thoughts

I Follow Your Lead ... As Long as it Suits Me

Tue, 21 Jul 2009 16:31:06 +0100

It used to be that people who held leadership roles were often the most educated, skilled, or experienced of a group. The group trusted that person’s judgement because of his or her knowledge, skill and experience. The better the leader”s ability to translate his or her background into vision and success, the more impressive the results the group could achieve. Look back in history at societies and institutions before mass education and you can find thousands of examples.

Something interesting has happened in our lifetime though. With the advent of mass education, increased specialization and exploding life complexity, followership has become much more an active choice – a temporary assigning of trust – and much less a factor of “I don’t know so I will follow someone who does”. I and millions like me are fully capable of managing and leading ourselves in most everything that comes our way … if we do not know something, our education has prepared us to find it out and apply it.

I just don’t have the time. Therefore I grant a limited amount of trust to those who seem to best fit into leadership roles in the areas where I would prefer someone else focus their efforts to organize my activities. That person shares enough of my viewpoints to give me comfort that his/her future actions will be consistent with what I desire. He or she should have a record of success in similar roles with like groups or his/her personal life. And he or she must continue to operate at roughly that level or above to sustain my trust. If these criteria are not met, I walk. I delegate my trust to another person.

This applies to most activities in my life, and in the lives of the modern knowledge worker or other worker in an industrialized country. It demonstrates the changed nature of the roles of leader and follower that has recently come to dominate our political and business landscapes. A leader who does not recognize this emerging fact is often not a leader for long.

I’ll elaborate more in my future posts … soon.

"Followers" or "NOT Followers": Followership framed simply

Fri, 27 Mar 2009 20:11:37 +0100

So far I’ve avoided reading books or articles that outline “follower typologies”. I simply don’t believe these categorizations are accurate. At best, they represent pigeon-holing for convenience, and at worst they are a dangerous watering down of the idea of followership - a watering down similar to that which has occured to leadership as a result of the hundreds of definitions and typologies. A person is either a leader or is not a leader; similarly, a person is a follower or is not a follower.

Followership is an active choice to agree with the elevation of a person from the ingroup to a leadership position and to engage in activities that support the elevation of that person as long as the person fills an ingroup need and guides ingroup actions in accordance with a set of shared ideas, values and interests. Followers are active supporters rather than passive hangers-on. Followers contribute to and support the ingroup because they share the same ideas, values and goals.

Those who don’t fit this definition are not followers. Rather they are outgroup resources that the leader and his or her followers can use to achieve their purposes. Even though they might look like “followers”, they are motivated primarily by a desire to avoid negative personal consequences for not complying with the authority of the ingroup leader or the power of the ingroup. Take for example the president or prime minister of a democracy. While that person is “in power” you will find people who actively claim him or her as their leader, but you will also find people who comply because that person is the president or prime minister. Failure to comply would potentially result in discomfort or negative consequences. The first group represents the followers. The second group does not - for them the president or prime minister is a person with authority but little more … and certainly not a leader. Typologies that ignore this distinction neither add value to our understanding of followership nor provide any meaningful predictive value with regard to the behavior of those not in the leadership position. Let’s dig a little deeper looking at some of the more established typologies.

Kelley’s typology lists and describes five types of “followers” - alienated, passive, conformist, prgamatic and exemplary. Of the five listed, only those he classifies as exemplary followers are actual followers. They engage strongly with the group and provide intelligent sensitive support and challenge to the leader. Alienated followers? People who do not commit readily to any leader? How does one justify calling this type of person a follower of any kind? At best these people are resources for the group to use. At worst they are non-entities insofar as the group’s purposes and values are concerned. The same can be said for passives and conformists … they offer no real support and constructive challenge to the ingroup. Pragmatics might be borderline but I am inclined to place them outside of the definition of follower because they do not really see themselves as a part of the ingoup. Like the other three non-follower groupings, they are motivated more by a desire to avoid negative personal consequences than by a desire to contribute to and support the ingroup.

Kellerman suggests that to be a “good” follower a person has to actively support effective and ethical leaders and respond appropriately to bad leaders. “Bad” followers are seen as making no contribution and supporting the wrong type of leader. I doubt that she is really suggesting that ethics and followership are intrically linked because history is full of examples of people I disgaree with ethically who have acted as leaders and followers. One has only to look at the Huns or Mongols to see that the ethics of a true follower and his or her leader do not have to be my own. One can even come a little closer to our own time and look at the Nazis. I abhor what they did but it is difficult for me to claim and support that they did not have among them people I would classify as followers.

Kellerman’s typology also lists five groups of “followers” - isolates, bystanders, participants, activists and diehards. Of the five, isolates and bystanders hold themselves seperate from the ingroup and contribute to their organizations only as needed to avoid negative personal consequences. These are obviously not followers but are resources for the organization to use in achieving its goals. The other three groups appear to be followers. They are seperated only by their degree of enthusiasm for achieving the ingroup’s values and goals. While I understand that people in leadership positions might like to understand how enthusiastic their followers are about particular objectives and plans, I don’t see level of enthusiasm as a criteria for disqualifying someone as a follower.

Chaleff’’s typology focuses on the extent to which followers support their leaders. It doesn’t appear to consider whether they offer challenge or other constructive input to the leader figure. The typology consists of four types - implementers, partners, individualists and resources. Of the four, individualists and resources are clearly not followers. They do what they do for the group to avoid possible negatives. Just as clearly, partners are obvious followers. They are ingroup members who chose to follow and contribute intelligently. I believe however that Chaleff has given insufficient thought to the implementer grouping. Key to understanding people in this group would be understanding why they are implementing. Is it because they perceive themselves as part of the ingroup and desire its success in achieving its goals? Or is it because they will lose their positions, suffer ridicule or some other negative consequence if they do not implement? Clearly the former should be considered followers while the latter are simply resources. I’m also a little uncomfortable that Chaleff does not consider the contribution or constructive challenge to the ingroup in this typology, especially for implementers.

I will be forthcoming and admit that I am working from summaries of these authors’ works. If I have erred in my interpretation of any of the typologies I would appreciate feedback and dialogue, either from the authors or their followers. I believe these typologies do a disservice to the discussion of followers and followership by watering down the definition and diverting attention from the core role of followers. I believe that a follower is a follower is a follower and I like to keep my classifications very simple. There are folowers … there are resources … and there are opposers. Nothing more.

Follower Development

Wed, 04 Mar 2009 03:40:01 +0100

I just came from a meeting on leadership development for a health care consulting organization. We talked at great length about how their clients were keen to develop leadership capabilities, especially the soft skills. Admirable very standard goals.

Whenever I find myself in discussions like this one though, some part of my mind - the part influenced by Peter Drucker - is shouting that followership develoment is more important. My mind jumps to Drucker's definition of "executive" as anyone in an organization who makes decisions that affect quality and outcome for the organization. Today that definition includes huge numbers of managing and non-managing members of any organization, from receptionists to C-level executives. Quite frankly I am often less worried that a C-level will make a decision that negatively affects the organization than I am that a person lower in position will (the C-level frankly has less opportunity). Take for example the negative media Tim Hortons in Canada received when one of its store managers summarily dismissed an employee for giving a toddler a free sample donut valued at $0.17.

Luckily for Tim's the negative publicity was short-lived, but it might not have been. It might have resulted in considerable loss for the company if customers had boycotted their stores in protest for even one day.

As the economies of developed countries drift further into services-centered models, the risk of similar incidents increases. As we engage more and more of Drucker's knowledge workers, the risk increases. There's no avoiding it. Therefore we should seriously be considering developing these workers' skills in areas such as decision making - areas that are considered even today by many to be a manager's duty. We also need to ensure that we are able to communicate clearly to our followers a strategy and system upon which they can clearly base decisions.

Yes, it will cost. Yes, it will involve a lot of people. Can we risk the potential losses though? If we place front line client-facing responsibilities on these workers it makes simple sense to ensure they have the tools to carry out these responsibilities.

Motivating Followers

Sun, 01 Mar 2009 19:57:01 +0100

How does a person in a leadership position motivate followers to achieve strategic goals. These goals are long term and very easy to lose sight of in the day-to-day press of job and life.

The simple answer is that a leader cannot motivate followers. I know this statement flies in the face of the current writing trends and wisdom, but it is truer today than it has ever been. The only real motivation comes from within; the follower decides what has value to him or her and acts accordingly. What? I'm forgetting about things like money and praise, which are usually considered forms of external motivation? No I'm not. In order for money or praise or other "external" motivators to work they have to be valuable to me internally. Even brute force coersion as a motivator has limits if the person being coerced internally values something more than the coercer's goal. Don't believe me ... think of martyrs and those who suffer for any goal.

So if a leader cannot directly motivate a follower or tagger-along, what can he or she do. The answer lies in the in-group image I've mentioned before. By understanding the in-group image the leader can design communications that will appeal to the in-group image and lead to self-motivation in followers. Desired action types will follow.

I'll revisit this idea in the future will some cases that will develop the point and suggest courses or action for leaders stuck in the motivation dilemma.

Starting to Capitalize on Followership

Wed, 25 Feb 2009 05:51:58 +0100

About 3 years ago I took part in a "leadership" exercise. The exercise was designed to see who among a randomly thrown together group of people would emerge as a leader.

My group was about nine people strong. Most of them were above average height, athletic and had a military background. I on the otherhand have no military background (unless you count the Air Cadets), am shorter than average and not quite as fit as I should be. The activity was dubbed "team survival" the failure of which was imaginary death (the best kind in my opinion).

I didn't exactly look like the archetype of the in-group. I didn't have the training and mindset of most of them because I wasn't ex-military. So how did I emerge as the leader? The answer - I created my own ingroup of "survivors". Using an interesting communication technique I discovered in my psychiology studies, I told a story about how I had triumphed in a similar situation weaving in comparisons to our current one throughout. I described what I had done and led the group through the steps as they applied to our situation. I then created a self-leading team by defining clear tasks aligned with our goal of survival. And I created an image of who a survivor was - specifically one of us rather than one of the other team. We neatly beat the other teams, hardly raising a sweat.

Because followers adopt as leaders those who best personify an in-group ideal, it is often in corporate situations necessary to create in-groups, especially where group identity is weak or non-existent. I have with this method helped executives in certain companies create vibrant over-time donating workers out of apathetic clock watchers. It's not easy and it doesn't happen overnight, but as the in-group mythology develops so does a positive work culture.

Really - What is followership?

Tue, 24 Feb 2009 17:30:02 +0100

I'm not sure what leadership is. Are you? In my quest to find a defintion I have come across some three hundred plus definitions, none of which have been very useful in helping me predict who in a group of teens or college grads will eventually rise to the top. It's easier to look at successful leaders in retrospect and say "Ah, so that's what it takes to be a leader". However, successful leaders come in all shapes, sizes and flavors, so for every "Aha!" moment I have on what a leader is, I have quite a few "Huh?" moments.

It wasn't really until I started examining leadership from the other side of the equation - followership - that I started to achieve far more aha's than huh's. In the vast number of cases, a leader starts out as one of the crowd, or should I say one of a group of people with shared interests, values and ideas in a specific area of life. Look for the person who appears to have the most success within that group, the person who best personifies the group's shared schema, and you'll find the person most likely to become its leader.

One or two people in the group start to notice that person's success and emulate him or her, drawing the attention of others. If the leader-to-be is lucky, some of those initial followers are aggressive in their promotion of him or her and a group of supporters begins growing rapidly. Absent the aggressive promotion, the growth of a supporter base is slower and may not lead to the type of ardent "following" that produces results. A "leader" is born either way though.

The thing to notice here is that the followers aren't truly loyal to the leader ... they are loyal to the idea, values and interests of the group as represented by the leader figure. The leader figure is disposable and replaceable, especially if he or she stops being successful within the shared scheme of things.

That leads me to a defintion of followership. I want to avoid the watering down of defintion suffered by leadership so I'd like a solid definition of followership that can be used to predict the behavior of followers and the creation of leaders. Quite a task but let me give it a try .... followership is an active choice to agree with the elevation of a person from the ingroup to a leadership position and to engage in activities that support the elevation of that person as long as the person fills an ingroup need and guides ingroup action in accordance with a set of shared ideas, values and interests.

Followership is active, not passive. It is supportive, not passive. And it is at least as powerful or even more powerful than leadership.

In my next post I'll explore how people wanting to be elevated into leadership can capitalize on followership.

On Self-Leading Teams, Part 1

Wed, 18 Feb 2009 02:42:03 +0100

In the summer of 2000 I was on a business trip in Bangkok. The hotel I was staying at seemed very nice .... the staff were friendly, the rooms were clean and the facilities well kept up. The hotel's motto at that time I was told was "Always the best for every guest." Imagine my surprise when at breakfast I discovered that my melon tasted a little off. Turning it over, I noticed that the shell had the telltale signs of mold. I took it over to one of the duty servers who told me I shouldn't worry about it because I wouldn't be eating that part. Huh?

The hotel had a very good Vision and had translated it well into its motto. That motto was simple and clear enough to allow every staff member to make decisions on the spot, especially when it came to service or quality control. Always choose the best for the guest. That is our image - that is how we want people to know us. Why then did the server fail to address my concern?

This incidence was to become the starting point of the formalization of one of the key points in my business transformation repetoire. A Vision - no matter how good - in and of itself is not enough to jump start and sustain cultural change within a corporation. What is? The answer lies within the corporate "mythology" surrounding the Vision and the self/group image that the mythology creates as the essence of the culture. This is how a person with this company acts because of the Vision is the tale that needs to be told and reinforced. Without this depth of culture, a truly self-leading team is not possible.

Keeping it Simple

Mon, 16 Feb 2009 17:02:19 +0100

The year was 2001 and I was doing a guest speaker spot on presenting at a prominent foreign university. The speaking points were commited to memory, the slides and video were all prepared and I was superbly groomed. About two hours before I was to stand up and deliver I met with the event sponsor and his tech guys and did my best to walk them through the presentation. I had organized the talk into three "big buckets" covering style, content and impact. Each bucket had two or three subpoints.

It became apparent about halfway through the run-through that I had lost them. Their English was excellent for a second-language and they had considerable contact with foreign guest speakers. Yet the volume of information I was presenting was large enough that they would not be able to capture and take away anything of value. And most of my audience would be in the same boat.

Armed with this sudden realization, I took 30 minutes to ruthlessly cut two of my buckets and one speaking point from my remaining bucket. What I was left with, while less than I'd hoped to speak about, was the essence of my talk ... that part that I wanted them to take away more than anything else because it would create a marked improvement in speaking skills for most of them. I took the sponsor and tech people through the new rehearsal and I could see the compregension and relaxation on their faces - this made sense! Yet it was same thing I had presented to them less than an hour ago.

My talk was a hit. People came up afterwards to compliment on the clarity and impact of it. Months later I was still receiving email about how useful the speech had been. I walked away with an first appreciation of one of the ENDURE* priciples. If you want an important idea to reach out and capture the audience keep it as simple as possible. You have to deliver the pure Essence of what you want to get across.

Common and Fatal Leadership Mistakes

Wed, 11 Feb 2009 22:22:29 +0100

I had the privilege of attending as a guest a lecture by Warren Bennis. Anyone who has read anything about leadership and followership should have come across something by this "leadership leader".

At the lecture, he spoke on common and fatal leadership mistakes. I've posted the speech below ... the miracle of Youtube once again at work. Unfortunately for the time-pressed of us, the full lecture is over an hour long, so I'll blurb you on the the key points. I'd like those of you in the know to notice how Bennis weaves ENDURE* style communication throughout the lecture.

1. The Ceasar Problem: Arrogance or Not Listening

Citing examples of leaders like Ceasar (the original), Raines (NY Times) and other notables, Warren disscusses the tendency of successful people over time to stop listening and to start believing in themselves to the exclusion of all other inputs. I've noted this myself at several organizations I've worked with and have done coaching work with executives who have crossed this line (and it's one of the toughest behaviors to turn aound).

2. The Failure of Contextual Intelligence

Drawing on his own experience, Dr. Bennis demonstrates that a leader who doesn't take the time to understand the context and the people populating the context isn't really leading ... he/she is pushing. Sooner or later, those being pushed begin to push back regardless of the good intentions of the person charged with leading. This is a particular thorn in the side of leaders brought in as change agents. They get so wrapped up in the change and where they are going that they forget to keep the best of the past and deal with system homeostasis. I'll write more on this one later, having dealt with it a few times and being guilty of it once (way back when).

3. Detachment of Self

The key to great leadership for Dr. Bennis is the passion brought to the position. There is for him a gulf between those in positions of leadership and true leaders. Anyone with the skills and talent can occupy a position of leadership but followers recognize these people as simply filling a seat. True leaders generate feelings of loyalty and commitent by being passionate, loyal and committed to their organizations. I have commented on this myself in refering to the need for a evolution (devolution?) into a style of leadership ressembling or incorporating elements of tribal leadership. This is another thing I'll write more on in the future in the interest of shortening this post to something manageable in one sitting.

For now, enjoy the speech and come back later for more.

Upcoming Challenges for Leaders

Wed, 11 Feb 2009 21:52:30 +0100

A few years ago, I worked with a group of executives with a major consumer products company in Australia. As we started our planning activities I noted an interesting group trait that needed addressing before we could move on to more productive work. Whenever we would finish a session with an agreement, the individual members would leave and discuss matters again over dinner or in their offices. Sometimes the discussions were calm and rational, other times they were heated. The next morning however it seemed we were right back where we had started the previous day.

After a couple of team activities, a graphic demonstration of how much even 24-hour delays in decision making cost the company and an interesting visual tool to remind everyone of their commitments, the issued was resolved. The incident brought home to me that leaders need to be team builders and team players. They need to develop followers' skills as well as leaders' skills. Collaboration, influence and concensus are becoming more and more important to successful business results, bucking an almost 100-year tradition of heirarchy. The results of recent studies reveal that I'm not the only one thinking so.

The Center for Creative Leadership has released the findings of it's "What's Next? The Changing Nature of Leadership 2007" survey. Chief among the results are suggestions from global business leaders that talent acquisition and development rank among the top issues keeping leaders awake at night, with a large percentage fearing that there will be a major talent shortage in the next 5 years.

Collaboration skills, change leadership, team building (local and across boundaries) and influence without authority are described as the top new skills leaders must have to remain effective. And the requirement for leaders to develop these skills has led to a shift in how they believe their performance should be judged - away from a short-term individualistic approach to a more long-term team development approach.

It will be interesting to work with people placed in leadership positions over the next several years to see if this new mindset results in real change. I'll be doing my best to help it along.

To see the full results of the CCL survey, click here.