To Have Leaders, You Need Followers

To be a leader, someone needs to follow.

It is popular in recent years to talk about “everyone is a leader.” Though there is some truth to this statement, it is skewing the focus we need to have. You only know if you’re a leader if someone is following you—so first, you need to identify who is following…and in what area or about what. As the saying goes, “If you think you are leading and turn around to see no one following you, then you are just taking a walk.”[1]

And if I am a leader, what do I want in the people who follow me? I certainly don’t want them to be mindless sheep only doing what I tell them to do (in other words, I don’t want to have to micromanage them all the time). Some things I might want would include being proactive, self-managing, self-starting, bold (speaking up when they disagree), analytical, thoughtful, etc. Really, this list looks a lot like a list for leaders.

So what is the real difference between leaders and followers?

It seems to come down to the fact that leaders need to have a vision, share that vision, and get people involved in realizing that vision. While a follower needs to be supportive and helpful in realizing that vision. To do that, a follower needs to be humble and to have an understanding of the bigger picture of the organization. And on top of all of that, a follower also needs to be able to “disagree and commit.”

At some point, there will be a moment when the follower believes the leader is going the wrong way or is about to make a bad decision. And at that moment, after all the issues have been heard and discussed, it may be that the leader decides to go in a different direction than the follower believes is right.

When that happens, the follower needs to decide what they will do. Many followers decide that they will no longer follow. And if they make that choice for any other reason than they believe the leader is doing something morally and ethically wrong, then they will miss the opportunity to take a risk and learn from the process. So, the possible outcomes are:
– the decision was right and the project succeeds (so the follower learns from that);
– the decision was wrong and the project fails (so everyone learns from that).

If the follower does not engage and commit to the decision made by the leader, then, if the project fails, nobody will know if it was really a bad idea or if it failed because people didn’t put enough effort into it. True, sometimes leaders are wrong and make mistakes (or even bad choices). But in this case, it might be the follower who is wrong—something they will only learn from if they stay and see the project through to the end.

So, if everybody agrees that leaders need to be developed (and everybody does agree to this), and the skills of followers are basically the same as the skills of leaders, then followers also need to be developed. Other than the “standard” leadership skills, followers also need to learn to serve and be supportive. It requires a lot of humility to be able to set aside your wants and to help someone else realize their vision. It requires even more to do so when you think the other person is wrong. And it takes a lot of courage to tell the leader that you think the plan is wrong. It requires even more courage to stick it out and follow through to the end.

Somewhere along the way, we came to believe that leaders are great and followers are “less.” Tell that to dancers. Tell that to an orchestra. We need to stop looking at the leader/follower dynamic as “better/worse” and start thinking about “the 2 roles necessary to succeed and achieve.”

And so, if you don’t want the “stress” of being a leader, are you willing to take on the role of being a follower? It’s no less challenging, and it requires you to develop yourself and to develop your Professional Skills to better engage and make the team successful.

[1] Afghan Proverb – Quotespedia.org
James M. Kouzes Quote (quotefancy.com)
Leading…But No One is Following (theartofleadership.com): Josh Denhart
78 Leadership Quotes to Inspire Leaders: #8 by John C. Maxwell