight or inspiration and therefore a point of attraction. People are going to be drawn to the company by the individual and then by the brand. So it plays a role in terms of attracting talent, but like I said, it also plays a role in retaining talent. Especially in bigger companies, where employees having visibility with their leaders and their teams can be quite rare. So anything you can do to extend or increase those touch points is always going to be a huge opportunity for a leader to communicate what the company is working on and to reaffirm its mission, vision and values.
They can embody all of these things and become a bit of a comms channel whilst also giving employees an insight into who they are themselves, what they do with their time and how they are impacting the business. So even in just that one example, it’s a positive for the business for a leader to be doing those things.
3. Why do you think many leaders still hesitate to build their presence, and what mindset shift is needed to move past that reluctance?
The majority of leaders are somewhat senior in their careers. Usually, 10–15 years into them. And they’ve made it that far by not putting themselves out there online. They’ve also built up a network and a reputation, and they’re concerned with what that existing network will think of them if they go from being somebody who doesn’t post online to somebody who does post online. So a big part of it stems from how they are being perceived, and a concern for being perceived in the wrong way by their existing network.
There is also an element of having to do something for the first time that they are not already good at, and that they’re going to have to be not good at for a while, before they can become so. But 10, 15 years into a career, senior leaders don’t actually want to do anything that they’re not very good at anymore. It’s very rare that they are doing something for the first time and having to become good at it, as they are now spending their time doing the things they’ve become great at. So there’s this weird disparity in terms of them having to be a beginner at something again, and I think that’s why there’s a hesitation.
The one mistake leaders are making regularly is that they are trying to do things that they see working on a platform or working for other people. So, for example, some might say that carousels are really working on LinkedIn at the moment. So a leader thinks, ‘Okay, I’m going to do carousels’ but they’re not the type of person that would do that in the first place. Or a certain topic of conversation might be trending at the minute, so a leader will try and jump into that conversation even though they’re not the person who should be in that conversation.
Instead, they need to be understanding themselves and what they should be talking about and being disciplined about sticking to that.
4. What advice would you give to leaders who want to attract talent through LinkedIn, not just post content but build a reputation as someone worth working for?
In my opinion, the aim of it is to understand, firstly, why you are worth working for. What is it about you? Is it because of your knowledge and insight into the industry, and because the work you do is super forward-thinking? Is it that you’re a very empathetic people person and leader, and you’re really great at managing teams and people? What is the thing that makes you worth working for? And there is your answer.
Essentially, then, what you’re doing is taking that online. You’re not trying to shape this persona that doesn’t exist. You’re understanding the reason people want to work with you that already exists and taking that online. If you do that, you’re building an authentic representation of the truth, and that is much easier to get behind, as you can find comfort in the fact that you’re just being yourself.
5. What content formats or behaviours are you seeing drive real engagement, and what’s changing fast?
There’s so much AI content that’s coming into play. That it’s less about content formats that are driving engagement and more that AI content is very generic. It’s unemotional, it’s not very real, it feels generated. So if you can actually be somebody who is quite unfiltered in a sense, and raw and human and honest and transparent, and you’re talking from firsthand experience, and firsthand insight, firsthand opinion, that’s the way to cut through.
Through Great Leaders, Great Influence has helped global companies activate their leadership teams at scale on LinkedIn, equipping them with the strategy, tools, support and confidence to show up consistently and make an impact on their industry. This includes end-to-end strategy and support, social media planning and management, performance tracking and benchmarking, and leadership team workshops.
If you’d like to learn more, visit greatinfluence.com/leaders or contact claudia@greatinfluence.co.uk to explore how Great Leaders can support your team.