Followership v. Leadership
For those of you who know me, you know that my shelves are filled with books on leadership. The areas of topics range from military leadership to servant leadership, and pretty much everything in between. I have books by team sport coaches, former ministers, psychologist, and business executives. They all have a similar goal in mind, it is to present their perspective on what it takes to get an organization/team/group to follow your instruction and guidance. To essentially, do what you want them to do. The good news is that there are many leadership styles and many books out there explaining on how to execute each of these leadership styles. Every once in a while you will come across in these books how to deal with the individuals on the team. As a leader/manager of a team, you have to make difficult decisions all the time. What project will each team member work on; what person will you hire to be on the team; when is it time for a team member to seek other opportunities.
Over the years, I have held many positions. And most of us have held more positions as subordinates than leaders. What we all know but sometimes have difficulty accepting is that everyone answers to someone. Even CEO’s answer to their chairman and board or shareholders. So why the focus on leadership and not followership. Trust me when I say that followership does not come naturally to all people. There are some who do it quite well, and amazingly enough those people turn out to be some of the best leaders.
So what does it take to be a good follower. I believe that Patrick Lencioni did a great job in his book, The Ideal Team Player, outlining 3 key attributes. Mr. Lencioni says that being humble, hungry, and (people) smart will make you a good team player. I 100% agree. But I think there is a bit more to being a good follower than just those 3 traits.
Able to internalize and apply constructive feedback: We all have blind spots in our lives. In our character and in our work. When our manager provides constructive criticism, what do we do with that? Do we throw it away because it does not align with who we ‘know’ ourselves to be, or do we take it to heart and see how we might improve in that area. Prov 1:7 says that fools despise instruction. We can definitely question the instruction given, but to be a good follower, we should truly evaluate whether or not the instruction/criticism is valid even in the slightest. Then to be able to apply that instruction and actually make that change to your action or habit is critical to growing as an employee or team member.
Respect for others: If you don’t like people, or think that you are the smartest person in the room (see humble from Lencioni), then you will be bringing in conflict and strife to your team/department. Respect is seen in many different ways in a group dynamic. Deference to others ideas is probably where I see it most. Lack of respect stifles collaboration and group brainstorming. It is that respect for others that allows someone to ‘take a back’ seat when appropriate. If an individual is humble but he has no respect for others, then all they do is take up space. They are not contributing because they believe that they don’t have anything to contribute, and they don’t believe that the others in the group are worth their time and effort to work with. In this situation, I am not sure why they are still on the team.
Alignment with vision: One of the first things I do with a new manager is to work with them to outline what their team does. This takes the form of a team charter which includes a mission statement, a vision statement, and the team operational scope. The scope will include the SOP and key deliverables. We will spend a number of sessions going through this charter to make sure that they truly believe the charter reflects the team and its activities. The vision statement is that long range view for what the team needs to strive. An employee’s view on the mission determines many things, most notably how diligent their work effort. This is critical. It would be like an individual on a rowing team being out of sync. You may get to your destination, but it will require more effort and more time. As a leader, you should be ‘selling’ your team on the vision. And depending on how good a salesman you are or how good the vision is, will determine how much buy-in you get from your team.
These 3 elements of being a follower will determine a number of things about the team. Growth/development, collaboration, and effectiveness/performance.
The next question is how to make sure that you get these type of people on your team. That is a topic for another day.