More and more in today’s spin zones, trade magazines, training classes, and blogs, a focus on leadership continues to grow – a trait that many feel everyone must be good at. While this is not necessarily a bad thing, there’s becoming a more and more noticeable lack of focus on what it takes to be a good follower. After all, if no one’s following, why lead?

Leadership demands great capacity for learning, communication, discipline, humility, vision, execution, initiative, and host of other characteristics and traits bantered about by today’s leadership “gurus”. All of which are good and essential, to one degree or another. Interestingly enough, these same traits are essential to good followership as well. Think about it. As a leader, don’t you look for people to be a part of your team that have these traits? I certainly do!

Another way to look at leaders and followers is to consider that our leaders today are actually followers too. Think about it for minute, the VP’s unto the SVP’s, unto the C-level, unto the board of directors, unto the people (public company example). So while the SVP for business development is certainly in a leadership role, they’re following someone higher up on the corporate ladder.

Is there a difference between leaders and followers? Absolutely. Is everyone in a leadership position, absolutely not. Is everyone in a state of followership, absolutely.

I believe that in order to be a great leader, one must be a great follower. And since we’re all followers to one degree or another, who better to place responsibility on for the development of followers than on ourselves! Confusing? Not really. It’s a state of reality that we too often choose to ignore, especially if we’re already in a “leadership” position.

So what then can be said about good followership? Well in today’s media, the hyper-competitive market, Wall Street, you name it, not very much is said about being a good follower. Why is this? I’ll argue that much of it stems from humanity’s inner will to appear stronger, smarter, “better” than the next person. Our own egos. Admit it, we’re all afraid of embarrassment.  Maybe we think that we won’t make enough money simply being a good follower (…don’t forget the SVP example above). The list goes on…..

How then can we make a difference? By becoming better examples to others in our current follower roles. Some spin this as “Managing up” or “Leading your boss”. Call it anything you want, bottom line is most of us have as much room for improvement as we have to offer others. Without attempting to pull together an exhaustive step-by-step recipe for success, let me suggest a few principles to guide us.

Start by recognizing that everyone’s (including you) following something/someone. There’s our  (your) baseline.

Next, place yourselves in the position, for example, of wanting to get a promotion, a raise, etc. (this shouldn’t be hard to do) How would you go about getting that? Would supporting your boss be a good start? I would think so. What can you do better, different, more of, less of? Sorry, no hints here, you all know these answers.

Next… put your ego on the shelf. Pride cometh before the fall.

The Journey. We must ask ourselves what is the true purpose of being a good follower or leader.   The Whats, the Whys, the Where To’s….  To what do we aspire? Is there an end? Is it just money? Hopefully not. I say it’s a journey…one on which we’re all traveling. Becoming an effective follower or leader is a journey….the journey is about people working together in many different roles to achieve a worthy ideal. To cultivate others, to learn, to live, to perform, to decide, to take risks, to laugh. When we focus our time talents and energies here, leaders will emerge, followers will rise up, and there”ll be no end to the possibilities that we can achieve. This is the paradigm shift we all can help make happen.

Go and make a difference,

 John