Some of us are leaders, but we are all followers.
—Lynn Offermann1
He who cannot be a good follower cannot be a good leader.
—Aristotle2
I sat at the lunch table in shock. I could not believe what the senior executive I was having lunch with was telling me. I had gone to lunch thinking this executive would recognize my excellent work and tell me how well I was doing. But I could not have been more wrong. The executive let me know that my newly appointed leader, Chidibere, found it challenging to work with me. Chidiebere complained that I responded with much hesitation and reluctance whenever he asked me to provide information or follow up on a task. Chidiebere had begun to wonder if the firm was still the right place for me. I could not believe that Chidibere had come to this conclusion. How did I get here? First, other leaders, many of my peers, and the teams I supported trusted and respected me. Second, I had a track record of getting things done, and I rarely caused any trouble. Third, even though I often had strong opinions on how we could improve as a business, I found (most of the time) respectful and non-disruptive ways to share my opinions. Finally, many people in the firm looked up to me. And yet, despite my stellar reputation and work history, I now found myself on the proverbial chopping block. What had gone wrong?
Let me tell you what had gone wrong. I had lost sight of the fact that it was not enough that I was an effective leader. I was no longer an effective follower—at least to Chidiebere. Even though I was a leader in my own right—I had team members who willingly allowed me to influence them—my actions indicated that I was not willing to follow my manager. I had forgotten that I was not just a leader; I was also a follower. Leaders, regardless of organizational rank, follow others in their organization.3 For example, the CEO of an organization follows the board or the owners of the organization.
I have intentionally limited using the term “follower” in previous chapters (except for Chapter 1) because of the negative connotations associated with the term in some circles. However, I think it is time to talk about what it means to function as a follower in an organization. If we are to have leaders, then we must have followers. Leading cannot exist without following. To do away with the concept of followers is to do away with the concept of leaders. Effective leadership cannot occur without effective followership that complements it.4 In this chapter, we discuss followership, its importance to leadership, and how you can become a better follower even as you lead in your organization. Leading well depends on following well.
Understanding Followership
Before diving into how you can become a more effective follower, we need to clear up some of the misunderstandings surrounding the notion of followership and followers. Leadership literature is full of material on how leaders can become more effective in their roles. I am aware that I am adding to the ever-growing collection of leadership material focused on this topic. And yet, think about all the people involved in the successful endeavors that you have experienced. If your experience is anything like mine, you will quickly notice that many people did not have formal leadership responsibility for the group. They were not primarily accountable for ensuring the group went from Point A to Point B. Yet, when I think back to successful product releases or organizational transformations that I had to manage, I recall the massive contributions of many team members. Indeed, success has many mothers and fathers.
As I shared in Chapter 6, Robert Kelley argues that group success is primarily due to exemplary followers doing their jobs well.5 I cannot disagree with this position because I know from first-hand experience that it is true. While assigned leaders have formal authority and positional power in the organization, many others do the work that results in success and excellence. In the product development context, team members are responsible for performing the critical tasks that create a product that meets people’s needs. The Vice President of Product Development in a large organization probably does not write a line of code or test the product. She does not directly determine code quality despite all the tools she might provide their team—she trusts the team to produce a high-quality product. If the team members decide they will not aspire to write defect-free code, then quality will suffer (and it could be years before she finds out about certain product defects). Effective followership is vital for organizational success.
So, what is followership? John McCallum says that followership is “the ability to take direction well, to get in line behind a program, to be part of a team, and to deliver on what is expected of you.”6 Followership is concerned with how people in follower roles can contribute in a way that helps their organization achieve its desired outcomes and what organizations must do to establish a workplace where followers thrive. Followership complements leadership in achieving organizational outcomes. While you must develop effective leader competencies, you also need to develop effective follower competencies. Like the story I told at the beginning of this chapter shows, failing as a follower can have consequences. For decades, scholars have suggested that organizations need to recognize the importance of followers and pay more attention to followership.7 Even though I have begun to see a shift in organizational discourse, I believe we still have a long way to go.
There are several reasons why followership is not more prevalent in both academic and popular circles. One of the most cited reasons is that the term follower has too much baggage associated with it. When I bring up the term “follower” on social media, I always have people express disappointment with my use of the term. Some leadership experts have suggested using other terms like “constituent” instead of “follower” to avoid the stigma associated with “follower.”8 For others, the term follower evokes an image of passive people who follow instructions without ever questioning or challenging them.9 While there are people who possibly demonstrate those characteristics as followers, using a particular type of behavior as the definition for “follower” would be like saying all leaders are destructive because Hitler or Stalin were leaders who did terrible things. No one does this for the definition(s) of “leader,” and it does not make sense that we do it for the definition of “follower.”
And yet, some individuals—to avoid using the term “follower” in the context of group leadership —have promoted concepts such as shared leadership and the leader-leader model. These leadership concepts overtly suggest that leaders need to turn their followers into leaders—subtly implying (maybe unintentionally) that followership and the follower are inferior.10 This approach ignores the fact that groups produce leadership (and followership). Leadership is not a process solely reserved for people in assigned leader roles—effective leadership is shared because multiple people participate in the process. It also ignores the fact that there are nearly always individuals, in the group, with more social influence than other group members, even when all group members might be peers.11 These individuals are often the assigned leaders of the group and are accountable for facilitating and mobilizing the leadership process. While a desire may exist for everyone in the organization to have equal power, equal influence, and equal access to resources, the reality is that this is rarely the case. In fact, research suggests that organizations prefer to have a hierarchy and unequal distribution of authority and power.12 Specific people have the explicit and direct responsibility of leading the group in a particular direction. They are accountable for ensuring leadership occurs.
Another criticism of followership is the lack of a single and comprehensive definition for “follower.” Some researchers argue that the term “follower” in leadership discourse comes from political movements and that the term “subordinate” is adequate.13 But, again, I see this as dancing around the issue to avoid using a word that evokes feelings of inferiority for many (particularly in Western cultures where high individualism and low power distance are prevalent). The term “leader” does not have a single agreed-on definition. Yet, we accept that some leaders are assigned while others emerge while achieving a shared goal or objective. I also do not consider the term “subordinate” superior because following someone does not inherently mean a superior-subordinate relationship exists.14
An individual’s leader status is legitimized when people willingly choose to follow that individual and allow the individual to influence them.15 When you allow other individuals to non-coercively influence you, you have willingly accepted to follow them—you are now a follower. There is no leader without followers. Barbara Kellerman might have said it best by noting that “followers are more important to leaders than leaders are to followers.”16 Thus, there is no need to disparage the concept of followership and the follower. Instead, understanding how followership impacts leadership and how you can be the best follower possible even while leading others is something worthy of your attention and effort.
There are at least two ways to discuss followership in the business organization setting. The first way is to approach followership through the lens of rank within an organization’s structure, i.e., a leader is considered the “superior,” and a follower is considered the “subordinate.”17 In the context of a software development team, an example of this view would be that the software engineering manager would be the leader because she occupies the higher rank, and the team would be followers because they occupy the lower rank. The second way to view followership is through a social constructionist perspective.18 In this perspective, an individual takes on the follower’s identity when they allow others to non-coercively influence them. Continuing with the example of a software engineering manager and their team, when a team member influences the manager, e.g., convinces the manager that the team needs to take a different approach towards some activity, the manager then becomes the follower, and the team member becomes the leader. In this example, the follower and leader roles do not tie back to rank in the organization; instead, the roles relate to the leading-following dynamic between individuals.19 Hence, it is also valuable to also see “leader” and “follower” as fluid identities and not just as static roles tied to positions in the organization.20 In this latter view, we see how individuals can alternate between these identities as they interact with other people in the organization with different ranks. It also explains why the leader-follower relationship can transcend organizational relationships, i.e., people can still view you as a leader even when you do not outrank them or directly lead them.
It is essential to understand that followership does not happen in a vacuum. It results when an individual grants another individual their claim to the leader identity, and then the individual with the leader identity grants in return the follower identity to the individual requesting it.21 The implications of this process are significant because it means that a “subordinate” is not by default a follower because they are subordinate; instead, they are a follower because they recognize and accept you as their leader. Many people in assigned leader positions assume they are leaders because they have the leader role in their organization. They (and their team) fail to recognize that it is within the team’s power to determine whether they will grant them leader identity. Many individuals also do not understand that their leader must grant them their follower claim. When a leader stops considering an individual a follower, the leader-follower interaction breaks down. The leader will most likely look to end the relationship, as my story illustrates. You must understand the leader-follower dynamic in the workplace and accept that you take on a follower identity in many situations. How you show up as a follower will determine how successful you are as a leader.
Types of Followers
There have been many follower typologies developed over the past few decades. Robert Kelley’s typology assesses followers based on their level of independent critical thinking and engagement.22 Ira Chaleff categorizes followers based on the support they give to their leader and their willingness to question or challenge their leader.23 Barbara Kellerman uses how committed the follower is to supporting or opposing their leader for her follower typology.24 Regardless of the typology, it is clear that you can either be an effective or ineffective follower.
Ineffective follower spectrum
In Kelley’s typology, disengaged followers are alienated.25 Alienated followers show up to work, but they are not inclined to contribute to organizational outcomes because they are disengaged. They do the minimum required to get the job done even though they are critical thinkers. While many of us have possibly had brief periods where we felt disengaged and unmotivated, alienated followers find themselves in a prolonged state of going through the motions and feeling uninterested. Alienated followers show up to work because they have not found a new job (yet).
The causes of becoming an alienated follower include a loss of trust in your leader or co-workers.26 If you have ever had a heated argument with your leader or another team member, which did not go your way, you may feel disrespected or unheard, leading to feelings of alienation. I know that I have had experiences where I felt like an outsider because I disagreed with the organizational direction. I have also experienced situations where I felt my leaders, peers, and other team members did not appreciate my contributions to the organization. In those moments, my level of engagement dropped significantly. It does not take much to go from an alienated follower to a passive follower. Passive followers, in addition to low engagement, do not demonstrate independent and critical thinking.27 When I have become a passive follower, I have refused to suggest ideas. Being an alienated or passive follower is an unenjoyable work experience. It would be best if you did what you can to move out of this state by either changing your attitude or changing your environment.
On the other end of the ineffective followers’ spectrum are followers who will go to any length to oppose people they do not want to follow. Kellerman describes these followers as activists working against the leader.28 They consider the leader an obstacle to success, actively oppose this individual and look for ways to remove them from their position in the organization. The individual is not a real leader in the follower’s eyes because they fail to meet follower expectations. Followers deny the leader's claim to leader identity. At best, they consider the individual a superior that must be removed from their position. It has become increasingly common in the social media age to see leaders ousted out of their positions based on complaints from followers in the organization. I have now witnessed several situations where followers were primarily responsible for the removal of their manager. They complained to the manager’s manager (and anyone who would listen). They actively revolted and challenged their manager in public. The firm had no choice but to relieve this manager of their position. Follower power continues to increase in organizational settings.
Like identifying what might have led you to become a passive follower , you also need to explore what has caused you to become an activist motivated to remove your superior from their office. Is there anything you could do that would change how you feel about them, or is it a lost cause? If there are changes you expect from your leader, consider providing them feedback and seeing if they make changes based on your feedback. If it is a lost cause, then understand that trying to remove your leader is a risky business and may not work out to your advantage. As I have shared, I have watched team members orchestrate the removal of a leader. I have also seen situations where such plans backfired on team members. Instead of the leader’s removal, the team members were reassigned or found themselves out in the cold, looking for other jobs. If you are going to campaign actively against your leader, make sure it is because the leader’s behaviors violate company policy or negatively impact organizational performance. But what if the source of conflict is just a matter of different personal preferences? In that case, it might be better to look for other opportunities in the organization with a different leader if that is possible. Again, you genuinely want to avoid finding yourself in a situation where you are plotting against your leader(s) if you can help it.
There is one last type of ineffective follower that I would like to highlight: the toxic follower. The toxic follower is most likely to perform actions that benefit their self-interest at the expense of those around them.29 In a nutshell, it is all about them. These followers are challenging to work with because they must have their way no matter the situation. In my experience, these followers are often incredibly talented and knowledgeable—they are brilliant jerks. Their brilliance is why leaders allow them to remain in the organization. However, few people want to work with them because they consistently make the workplace difficult for people. If they have been with the firm for a long time, they use their tenure and knowledge to bully people. They talk about people behind their backs, demean people in person, and consistently criticize other people’s work. Yet, people do not disagree with these individuals for fear of verbal abuse.
Few people would consider themselves a toxic follower, and yet the toxic follower test is quite simple. If a critical mass of people (including leaders, peers, and subordinates) would prefer not to work with you, you are most likely a toxic follower. It is time to look at yourself in the mirror and consider making changes. Individuals I have worked with say they exhibit toxic behaviors because they feel disrespected. They believe that when people disagree with them, they do not respect their knowledge and experience. Disagreement becomes a sign of invalidation. Learning how to engage in healthy conflict will help you in this case. In other cases, you need to be honest with yourself and recognize that you are not a fit for the organization and that this conflict is the source of your toxic behavior.
Many organizations seem to have less tolerance for toxic workers now than they did 15 or 20 years ago. People no longer want to work with an individual who makes the workplace miserable or difficult for everyone else. People often overlooked brilliant jerks’ toxic behavior; however, this is changing, regardless of the jerks’ rank. It is no longer enough to be the most intelligent person in the room—how you treat others matters a great deal. If you are a toxic follower, you will need to change your behaviors or find another organization that is a better fit for you. I do not intend to get deep into psychodynamics, but I will point out that many toxic followers act out behaviors formed over a long time. As Manfred Kets de Vries notes, we are prisoners of our past, often stuck in vicious and dysfunctional behavioral patterns.30 You may need professional help to escape these behavioral patterns.
I have stressed throughout this book that organizational success does not occur without followers who do their jobs effectively. These followers are highly engaged in organizational endeavors and apply critical thinking to their work.31 Effective followers understand that their leader (and the organization more broadly) needs their expertise, perspective, and commitment to attain organizational goals. Even though you are an leader in your organization, you are also a follower. The organizational hierarchy places you as a subordinate of another leader in the organization you need to follow. In addition to following your superior, you will also benefit from following your peers and your subordinates. There are situations where we must allow our peers and subordinates to influence us as they take on a leader identity, and we take on a follower identity. In these scenarios, effective followership is required from us if effective leadership is going to take place. Practicing effective followership increases organization commitment and job satisfaction.32 When you are a engaged follower, you are more likely to enjoy working in your organization. You will also be a better leader. In the next section, we will look at how you can effectively follow your leader, peers, and followers.
Effectively Following Your Leader
Most organizations have some form of hierarchy in place. Hierarchy creates a structure where some individuals have more positional authority, power, and influence than others. Even though I have held executive-level roles in my career, I still had people who had more formal authority, power, and influence than I did. As mentioned, the superior-subordinate dynamic sets up a leader-follower dynamic, where the follower (who might be an assigned leader in their own right) allows the leader (who is superior from a hierarchical perspective) to non-coercively influence them in the workplace. For example, influence might come from suggested changes to a presentation or a passionate plea to avoid system failures over an important sales weekend. Whatever the non-coercive influence approach entails, the subordinate (follower) follows the lead of the superior (leader) to pursue a goal that the leader presents to the follower. Suppose the goals are to hire diverse candidates into the organization or reduce system outages. In these cases, the leader depends on the follower to enact strategies to achieve these goals. Therefore, leaders need the contribution of effective followers. Here are five effective followership behaviors you can practice with your superiors.
Embrace and Champion Organizational Goals
As a leader, I will assume that you understand your organization’s goals (if you do not: address the lack of understanding immediately). However, while understanding your organization’s goals is necessary for functioning as an effective follower, it is not enough. You also need to embrace and champion those goals. You need to support the organization’s shared goals. Effective followers contribute to achieving organizational goals as set out by their leader.33 The goals championed by your leader support larger organizational goals. For example, if your leader sets a departmental goal for system uptime of 5 9’s, it could support a broader customer satisfaction and revenue goal. If your leader has a continuous improvement goal, it could also support an organizational goal to produce better products and services. Understand the relationship between the goals expressed by your leader and the organization’s goals. Then identify ways that help your group achieve its goals. Do not sit back and wait for your leader to give you this information. Instead, take the initiative and proactively find ways to help your group (and organization) thrive. If you find that you cannot embrace and champion the organizational goals, you need to understand the source of misalignment. You do want to avoid staying put in a group or organization with goals that you cannot get behind.
Your desire to support organizational goals should lead to vertical empathy. Vertical empathy is having empathy for leaders (at least) two levels above your level in the organization.34 Not only are you concerned with how you can help your immediate leader ensure the leadership process excels, but you are also concerned with how you can help leaders higher in rank than your leader. Think about what goals they need to accomplish, and then do whatever you can to help them achieve those goals.
One way to gain insight into the aspirations of these leaders is to meet with them. Ask them about the organizational goals and what additional support you can provide. These meetings will provide a great learning opportunity for you. For example, once a leader told me that they had observed I was influential with my peers. The leader asked if I would be willing to champion a new quality initiative on their behalf because they believed I would get people to commit to the initiative. I had not expected that the leader would ask me to help them in this way, but I was excited to get such an opportunity. It is scary speaking with leaders “higher up” in the organization. I know that I felt intimidated the first time I found myself in such a position. However, do not forget that they are also human, just like you. Prepare beforehand to have a productive dialogue with them and to avoid wasting anyone’s time. Many people consider these types of conversations “going around their boss.” It is only “going around your boss” if (a) you hide these conversations (including content) from your direct leader and (b) you go around them for selfish or malicious purposes.
Challenge Constructively
It is tempting to think that being an effective follower requires that you place your leader on a pedestal where they can do no wrong. Some individuals believe it is wrong to challenge their leader’s actions or decisions constructively. Followers who see their leaders as people who cannot make mistakes are doing a disservice to their organization. Your leader will make mistakes—if for no other reason—because they are human. Now, this is not permission to invest all your energy in identifying your leader’s shortcomings. Instead, I am just sharing that effective followers speak up when they believe an alternative course of action is valuable to the organization. These individuals “speak truth to power” and appropriately challenge their leader when they need to.35 Effective followers are not “yes people” who simply go with whatever the leader says. Neither are the individuals who support their leader in public and then disagree with them in private. These individuals constructively and respectfully express their perspectives on their leader’s thoughts, decisions, and actions.
An essential aspect of challenging your leader is learning how to do it constructively. The ability to challenge constructively “or influence upward” sets effective followers apart from other types of followers. To challenge constructively means ensuring your viewpoint ties directly to organizational goals. If you cannot demonstrate the link between your perspective and organizational goals, you may want to refine your thoughts until you can. Do not make your challenge about what you want or what is in your best interest. I learned this lesson the hard way. Early on in my career, my viewpoint would solely consist of my preferences or what I wanted. Sometimes, I would challenge based on what I saw another organization doing. On other occasions, I asked my leaders to do certain things based on what I had read in a book. My approach got me nowhere. Instead, it led to some leaders marginalizing my opinions. It was not until I observed that my input was well-received when I shared how my ideas might positively impact our organizational goals that I modified how I provided feedback. Providing your perspective in the context of organizational goals requires that you have in-depth knowledge of your organization’s direction. A change in approach did not lead to my leaders always agreeing with me; however, they responded more positively to me because they saw that I had the organization’s best interest at heart.
Adapt Your Style
If you are not willing to adapt your follower style to complement your leader’s style, you will face workplace challenges. Effective followers modify their approach based on what they observe about their leader.36 They pay attention to their leader’s preferences, likes, and dislikes. Effective followers take note of what the leader values and what the leader may not value as much. They also recognize that their leader excels in some areas and needs support in other areas. Based on all this information, effective followers adapt their follower style to support their leader. Some people might believe that adapting their style is fake or inauthentic. Believing that adapting style is inauthentic is a misunderstanding of what authenticity entails and can limit personal development.37 Adapting your style is not giving up your core values to remain in good standing with your leader. I am not suggesting that you tell half-truths because your leader lacks integrity or that you become a micro-manager because your leader is a micro-manager. If you find yourself in this situation, you are better off finding a new employer. Instead, I am recommending that you adapt your style to complement and support your leader. For example, I have worked with leaders who are detail-oriented and other leaders who are not. While my preference might be for less detail, I have adapted my style to match leaders I have worked with who preferred more detail. Changes like this can go a long way to improve the leader-follower dynamic even though they might be uncomfortable for you initially.
Let us look at how you could adapt your style while challenging constructively. Adapting how you challenge your leader would require paying attention to how your leader prefers to receive feedback. Do they like robust debate and dialogue in front of a bunch of people? Do they prefer that you talk with them in person if you have strong feelings about a subject that does not align with theirs? I know of leaders that struggle with being challenged in meetings, but when spoken to in a private setting, they give people all the time in the world. These same leaders who were defensive when they were challenged in public change their minds when presented with the same information in private. Now, someone will read this example and say that this leader did not demonstrate effective leader behaviors. I cannot argue with that. And yet, this chapter is not about effective leader behavior; it is about effective follower behavior that contributes to leadership success. It is about how you can contribute to organizational success by taking charge of what you can control. You will know that your changes have made a difference because now the leader consults with you on difficult decisions and thanks you for your input. Play your part, and adapt your style.
Tackle Challenges Head-On
Effective followers do their job and do it well. They are trusted to deliver excellent work consistently. They proactively communicate any challenges they face. Effective followers are proactive. Using Robert Martin’s Responsibility Ladder, effective followers spend most of their time at responsibility levels 1 (make a decision) or 2 (make a recommendation).38 At level 1, you consider options, make decisions, and subsequently inform your leader. For example, the software development manager who needs to choose between two AWS technology offerings that solve a problem works with their team to choose one of the offerings and then informs their leader of the choice they made. At level 2, instead of selecting an option, the manager presents options to their leader with a recommendation on what technology the leader should choose. In this case, the manager presents an option with recommendations because both options are outside their budgetary approval range. Effective followers are highly responsible and can be trusted to give their all towards achieving organizational outcomes.
Effective followers do not wait for someone to tell them what to do; they take the initiative. When it is unclear what the best path forward might be, effective followers step up, act, and own their actions when they make mistakes.39 The best followers I have worked with in my career were those team members who saw opportunities and came up with ideas for taking advantage of those opportunities. Instead of complaining about what was not working, they took the initiative to make incremental improvements within their sphere of control. In one instance, team members saw an opportunity to educate and develop an organization’s servant leadership capability. So, they took the initiative to start a series of Servant Leadership workshops. In another case, some team members started a mentorship program for aspiring Scrum Masters because people had indicated an interest in such a program. These team members saw the opportunity to meet a need. While I have more examples, the sad reality in my experience is that many followers (even at the Vice President level) are more adept at pointing out what is not working well. They do not take any steps to try and make changes, even when they can. They often wait for someone else (with a higher rank) to cast a vision or pronounce a proclamation that will fix everything. As a result, they are at level 6 (ask others to solve their problem) on Robert’s responsibility ladder—they take no responsibility. While there is no question that leaders play a vital role in organizational effectiveness, I want you to recognize that you can also make a world of difference in your organizations if you are willing to do so from a follower position.
Be a Role Model of Followership
Practicing all the previously mentioned follower behaviors will make you a role model of effective followership in your organization. Many leaders want followers that they can ask other followers to emulate. Excellent leaders demonstrate to others how to follow.40 Those who follow you are learning (or not) what effective followership entails. They need to see that you are committed to complementing your leaders in achieving organizational goals even when you disagree with specific tactics or approaches. Do not speak ill of your leader behind their back. Let your followers see you providing constructive feedback to your leaders in a way that the feedback is well received and appreciated even if your leaders do not act on it. Develop a reputation for excelling at your job and being someone that leaders consult on challenging organizational issues. If you cannot be a follower role model for others in the organization, you need to identify why this is the case and address it. If you can address it within your current organization, make those changes. If you have made changes, yet issues remain, you may have to consider leaving the organization for a different opportunity to become a better follower.
Candidly, I did not realize the magnitude of being a good follower until someone shared with me how my response to a stressful situation had positively impacted them. It is no secret that reorganizations happen all the time in businesses. Unfortunately, they happen way too often and, in my experience, consistently produce mediocre benefits. However, this reorganization was a big one—at least to the people involved who I directly supported. Most of the individuals that I had directly supported would now have new leaders in the organization. The consequence of the reorganization was that the strategy we had to improve product development effectiveness would end with the reorganization. My team was devastated, and they could not believe this was happening. No one was happy. As I think back to that day, I recall the raw emotions, people crying, and anger in the room as I informed the team of the changes that would happen that day.
As I think back to that reorganization, I recall that I was also upset with how it played out. My team had done good work up to that point. We were not always popular within the organization because we challenged the status quo, and yet, people still appreciated how we showed up and helped teams. Overall, people respected us. While I understood the rationale behind the changes, I disagreed that a new organizational structure would address some of our organization’s significant challenges. I was also upset that no one had involved me in any discussions leading to the change since it impacted me directly. Lastly, I disagreed with how we were rolling out the changes in the organization and felt we could have handled the situation better. I had numerous issues with how we had approached the whole exercise. I wondered if the organization was the right place for me.
On the day that the changes were to take effect, I gathered everyone on my team to explain what would happen during the day. I acknowledged that it was going to be a tough day for everyone. I explained the rationale for the organizational changes as I best understood them, and then I allowed people to ask questions. As I painfully answered why the change was happening, celebrated the team’s accomplishments, and provided insight into what this meant for people’s careers, I tried to remain as honest as possible about the reorganization. I did not disparage the decision, the process, my leader(s), or the organization. Instead, I encouraged everyone to give the new organizational structure their best efforts. If things were not working after giving it a shot, I would do whatever I could to help them transition to a new opportunity (inside or outside the organization). We ended the meeting, and the events of the day unfolded.
In truth, I forgot about that day until a few years later when I ran into someone who had been on that team. They confessed that they had accepted the reorganization because of how I had addressed the team that day. My statements had shown that I would follow my leader and support the new organizational strategy that was about to be put in place, even though I had my reservations about whether these changes would genuinely help the organization achieve its goals. At that moment, years ago now, I did not fully understand what I was doing. Of course, you might conclude that I was doing what a good leader does, and there might be some truth to that. However, looking back on it now, and even though I was a leader in my own right, I now see that I demonstrated effective followership. By embracing and championing the organization’s direction (even though I did not fully agree that the reorganization would improve organizational performance), I demonstrated effective followership , making a difficult transition more manageable.
Following Peers
It may be easier to understand followership through the lens of the superior-subordinate relationship because the subordinate has less authority, power, and influence than their superiors in the organization. However, as discussed previously, followership is not limited to hierarchical structures and rank. Followership also happens when you take on the follower identity while interacting with people in your organization. Even if you are the CEO of an organization, you do not lead all the time. There are times when you follow others for leadership to occur. A category of people in the workplace that you routinely need to follow is your peers. Let us talk about some ways you can effectively practice followership with your peers.
Be Supportive
Your peers will need your help in tackling organizational goals. For example, a peer might need your team to do some work that their team depends on to complete an important task. Not only do they depend on your team to complete the task, but your team also needs to do the task well so that the final product is excellent. Product development dependencies between teams are a common scenario in many product development organizations. Unfortunately, I have also observed that these dependencies lead to conflict as peers are often reluctant to take on the follower identity when interacting. Everyone wants to set the direction and have the others accommodate them. Refusing to take on the follower role leads to arguments and, in many cases, necessitates the involvement of someone with a higher rank to determine the next steps. This behavior does not help the organization achieve its goals, and it wastes everyone’s time.
Effectively following your peers means that you support them when they are leading organizational initiatives. Instead of putting up roadblocks, you look for ways to help them attain the goal. It is easier to support your peers when you embrace organizational goals. There have been occasions in my career when I have not provided my peers with the support they needed because I disagreed with the organizational mission. I made it difficult for them to make progress because those who followed me could see that I did not support the organizational agenda. I also did not contribute as constructively as I could have. Not supporting them was poor followership on my part. It was not productive behavior, and I do not encourage anyone to do what I did. If you do not embrace the organizational goal, do not make it difficult for your peers. Instead, go directly to whoever defined the organizational goal and address it with that individual. Seek to understand the purpose of the goal and then lend your support to your peer in the best way you can. If there are reasons why providing support might be complex, be transparent about what will prevent you from providing your full support, and then look for ways to overcome these challenges.
If you have ever worked with a peer who always provided support and took on the follower identity once they understood the goal, you know how much difference it can make to the leadership process. Working with such individuals is satisfying. Whenever I think of peers that had no problem taking on the follower identity, I think of Chinaza. Chinaza was a peer at MoneyRecovery that always provided support whenever I needed it, even though my group was supposed to support her Operations team. She was an outstanding leader who set the direction for both the Operations and IT teams. However, it was not uncommon for her to defer to me and allow me to lead both groups when it made sense to do so. She recognized that if her team saw her take on the follower identity, they would be more likely to take on that identity with my team and me. In one instance, we ran into a problem where operational processes stopped yielding desired results, and we needed to modify these processes to improve operational effectiveness. Chinaza allowed me to take the lead in redesigning her team’s workflow with the software changes that supported the new workflow. Not only did she allow me to take the lead, but she also provided me with the support I needed by making herself and her team members available to answer questions and to provide guidance. Chinaza exhibited stellar follower behaviors even though she was my peer.
Demonstrate Competence
It is not enough to follow the lead of your peers by providing them with the support they need. It is equally important that you do an excellent job in your role. There are few things more discouraging and disappointing than having a peer produce work that is low quality. It is also frustrating having to help a peer work through an assignment they are supposed to handle independently. Exhibiting your competence as a follower with your peers is an essential part of effective followership. You need to demonstrate to your peers that you can produce work products that meet their needs. They need to trust that you will do what you said you would do and that your work product will be of high quality. Hold up your end of the bargain. Do more than talk a good game by pulling your weight.
Your peers will lose confidence in your ability (or that of your team) if the quality of the work produced is sub-par. Eventually, they will not want to work with you. Here is a quick story to illustrate this point. Chido and Alozie were two software engineering managers that were part of a software engineering organization that I provided consultation services. It was not long before I observed that whenever Chido and Alozie needed to work together to solve a business problem, Chido would always ask that he (and his team) address the business problem independently. Chido would even go as far as to recommend that his team do the work that Alozie’s team was supposed to do. Furthermore, Chido would do all he could to prevent his team from working with Alozie’s team. Finally, I decided to ask Chido why he did not want Alozie’s help. I could not understand why he would place his team under tremendous stress when there was help available. Chido’s response caught me completely off guard. He said that he did not believe Alozie was a competent engineering manager and did not believe Alozie’s team would produce an excellent work product. In a nutshell, Chido did not want himself (or his team) associated with failure, so he would go to any length to avoid working with Alozie. You do not want to become the leader that your peers will not work with because they question your competence. Effective followers are competent followers.
Develop Rapport
Unlike the leader-follower dynamic with your leader, who you follow more than you lead, you continuously alternate between the leader and follower identities with peers with whom you work. Developing rapport with your peers enhances this dynamic. Rapport is establishing a vibrant working relationship with peers.41 Rapport does not necessarily mean friendship, and yet it implies having a healthy relationship with someone else. It can prove challenging to take on the follower identity when you have a strained relationship with a peer. In my experience, strained relationships lead to power struggles and an unwillingness to allow your peer to influence you. If your career has been anything like mine, you have probably had a peer or two with whom you could never develop rapport, making your working relationship with these individuals difficult and highly transactional. Instead of working through challenges together, I would either argue with these individuals or quickly disengage without addressing the challenge because we had a poor relationship. It was a battle of wills on who was going to accept the follower identity.
There are several ways you can develop a rapport with your peers. One common technique is to set up one-on-ones with them. The one-on-ones will provide you with an opportunity to explore challenges together. For example, maybe your teams find working with each other difficult. Talking about these challenges together can help you and your peer develop a plan to help your teams. During one-on-ones, you will probably alternate between leader and follower identities as you go through the process of influencing each other. One-on-ones also provide you with an opportunity to get to know your peers better. You will get to know each other’s likes, dislikes, hot buttons, and pet peeves through conversation. Establish a one-on-one cadence that works for you and your peers and stick to it. I have found that the peers I have routine one-on-ones with are the peers I have enjoyed working with the most.
Another critical aspect of developing rapport is becoming a confidante that your peers can trust. Trustworthiness is especially vital if you have one-on-ones where specific issues need to remain private. Discretion is an essential attribute of effective followership.42 Your peers should know that they can share private work-related information with you and that you will keep it in confidence. Sharing private information—like an upcoming organizational change—betrays the trust your peers have in you. In other cases, your peer might have challenges with another peer and just need a listening ear who they know will not betray their trust. Whatever the case may be, discretion helps build rapport, which helps the leader-follower dynamic between you and your peers. Be someone your peers can trust.
Communication
The Center for Creative Leadership (CCL) suggests that communication is the most crucial competency a leader needs to develop.43 The idea that communication matters should not surprise anyone because leaders need to set clear directions and goals. Often, leaders need to facilitate meetings and settle conflicts within the organization. As a result, communication challenges significantly hamper leader effectiveness. However, it would be a mistake to think that communication only matters when you are in the leader’s identity. Communication skills matter when you are in the follower’s identity because you need to influence peers. In fact, it might matter just as much. Research shows that effective followers excel at conveying their message to their audience.44 It does not matter who is in the audience—superiors, subordinates, or peers—effective followers find a way to get their point across. Clear and concise communication is vital in the leader-follower dynamic between peers, especially when working with a peer who has taken on the leader identity in the workplace. I have made a mistake in the past of assuming that because someone was my peer, it did not matter how I communicated with them, and so I ignored how I communicated with them. From paying attention to a specific peer, Nkem, I learned the importance of communicating powerfully, even among peers.
Nkem and I were part of a team asked to identify software development metrics that our teams could use to monitor their improvement. Anyone who has been part of a metrics conversation knows how contentious these conversations can become. Everyone has their viewpoint on the role of metrics in software organizations. The team consisted of people who had been in software development leadership roles for an average of 10 years. It was a seasoned group with a lot of experience. So, it was no surprise that our meetings got off to a rocky start, with many individuals attempting to assert themselves as leaders in the group. The only person I recall not acting this way was Nkem. She would later tell me that she had decided she would be comfortable following. Her focus was on how she could contribute to the process. Instead of jockeying for position, Nkem let her words do the talking. And did she have a way with words. She expressed her thoughts in a precise yet straightforward manner during all our working sessions and did not beat around the bush or go down rabbit holes that added no value. She stayed focused on the topics and got her points across. Nkem was incredibly thoughtful and considerate while using her contributions to nudge the group forward. She respectfully challenged ideas while providing her views. Nkem was masterful in her communication and was able to influence our group such that we eventually developed a set of metrics that we presented to the software development organization.
Following Those You Lead
It probably comes as no surprise that you need to follow leaders with higher organizational rank. Maybe, it was a little bit of a surprise that I recommended you follow your peers as well. I do hope, however, that by now, it is not a surprise that to lead well, you must be prepared to follow those you lead. Yes, you must embrace the follower identity and grant followers the leader identity throughout the leadership process. Embracing the follower identity means that you want those you support to influence you.
Effectively practicing servant leadership and adaptive leadership requires you to recognize when it is time for you to follow those you lead. Both leadership approaches depend on follower engagement for a successful leadership process. Those you lead are more knowledgeable than you are on various topics in the workplace. For example, people on my product and engineering teams knew details about our products and systems that I did not know. Do not let the fact that you are the leader cause you to think that it means that you must have all the answers to all organizational challenges. Some leaders think it makes them look weak when they consult with their team members. Failing to consult with your team members makes your organization less effective. When you deny yourself access to information that can help you make more positive contributions to the leadership process, you negatively impact your organization. You are also fostering conditions that demoralize your followers and negatively impact their level of organizational commitment. Following those you support should not be beneath you.
As mentioned in Chapters 3 and 4, both national and organizational cultures will impact how comfortable people in your organization feel about leading you. In some cultures, the leader’s responsibility is to lead, and any sign that the leader desires that someone else leads is not favorably received. Appropriately adapt to these cultures. When leading in national contexts where some may expect the leader to lead from the front, avoid putting people in uncomfortable positions. Look for avenues where people on your team can safely share their thoughts and ideas with you while maintaining their follower identity. In some organizations, you will need to work hard to make people comfortable with providing you with feedback. We have already seen earlier that organizations prefer the unequal distribution of power in the organization. Team members recognize that you have the power to reward or punish them and modify their actions based on how they think you will respond. Until team members routinely observe that you do not punish people when they provide feedback or constructively challenge you, they may be reluctant to provide you with feedback. You will have to give it time and send signals that you appreciate and expect feedback.
You will need to watch out for followers who influence you (even unknowingly) down wrong and ineffective paths. While you may think that this cannot happen to you, you will be surprised to learn that followers often influence leaders in the most subtle ways. For example, many leaders want their followers to like them and, as a result, make poor decisions just to receive positive affirmation and flattery from their followers.45 Have you ever made a poor decision that you knew was poor, yet you made it to avoid upsetting your team members? Trust me, you are not the only leader who has done this. However, you need to avoid making decisions for the wrong reasons. There are times where it is the wrong decision to follow the team’s lead, and you need to remain firm in these situations even if it makes you unpopular in the organization. Individual interests and organizational interests are not always in harmony, and sometimes, the decisions you make will not be warmly received. Any leader who is not unpopular at times is most likely not boldly leading their organization forward. Followers have more influence (which continues to grow in organizations) than we give them credit for, and leaders follow those they lead more than they would like to admit. Hence, choose wisely when to follow the advice of your team members and when to go against their advice. Remember practical wisdom—Aristotle’s master virtue—is essential for leaders who practice effective followership.
Takeaways
Effective leaders are also effective followers. Embrace followership.
While people think of followers as individuals who have less rank (power, authority, and influence) within the organization, in reality, whenever you allow others to non-coercively influence you, you are a follower.
Effective followership requires you to excel at following people (regardless of their rank) in your organization.
Follow your leaders by supporting them, constructively challenging them, and being a role model.
Follow your peers by being supportive, doing what you say you will do, and developing healthy relationships with them.
Follow your followers and yet recognize that you will need to make decisons (for the greater good) that will be unpopular with them.