At some point, all of us need to play “follower.” No matter how natural our own leadership abilities, from time to time, we must put our faith others to guide us.
Interestingly, the way you act as a follower can impact your ability to lead… especially if your followers see how you yourself follow. No surprise here: people will copy what you do, not what you say.
In an era when leadership has been overvalued, respecting—even remembering—the art of followership can be a challenge. It’s a fine line between “charting your own course” and “being disruptive to yourself and others.” Here are a few tips on how to model good followership while still being true to yourself:
- Actions—including acts of speaking—speak louder than words. The act of speaking tells it’s own story, independent of what’s said. For example, when Kanye West upstaged Taylor Swift at the 2009 MTV VMAs, it was not what he said, but the act of stealing her moment, that made him the goat of the year. That he used his time to lavish praise on another singer only added insult to injury. (As a leader, can you imagine Kanye asking people to “be quiet a moment so I can speak” without having them chortle in response?!)
- Show patience before complaining, “This isn’t fair!” The world is a complex, crowded place, and now may not be your turn to shine simply because… it’s hard to everyone at once. Relax. Wait and see what happens. Besides, why are you in such a hurry to fight? People will stand in line all day just to see a concert for a few hours; don’t you think you could wait a few days before doing something that could impact the rest of your career?
- Swallow the emotion. If what you’re planning on doing or saying is cathartic, don’t do it. Catharsis may provide you emotional release, but unless you work with some very self-aware coworkers, that emotion you release will typically get picked up by others, creating drama and tension. Better to learn to sort of watch the world as if it’s a movie happening around you sometimes and just… let it go.
- Don’t have someone else’s sleepless night. This is a corollary to the last point: when someone else is being emotional, don’t let it consume you. If people figure out that you absorb everyone’s bad emotions, they’ll dump on you. And leadership gets tough fast when people think you’re an emotional sponge.
- Quit any group that uses peer pressure in place of reason. You should never be asked to accept the will of a group as a sign of your dedication to the group. That’s coercion. It leads to mob mentality and is very dangerous. There was an awesome after-school special (part 1, part 2) that showed how quickly things can get out of hand. (Punchline at 20:00 of Pt.2.)
Followership, as an art, is just as important as leadership. Because there’s truth to those old lyrics: “You who choose to lead must follow.”
 | Enjoy this blog? Listen to my new podcast, Beyond Social. |
I'm Jason. I make people shine. My mission is to help 1 million people tell their stories better. 
{ 2 trackbacks }
{ 5 comments… read them below or add one }
And avoid using email as a medium of communication (could be an addendum to your point 3). It is easy to break out the firing cannons when you are not directly speaking to the “leader”., “manager”, etc. And if it helps, just take a really long walk to clear your head and give yourself the opportunity to swallow emotions gone amuck.
Brilliant, really. Especially the fact that you’re referencing the disturbing after school special “The Wave”. It’s important to note and address the flip side of leadership and no one does that like you.
@Mark—Great advice. I forgive people one emotional email every other year. (Already hit my 09/10 quota, thanks.)
@Kevin—I ended up watching most of The Wave last night, then reading the history of the real life story it was based on. Terrifying & brilliant. It’s a formula that is tough to replicate without going too far, but this particular glitch of human nature is so, so important for people to learn about…
I’ve played the bad follower before. No more of that fantasy junk. Learning to be a good follower is the place where we can begin to learn to be a good leader, just as learning to be a good student is the place where we begin to learn to be a good teacher.
@Louche—Thank you… great comment. You nailed it: leadership starts with followership.