How to grow as a follower by helping your leader succeed
Allen Hamlin Jr., author of Embracing Followership: How To Thrive in a Leader-Centric Culture,examines the value of following well. This interview with him gives insights into how to grow as a follower by helping your leader succeed.
Can you tell me why you wrote Embracing Followership?
Before stepping into a leadership role, I was always concerned with ensuring that I was a good team member, making my best contributions and exhibiting excellent stewardship. I came across the idea of followership while reading a book entitled A Vision of the Possible,by Daniel Sinclair.
Then, I began to read nearly everything that had been published on followership, but still, I didn’t find the book that I needed. Everything out there was either academic, addressed to leaders on how they can create good followers or from the perspective of what followers can accomplish once they become leaders. I found myself asking, “But where is the book for me? To encourage me right now, as a follower?” Since it wasn’t available, I felt burdened by the Lord to write it, in hopes that it would serve as a guidebook for others like me.
You share in the book that your faith in God has shaped your view of followership, how so?
As I mentioned, stewardship—a thoroughly biblical concept—is one of my primary concerns; I want to be a good steward, which means engaging the resources, talents, opportunities and relationships that God has given to me. When talking about followers, there is often a negative image attached, people that are little more than sheep or mindless lemmings. But with God in the picture, His fundamental invitation for us is to follow,and thus there is dignity and value attached to all of us in whatever role we may currently have.
You write that followers are not people of mediocrity, but essential contributors to every business. Can you explain more of how you see followers as significant contributors?
In terms of sheer numbers, followers will be the majority of any group. Engaged followers are what give substance to an endeavor, taking a vision or a brainstorm, and giving it life and legs through their efforts and involvement. Every follower has abilities, perspective and experience, and these are the fundamental resources that any organization has to work with, human resources. An excellent follower will contribute these resources to fulfilling the group’s endeavors and common purpose. When a follower doesn’t engage, or when the environment stymies followers from making their contributions, it is effectively robbing the organization of its most important capital.
How is followership different from servant leadership?
Servant leadership is a helpful paradigm for considering how leaders can be follower-focused, concerned with the personal development and effective engagement of their subordinates. Followership is the other side of the relational dynamic, how we engage in contribution and relationship with our leaders, peers (fellow followers), and to the organization as a whole. We don’t all operate under servant leaders, and yet there are still important obligations, as well as other opportunities for contribution, that we can and must make as excellent followers.
Obviously, Christian leaders need to follow God’s lead in every area of their life, which includes their business. Why would you encourage every leader to practice more followership in their company or organization?
We must intentionally cultivate an environment and a relational dynamic that encourages and facilitates each member in making his or her best contributions. God has brought all of these people together, with their particular combinations of attributes, at this time, in this place, for this work. If we do not value and enhance follower contributions, our organizations will miss some of what God has apportioned to fulfill our purposes.
You make a case for growing followers. CEOs are often taught that we need to hire more leaders. How would you challenge that thinking, and should leaders be more focused on finding good followers?
A focus on hiring and developing excellent followers gives us the organizational capital we need to fulfill our purposes. Some followers will exert informal leadership, some may eventually step into formal leadership roles, but all of them can and should embrace ownership of the common purpose, being committed to contributing and participating in the mutual network of support in coming under and alongside their peers and superiors. Those are the people our organizations need and perhaps those are the people we have been seeking, but we’ve been unhelpfully labeling them as leaders when they do not and may not have these particular organizational roles, and yet their contributions as followers are necessary. An excellent leader can only truly be excellent if he or she has excellent followers implementing the organizational vision and working toward organizational goals, so it’s in the best interests of both the individual leader and the organization as a whole to recruit members who will commit to the shared aims and apply their particular resources toward those purposes.
How should leaders reward good followers? Do followers like to be promoted, and should a CEO try to put a follower in a leadership role?
One of my burdens in writing Embracing Followership was to set aside the notion that everyone is or should be a leader; that seems to be the assumption of much leadership and followership literature. Followers (and leaders) are human beings, and as such, should be encouraged and rewarded in usual ways such as individual affirmation/appreciation and public acknowledgment. Leaders can be important advocates for their excellent followers, helping to open up new opportunities to contribute in various spheres of the organization. There can also be a place for financial rewards as indicators of leadership’s awareness of a job well done; that depends upon the organizational culture and how the follower feels appreciated.
Photo source: istock
 | Ken Gosnell is CEO and Servant Leader of CXP (CEO Experience). CXP is a premier coaching and executive roundtable business that serves Christian CEOs in Washington DC, Maryland and Florida. Ken serves leaders by helping them and their teams to have great experiences that both transform the leader and their organizations to go further faster. Learn More » |
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