In a recent speech to Raytheon’s Global Marketing Management meeting, I talked about the proliferation of leadership books. (If you go to Amazon and search for “leadership,” you’ll see what I mean. Go on; click here and see for yourself.) That tells me, I mused, that the general lack of leadership around us is not because we don’t have enough information on the subject.
One of the folks in the group asked why there aren’t as many books on “followership.” (Boy, was he right! Click here to compare the numbers.)
So…two good questions:
1. Why, after so many books, seminars, and “>speakers on leadership, are we still trying to figure out what leadership means and what it looks like?
2. Why are we (apparently) so much more interested in leadership than followership?
I’ve got my opinions; what are yours?
1)Thoughts on leadership continue to change and make progress. I listen to long time managers and supervisors (old-timers if you will) and they still long for the “early days” when you could just yell at someone to motivate them to do a better job. Think about how much we’ve learned about motivation alone in the last twenty years as thoughts on leadership have progressed to move us away from that former style of motivation. Where would we be if we weren’t teaching that to our leaders through books, seminars and speakers?
2)There’s nothing glorious, or complicated, about followership, everybody does it to some level or another. Reading about building relationships, handling conflict, those work for both leaders and followers. Leadership, on the other hand, takes that extra special something to be effective, and there’s never a shortage of valuable ideas and thoughts on what that something is. So maybe it’s more necessary, or maybe it just makes for more inspirational and enlightening reading.
That’s some of my opinions. Are you ever going to share yours?
1)Thoughts on leadership continue to change and make progress. I listen to long time managers and supervisors (old-timers if you will) and they still long for the “early days” when you could just yell at someone to motivate them to do a better job. Think about how much we’ve learned about motivation alone in the last twenty years as thoughts on leadership have progressed to move us away from that former style of motivation. Where would we be if we weren’t teaching that to our leaders through books, seminars and speakers?
2)There’s nothing glorious, or complicated, about followership, everybody does it to some level or another. Reading about building relationships, handling conflict, those work for both leaders and followers. Leadership, on the other hand, takes that extra special something to be effective, and there’s never a shortage of valuable ideas and thoughts on what that something is. So maybe it’s more necessary, or maybe it just makes for more inspirational and enlightening reading.
That’s some of my opinions. Are you ever going to share yours?
(this comes from my personal experience, and may be true only for one individual – myself… though i have used ‘we’):
i think, till we believe ‘leadership’ is in someway more special, or even requires something special, we will grapple with ‘being’ good leaders… while all the time ‘wanting’ to be a leader.
who wouldn’t want to know they are special?
the easy answer is: if i can be a leader, i have proved it that i have it!
seems or sounds very naive, doesn’t it? too simplistic…
but does that mean it is not true?
i think, without truly being, and wanting to be, a follower… a servant… true leadership doesnot evolve.
but we want a shortcut – to be in the position of leadership. and for us, being a servant or follower is opposite to being a leader.
is it… really?
what is a leader doing if not serving?… a cause… a people…
what is a leader doing, if not following?… a vision (personal/group/community/global)… a shared model of ‘whatever’?…
without getting a handle on this – truly, and not cosmetically – leadership cannot happen.
can we really ‘lead’ people?
not really. people may follow us because they find a ‘good servant’ who can do something that they can’t or don’t want to…
all these words can be reduced to the cliche – leaders need to ‘want to’ serve.
but like everything else, we mouth and believe ourselves that we really want to serve. the only thing we don’t see is – we want to serve because we see it as a way to get what we want… to be and feel in control.
we don’t use our hearts… either we don’t know how… or we are afraid. so we do the next best thing. talk a lot about it. and translate everything arising from the mind in ‘heart-terms’.
(the best field to learn about this is the social-work field. they help, not because they have a heart to help. but because, they can’t stand the pain THEY FEEL, or the disorder they see, or unfairness and violence that terrifies them. they are out to wipe out the evil so that they feel safe, not to help the people. if this seems very narrow and judgemental, show a little more tolerance, AND really look into this people – into their stories, their actions and behaviours at ALL TIMES.)
like i said… i learned this from a great teacher – myself failing and feeling miserable.
(this comes from my personal experience, and may be true only for one individual – myself… though i have used ‘we’):
i think, till we believe ‘leadership’ is in someway more special, or even requires something special, we will grapple with ‘being’ good leaders… while all the time ‘wanting’ to be a leader.
who wouldn’t want to know they are special?
the easy answer is: if i can be a leader, i have proved it that i have it!
seems or sounds very naive, doesn’t it? too simplistic…
but does that mean it is not true?
i think, without truly being, and wanting to be, a follower… a servant… true leadership doesnot evolve.
but we want a shortcut – to be in the position of leadership. and for us, being a servant or follower is opposite to being a leader.
is it… really?
what is a leader doing if not serving?… a cause… a people…
what is a leader doing, if not following?… a vision (personal/group/community/global)… a shared model of ‘whatever’?…
without getting a handle on this – truly, and not cosmetically – leadership cannot happen.
can we really ‘lead’ people?
not really. people may follow us because they find a ‘good servant’ who can do something that they can’t or don’t want to…
all these words can be reduced to the cliche – leaders need to ‘want to’ serve.
but like everything else, we mouth and believe ourselves that we really want to serve. the only thing we don’t see is – we want to serve because we see it as a way to get what we want… to be and feel in control.
we don’t use our hearts… either we don’t know how… or we are afraid. so we do the next best thing. talk a lot about it. and translate everything arising from the mind in ‘heart-terms’.
(the best field to learn about this is the social-work field. they help, not because they have a heart to help. but because, they can’t stand the pain THEY FEEL, or the disorder they see, or unfairness and violence that terrifies them. they are out to wipe out the evil so that they feel safe, not to help the people. if this seems very narrow and judgemental, show a little more tolerance, AND really look into this people – into their stories, their actions and behaviours at ALL TIMES.)
like i said… i learned this from a great teacher – myself failing and feeling miserable.