Followership, Followers and Following
More from the Views from the Business Front Line Series: 29/10/02
By: Paul Di Carlo
My last article on leadership, leaders and leading provoked a healthy number of responses, mainly in agreement with the views put forward. Thanks for the feedback.
This month, I'd like to take another perspective on leadership that's too often neglected. I think there's more to leadership, leaders and leading than focusing on the attributes and characteristics of those who lead. While leaders are important, what about those who follow and, perhaps more importantly, those who choose not to?
Leading is about moving the team and the company forward, it's about making changes, taking a journey from here to there. It's not about doing business as usual, managing the status quo and maintaining production, that's the domain of managing and managers. In reality we need to recognise that, most of the time, we have to do a bit of both.
For most of us, our responsibility at work is predominately about fulfilling our role as resources that create, produce, process and deliver value. That's the core of the 'deal' between us and the company; that's what we get paid for. The vagaries of the market apart, the sum total of this value from everyone at every level, contributes to the success of the enterprise. Both individually and as a company, we are judged on our ability to deliver and meet targets for quality and quantity.
Inevitably, changes in markets lead to the need for change in what we do and how we do it. However, it seems to be a fact of life that most individuals and organisations put off making the changes necessary until the need to do so is compelling and urgent (and sometimes not even then!). It's at this point that leaders are required, people who can map out a new direction, create a new path forward and call for others to follow. The question I have at this point is 'what do you do when you hear the call?'
Followership and Followers
While everyone has his or her view on leadership and leading and the qualities necessary for those who seek to undertake the role, few seem to ask themselves how well they are doing as followers. How good are your following skills? Is your leader really glad you are on-board? Are you on-board? Does your leader see you as a valuable asset that adds to the efforts to move forward or as a doubter who needs everything explained and confirmed, dead weight or as a block to progress?
Do you know the difference between being a 'producer' in a business-as-usual mode and a follower in a change mode? Do you engage with the leader and the rest of the team in a follower frame of mind or do you spend time criticising your leader's shortcomings or bemoaning the uncertainty that the change represents? Are you willing to follow, to move from where you are? Do you willingly step forward?
I work with teams at all levels in business and see the same behaviours at each level (often expressed with only subtle differences). People demand leadership and new leaders rise to meet the challenge, only to find that these same people will not engage, question every new step and are not willing to follow.
Efforts to create new ways forward are thwarted by passivity, avoidance strategies, counter proposals to ensure the status quo, downplaying serious problems and putting more priority into business as usual efforts. In addition, more senior managers often develop an increased ability and emphasis on demonstrating a 'silo' mentality or a sudden flight to health - 'a miracle just happened and everything is now fine' with known issues being pushed under the carpet. At the same time, new leaders are criticised for being human, fallible and for not having all the answers.
While I said in the previous article that we have a right to ask for leaders to have the behaviours, capabilities, values and a sense of direction and purpose that attracts others, we need to take stock of our willingness to follow, to help to contribute, to be part of a team that recognises the need to move forward. Being willing to follow is not about blindly accepting some new leader's authority, nor expecting that they will have all the answers at the outset. It's also not about abdicating all responsibility for progress and getting things done or waiting passively for the answers to be provided on a plate by the leader and deciding that you'll change when some results start to occur. Nor is it about sitting back and hoping to enjoy the ride.
Are you willing to really engage and genuinely consider the options from a team and company perspective? Do you know the difference between what you can reasonably expect from the leader in terms of their approach, behaviours and capabilities and what you need to give others in the team (including the leader) to enable them to make progress. Do you know what you need to do and openly demonstrate to help the team achieve substantially more together than you can individually? Are you ready and willing to play your part in helping to move and create the way forward?
Following
I could write at some length about the characteristics and positive behaviours of an effective follower, but recently I did some work with a team that had a more effective way of expressing the different types of behaviour and expectations of people in this context:
5-P Follower Model
- Participants - actively involved and contributing to moving forward.
- Pessimists - thinks the changes mean we're doomed and needs to share this view with everyone.
- Passengers - here in body only, the mind is elsewhere.
- Pigs - only here for the food.
- Prisoners - here, but not through choice.
Notice that these are all descriptions of behaviour and the impact these descriptions have on how you think about such people.
We ask a lot of anyone who would seek to lead us and we have a right to question and challenge, but once these needs are satisfied enough, are you willing to put aside your reluctance, play your part in the change process and be a real follower?
Taking a new step, uttering a new word
is what people fear most.
Fyodor Dostoevsky
Originally Published: 29th October 2002
Channel: www.IT-Director.com in Business Management
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Reader Responses…
Posted on: 30th November 2003
Sender: Megan Margaret
I'm a senior at SUNY Potsdam and this current semester I had and still have for another two weeks an internship with the President of my college.
Through the internship, I saw many leaders and just as many followers. It's funny, before the internship, I never really thought about the importance of the follower. With out the followers help, the leader could not lead. The system would not work.
This article gave me even more ideas about the importance of followership and in less then one year, when I have employment, I will be able to apply the ideas the author talks about!
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