My Reading and Thought on Digital Leadership

              When it comes to creating and sustaining online learning community, leadership is one important element to consider.  Leadership is a process of mobilizing people to achieve common goals. Within its core, leadership in the digital space is no difference from that in face-to-face environment. However, there is one major difference: in digital space, many social structures and network presented in the physical environment are absent, and therefore digital leadership usually takes the form of opinion leaders (Endersby, Phelps, & Jenkins, 2017). Of course, this does not mean that digital leaders cannot call on people to act, because of technology and social media, digital leaders are empowered and thus more likely to reach wider. This requires certain quality for digital leaders. Digital leaders should have the knowledge and skills to reach, via social media platforms, and enlist people effectively to act for a shared task or goal. That means, digital leasers should have such competency as “adaptive facilitation, understanding of technological amplification of power, recognition of integrated social-technical processes, as well as nuanced understanding of technology” (Endersby et al., 2017, pp. 81-82). The virtual leadership competency seems to be framed within technology, but it is also disciplinary as handling the social-technical processes require knowledge of both communication and sociological psychology.
                                                         ReferencesEndersby, L., Phelps, K., & Jenkins, D. (2017). The Virtual Table: A Framework for Online                   Teamwork, Collaborating, and Communication.  In E. Cabellon & J. Ahlquist                                (Eds.), Engaging the digital generation (New Directions for Student Services, No. 155,               pp. 75-88). San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass.

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