Beach. Shorts. And Leadership.

Darren Rowse is an Internet celebrity. He is a full time blogger. He is making a good living from his blog ProBlogger.net. This Australian new media role model is writing about “how to make money from a blog”.

He is talking about a dream some people have. Not necessarily a vision of spending your days at the beach, in your shorts earning a living with your laptop. But nevertheless, this dream is oozing with “freedom”.

Problogger.net is one of the more popular blogs on the Internet. A lot of people comment on his articles.

Every. Single. Time.

They provide positive feedback. They discuss among each other.

Darren’s readers are all on the same journey. Beach. Shorts. Freedom. And, oh yeah. Money.

Darren’s influence is huge. He holds no formal authority over his crowd. He doesn’t pay them any money. Yet, he can make them move.

He is creating a vision. He is teaching by example. He motivates with words. He provides feedback to the crowd.

This is leadership.

Projects need leadership. Teams need motivation. With vision, the right words and positive feedback.

By observing how Darren operates on Problogger.net you can learn a lot about effective leadership. This is true for a lot of blogs and social networks on the Internet.

By participating on the Internet, you can train your leadership skills. The skills you need to create a small online community around your blog, are the same skills you use for leading your project team.

Same.

Well. Almost.