Can Tiger Come Out to Play?

By now, most of the prurient fascination with the moral and financial collapse of Tiger Woods has faded back into the white noise of daily life, but the debris left behind is a reminder of the jawing difference between “private” and “personal.”

For someone who has drawn their fortune from public adulation and has erected a brand image on a false pretense, Tiger cannot now plead for privacy. Frankly, he owes something to the hundreds of people whose livelihood was pegged to his brand, to the charities that were supported by the PGA events in which he competed, to the inner city kids who looked up to him as a role model (and, please, no argument that sports figures are not role models; sport stars don’t get to make that choice when they understand their stature in the hopes and dreams of some youth), and to the companies who rented his brand attributes under the misled assumption that he actually lived up to his words. (A UC Davis study pegs total shareholder losses at $5-12B).

Any true leader understands you cannot have it both ways. Yes, there are things in everyone’s life that are just private and ought to be sacrosanct from the madding crowd and tabloids, but there is something cathartic and even restorative when a fallen leader is willing to speak honestly (or at least vulnerably) to the people who trusted them. We are an amazingly forgiving breed of beast, but when someone refuses to acknowledge their failings, they are less human to the rest of us. They are truly on their own. And that, is the worse privacy of all.

"People like me" is the new authority

There was an interesting study released this month by a major NY PR research company that measures "trust" -- who in our society is most credible and trusted, especially when it comes to conveying information or in guiding and endorsing decisions. For the first time since the study was begin, the category of "people like me" scored higher than traditional sources of authority, such as parents, bosses, CEOs, major brands, or political and social/religious leaders.

Peers ("people like me") have always been a critical touchpoint in where we seek information, validation, confirmation or acceptance. Most people—not all, but most—like to be with people who are like them. It is less threatening and often less challenging. Safety in numbers, especially when we get to pick the numbers.

This notion of peer authority is further evidence of the growing power of social networks to bring us into contact—however fleetingly and tenuously—with "people like me." This "virtual affinity" with people we have never met, or with whom we have never exchanged anything more consequential than a Facebook post, is troubling in that it grants power to virtual strangers to influence our lives in ways reserved in the past to a chosen, trusted few.

This trend should give leaders—political, religious, social, and business—great pause. No longer can you rest on your institutional or positional authority to effect a change or direction. More than ever, leaders must understand that social networks, as much as they are a far cry from genuine human interaction, still reflect a need by people to connect with people on a more personal, rather than institutional, level.

In our "permission-based" society, the true mark of communications effectiveness is the ability to be yourself, be human, interact and connect with people on a much more "peer" and personal level. Who you are, your story, your very human reaction to issues, is crucial if you expect to compete with or be part of the social networks that are now taking a formidable place in how opinions and decisions are shaped and made.