Annabella Bracco

Leadership in the Digital Context

Leadership Competencies Twitter Assignment

There are so many leaders in the world running many different organizations. With that

being said, there aren’t many amazing leaders or successful companies that strive to learn and

grow. Brian Chesky on the other hand, was named one of the New York Times most influential

people. He is the co-founder of CEO of the well known lodging service, Airbnb. People can

categorize Brian Chesky as an American Businessman and industrial designer. He has create a

huge platform for people to be able to travel the world and experience life in a whole new way.

When I think of Brian Chesky and all he has accomplished I came to see that he has 3 very

prevalent competencies. I saw communication, personal, and organizational competencies that

are very prevalent to the people he meets, works with, and how he interacts online.

Personal Competencies are are a set of soft skills that are needed in order to succeed and

be self-aware. Some of these skills consisted of social awareness, relationship skills, and self

management. When I think of how Brian Chesky shows personal competencies, I cant see it

through his creativity and in the way he forms relationships. For example, Brian is very active on

Twitter, constantly tweeting and retweeting important information and news going on all over the

world. A specific tweet that stood out to me was when he started speaking on the topic of Black

Lives Matter. His tweets would stress the importance of racial equality and would

communication with his followers. He stated “Black lives matter. We stand with those using their

voices and peacefully calling for justice, fairness and racial equality” Brian (2020, March 31).

This showed how strong his relationship skills are and his social awareness for the people around
him. He made it clear that there are other people out there going through hard times and that it

wasn’t okay.

Communication Competencies was another competence that stood out to me

immediately. Communication competencies is the process of having effective communication

styles that allows one the ability to adapt and form relationships in almost every type of scenario.

Some of those competencies are trust, influence, persuasion, writing, and listening. When it

comes to Brian Chesky, I immediately saw that he has a skill for influencing and persuading his

viewers, especially on Twitter. Brian at any chance he gets takes the opportunity to show what

people are able to do because of Airbnb. He recently tweeted a photo of about 6 friends in

college who were doing school while in a gorgeous airbnb in the mountains. He wrote

“Unexpected use case... College students living together around the world on Airbnb” Brian

(2020, Aug 28). He was showing how during these times, its amazing how students are able to

explore the world while still be in school. So many comments talked about how they were going

to do the same thing. Even I caught myself thinking of places me and my friends could go while

all still be able to do school and work from home.

The last competency was organization competencies. Organizational competencies is

another way for explaining ones performance and how resourceful one could be. Some

organizational competencies are management and supervision, teaching, knowledge,

empowerment, and technological capability. When I think of Brian Chesky, I immediately think

of his strong technological capability. Brian has been able to design one of the worlds most

popular travel application. He is also so involved in social media and keeping in contact with his

followers. His capability to understand how technology works has allowed him to create more
personal relationships with people who are fans of his work or customers in general. Besides

trying to advertise for his product, he is also involved in talking about politics, global warming,

racism, and equality. He uses his presence and platform for good which isn't something that we

see a lot on social media.

Being able to analyze ones leader competencies isn't always easy depending on the leader

of choice. I found it very easy to analyze Brian Chesky because of the type of person he is. Each

competency has so many characteristics that Brian has just by looking at his twitter. Twitter has

become such and interactive application where people of any age, ethnicity, gender, or wealth

can communicate with each other as equals. Brian makes it a point to communicate with his

followers ensuring he continues to form trusting relationships. He not only talks about his

product Airbnb but he also makes sure to talk about all the very important things that are going

on in the world. This shows that he thinks about others and expresses that fully to his followers.

In order to be a great leader, it is very important to have a large majority of the leader

competencies. There is so much that goes into being a great leader and it has a lot to do with the

type of person you are.

Works Cited

Chesky, B. [BrianChesky]. (2020, March 31) Retrieved from https://twitter.com/bchesky/status/

1267141962982928384

Chesky, B. [BrianChesky]. (2020, March 31) Retrieved from https://twitter.com/bchesky/status/

1299433971130998784