Bring it on…. Imagine who and what you might become!
This month my phone… ops… cell/email/LinkedIn has been lit up with executives that are looking for leadership alignment. What they are really asking for is some type of organizational shakeup, change management, or change readiness that will not adversely impact employee engagement. They want to grow or advance their business this year but why the resistance to change? Great question! Answer: It has to do with followership.
Key point: leaders, by definition, must have followers. If you do not have followers then you are not a leader unless you are a leader of one—yourself. It is important to lead yourself but that is a topic for another blog. What keeps a follower following a leader?
An interesting discovery… followers need development, coaching, and training just as much as a leader. Are you ready for a mind-numbing revelation? Followers need to lead. Stop being childlike waiting for the leader to lead. Quit hoping your leader will turn into your boyfriend or girlfriend, parent or grandparent. Instead take the lead and follow by impacting your world in which you have been deputized and unleashed to do so. The Good Book perhaps gave followers the best advice within its first few pages: “go forth, be fruitful, and multiply.” Wow!
Last week I was talking with an executive, who we are coaching to become a Level 5 leader. He was at dinner with a couple senior managers who actually said that a decision that they were capable of making was above their pay grade! They were frustrated with a change in a recent structural make-up of their senior team. Their problem: they were focused on “me” not “we.” They were thinking like children rather than team leaders wanting to advance the customers’ experience. Not to be alarmed—the transformation to a servant-led organization is a process, not an event. The concept, leading through service, must continually be reinforced because it is not just the leader that must be transformed, but all the followers as well. Some people call that engagement.
Seven quick keys to followership:
- Become internally motivated; don’t wait to be told what to do or look for approval.
- Transform the mindset from “me” to “we” by becoming “other focused.”
- Focus on obtaining pleasing results, not on pleasing your boss.
- Be gracious to everyone especially those who serve you: wait staff, hotel staff, taxi drivers, etc.
- Always seek to understand before being understood.
- Become a lifelong learner. Remember what Emerson once said, “Everyone I meet in some way is superior to me and I can learn from them.”
- Improve your attitude of helpfulness in every area of life.
Imagine an organization with people living out the above characteristics—what might happen in 2015?
Human Relations Principal: “Make people happy about the things you suggest.”
Onward!