Magazine for June 2010
Followership – a neglected skill!
What matters most? Good leadership – or good followership?
In any organisation someone has to set the direction – let’s call that the “first-chair” leader. Unless you want chaos, there can only be one of them and it’s probably not you. The role you play, whatever it is, will primarily be one of followership. Does that make you feel a little uncomfortable? You don’t like to think of yourself as a follower? Maybe it sounds altogether too passive or brainless or both?
Today’s culture teaches that we should all make all our own decisions for ourselves all the time, and assumes we can do a good job of it. Don’t you believe it! Following an expert’s advice usually gives better outcomes than making up your own mind, but it’s not easy. It takes courage to admit that someone else knows better. Being a follower is a challenging calling, but all successful organisations need followers.
Firstly, without followers, a leader is nothing. “The first follower is what turns a lone nutcase into a leader” says Derek Sivers (at www.ted.com). To achieve anything, every team needs all but one member to be followers. Secondly, people learn more by observation and copying than by listening to teaching, but the leader can be too different to copy easily.
Particularly in a church the leader is often full-time and often seen as specially ‘called’, while everyone else is much more normal than that! That’s why new followers tend to copy existing followers, rather than the leader. That makes being a follower a more responsible position altogether.
So what does good followership take? Three top things.
1. Alignment
Get aligned with the leader. Make sure you understand where the leader is leading, and understand why. If you think the direction is wrong, say so. Ask for explanation. That way you can learn, and you might influence the direction for everyone.
2. Application
Get applied where you are. The leader can’t work out the detailed application of the vision in every area. Great followers take the leader’s vision and apply it with prayer and passion to their own area.
3. Appreciation
Finally, just as you apply followership to the leader, others will apply followership to you! Appreciate it. Encourage them, not to blindly copy you, but to ask why you do what you do. Those conversations can be both challenging and corrective! Encourage them to understand the direction and apply it to their area. Oh, and remember to point out that others will be taking their lead from them.
Good followership – the real secret of team success!
Steve Hood