THE ENTERPRISE
This week I want to rant a bit about so-called "authorities" who cop out when challenged to further define their subject so it can be understood and used. Then I will take a stand on the matter. (Does that surprise you?)
First, the place where I read the "cop out"--Business Week. Here's the item.
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©BUSINESS WEEK; CLASS NOTES FEBRUARY 13, 2006
"How To Play Follow The Leader" By Jena McGregor
On Feb. 24, the Kravis Leadership Institute at Claremont McKenna College in Claremont, Calif., will open its 16th annual leadership conference. That's hardly newsworthy: There are hundreds of such confabs, and yes, Rudy Giuliani seems to give the keynote speech at every one.
But this one's a little, um, different. The theme this year: "followership." It's a discipline that emphasizes independent thinking among those not in leadership roles. This is a field that hasn't gotten its due -- partly because of the term itself. "It has lots of negative connotations, like being sheep and being herded," says Barbara Kellerman, a research director at Harvard's Kennedy School of Government.
Kellerman, who last year launched what is probably the first university class devoted to the topic, is trying to change that. She's teaming up with others, including Ira Chaleff, an executive coach and one of the forum's organizers. Chaleff hopes the conference will help develop a community of scholars and perhaps produce a professional journal on followership. It's also a way to shift focus to the other half of the equation. "There's a dynamic that plays out between leaders and their followers," he says. "Instead of being a balancing force, they [followers] often become a colluding [one]."
[HERE'S THE COP OUT] While there's truth in that idea, there's still plenty of work to do to make this a full-fledged crusade. For one, the concept of followership seems hard to define. "I would defer to Ira on this," says Ronald Riggio, the institute's director. "That's a sand trap," says Chaleff when asked exactly what the term means, despite writing The Courageous Follower: Standing Up to & for Our Leaders (Berrett-Koehler, 2003). "I tend to steer around it." Clearly, this is a movement still in search of a leader.
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Say what? The institute's director "defers" and the author of a book on the subject "tends to steer around it?"
Since I believe deeply in the importance of followers, I won't defer, or "steer around" or cop out"on this one. I've never seen a great leader without great followers who made the leader's success possible. I touched the edges of this topic in a column I wrote ten years ago. This time, I want to take it head on, and to clarify the importance of great followers, and how they share in, or are influenced by the great leader's characteristics.
Make no mistake about it--the great leader is the essential first ingredient, but I have yet to see a great leader that doesn't "somehow" develop a group of great followers, who rise above their own expectations and succeed in their own right. And I have yet to see an aspiring leader succeed without a group of devoted and competent followers, all pulling together and helping the leader succeed.
What does it take to be number one?
Good leaders and followers must first be good people.
Original written for IndustryWeek's "On Management" column © John L. Mariotti 1996
>--Additions made for this 2006 edition of THE ENTERPRISE.
The other day I was preparing for a speaking engagement and reviewing some old speeches. When I was doing motivational speeches for sales meetings, I must have read Vice Lombardi's "What It Takes To Be Number One" until everyone was tired of hearing it. It seemed so right for so many situations, and was a moving set of words by one of my "heroes." It is still great, but I feel like it's time to do my own version. Vince was a football coach, and for many years I have been a business coach. (I coached a lot of sports when my kids were young, but only as an amateur.) That means my version will be titled: "What It Takes To Be A Great Leader (Or Follower)"
>--In nearly all situations, followers outnumber leaders by 10 to 1 or 100 to 1 ... or even 10,000 to 1. this means that having a solid base of followers is essential to any leader's success.
First there must be competition, which implies an opponent (real or created from prior best performances), and a playing field (a marketplace in business). Since I am working with a sports analogy, there must be a team. Who is the leader to lead if there is no team. I added "or follower" because no leader can be great without a lot of great followers.
"What It Takes To Be A Great Leader (Or Follower)"
To be a great leader you must have integrity--it is the foundation upon which everything else is built. It is invisible, but the people around you can feel it more than see it. A great leader must have vision to see the possibilities in the future, and optimism to know they are there when they aren't quite visible.
>--Great followers also must share the leader's integrity. In some cases, they must have a firmer basis for their integrity because they are not operating from a base of influence. Great followers must work to understand and internalize the vision set forth by the leader, and to help shape it into a truly shared vision. Perhaps most of all, great followers must be optimistic when they are inundated with reasons not to be. This takes spirit, which leads to the next characteristics of great followers.
To be a great leader you must have the spirit to inspire others, and be able to infect them with enthusiasm for the challenges and opportunities ahead. A great leader demands great preparation.
>--But the followers must be willing and ready to be inspired and to be infected with that enthusiasm. And again, more than the leader, the followers must do the preparation--the hard homework that is so essential to success.
To be a great leader you must have the toughness to stay the course and accept nothing less than excellence, even when the going is very tough. A great leader must have persistence to never give up, yet have a sense of humor to be able to laugh at the little upsets.
>--Followers must be tough too, and they must strive for excellence every bit as much as the leader. Persistence is a manifestation of that mental toughness. And the ability to laugh at the little upsets is perhaps even harder when a follower or a group of followers are much closer to where the upsets have the most impact.
To be a great leader you must have heart and soul. Heart to care and share with others, and soul to keep the faith and hope, with charity. A great leader must love--both life and people--and it must be evident. A great leader attracts other great people.
>--If great leaders need these characteristics, the people who are the followers must also share that heart and soul. Great leaders can attract great followers, but great followers are instrumental in the success that is attributed to great leaders.
Last, but certainly not least, to be a great leader you must have passion, an indomitable spirit, a will to win, and the confidence in your team to emerge victorious. Above all, a great leader realizes that leaders don't win, the team of great followers does.
>--Great followers must share the leader's passion and spirit and will to win, and when they do, they develop the self-confidence that makes them winners. In fact, the totality of this feeling is what builds teams of winners.
Writing nice words like this or reading them to an organization doesn't make the difference. Living them is what makes the difference. Another Lombardi-ism comes to mind, and while I may not get the quote exactly right, the message was simply, "you can't fool the players."
>--Or, perhaps Vince might have said, "you can't fool the followers!"
There is an almost tangible aura around great leaders. You can sense it. It emanates from somewhere deep within them, and makes people want to follow them. In that sense, Warren Bennis, who has studied and written extensively on leadership says it very well, "Leadership is like beauty, it's hard to define, but you know it when you see it."
>--But followers can not only see it, they can feel it, sense it, almost smell the tangible aura of a leader, and that aura is irresistible to great followers. They almost audibly cry out for leadership worthy of their followership.
Leaders have many roles, but my definition of the role of a leader is fairly simple: A leader must create a clear understanding of and a healthy dissatisfaction with the current reality, a shared vision of a desired future reality, and an environment in which people are constantly motivated to achieve that vision.
Not everyone can lead large groups of people, yet everyone is a leader in a very personal sense.
>--Yes, every follower is a leader in his/her own right.
Perhaps the real secret of great leadership is the feeling of purpose and self. The greatest leaders I have known were people of great character like Sam Walton. They were not pretentious or phony. Rather they were genuine and sincere. (Neither were they "perfect!") As I ask myself about what it takes be be a great leader, whether it is of a huge organization or an organization of self (and loved ones)--it is self-respect and integrity. An Edward Guest poem might be the best closing statement about what it takes to be a great leader--first be a great person, and be comfortable with yourself. Then begin to live your role.
>--Whether it is as a leader or follower. Be true to yourself.
MYSELF by Edward Guest
I have to live with myself, and so, I want to be fit for myself to know; I want to be able as days go by, always to look myself straight in the eye; I don't want to stand with the setting sun and hate myself for the things I've done.
I don't want to keep on a closet shelf a lot of secrets about myself, and fool myself as I come and go into thinking that nobody else will know, the kind of man I really am; I don't want to dress myself up in sham.
I want to go out with my head erect, I want to deserve all men's respect, but here in this struggle for fame and pelf, I want to be able to like myself.
I don't want to think as I come and go that I'm bluster and bluff and empty show.
I never can hide myself from me, I see what others may never see,
I know what others may never know, I never can fool myself -- and so, whatever happens, I want to be self-respecting and conscience free.
There may be many other aspects of leadership worthy of mention, but these thoughts are the best way to begin. Don't just walk the talk--live the talk.
>--And that, my friends is what leadership--and followership--are all about.
And these statements are as true in 2006 and they were in 1996, and they will remain true in 2016, too...and for as long as humans inhabit the earth, great leaders AND great followers will determine its destiny.
Best, John
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