Grow. Sustain. Prosper.

Many people would be offended if they were called a follower, and they certainly wouldn’t think that spending time or money to research, learn, and perform as a follower would be worth their effort.

Those folks would be misguided… and they could potentially lower their organization’s ability to succeed and prosper.  While strong leadership is revered, excellent followership is equally honored and honed in every successful organization.

Check out this definition of followership to determine if you think, even as a leader, that you fit the definition and the traits of followership:  

Followership is a willingness and commitment to take the initiative to provide outstanding service.

Followership traits include integrity, honesty, courage, competence, independent and critical thinking, willingness to learn & be held accountable, willingness to give honest, helpful feedback to the leader , and using one’s skills and talents to help the leader and the organization succeed.

Based on that definition, I would be proud that be labeled a follower!

As someone whose title, for many years,  was leader of a department, I can still see myself committed to the company values, taking on tasks that I knew could help the company succeed, and spending time doing daily due diligence to ensure success for my team and company.  A follower!

In order to inspire followership in others, I need to make 2 things happen:

• Teach employees how to live the followership traits (yes – they are teachable skills).
• Check my own followership skills in the mirror, as my group will surely be looking to me as a role model to see how I perform as a follower with my own boss.  

The big question centers around HOW to check your followership skills before expecting strong followership from others.  The Holden Leadership Center at the University of Oregon published a useful, thought provoking tool I’ve used in the past to check my followership skills in relation to actions with my boss.  Here is a slightly modified version to use to take an introspective look at your own traits.

• In what ways am I truly pursuing the mission/goals of the group while balancing my self-interests?
• What ideas, purpose or values do I share with the leader? The group?
• In what way should I be taking more initiative?
• What particular pressures and challenges does the leader face?
• If I provided more support to the leader, how might it change their behavior?
• What redeeming skills, qualities and abilities does my leader possess?
• How can I help draw these out?
• How can I help change the environment so these skills and abilities can be demonstrated?

Pretty deep stuff, yet so worth a self-look in order to mirror followership to others!

Leadership and followership are intrinsically linked and both are needed in order for organizations to grow, sustain, and prosper.  Self checking the followership traits, changing the perception of followership, and using strong leadership skills to teach others how to lead and follow are a recipe for team success!

“I am reminded how hollow the label of leadership sometimes is and how heroic followership can be.” —Warren Bennis

Benjamin Franklin nailed it.

One of my favorite quotes about the impact of training comes from Benjamin Franklin: “Tell me and I forget.  Teach me and I remember.  Involve me and I learn.”

Many of us in management positions convince ourselves that telling someone how to do something will magically create a willingness and ability in them to master a skill and use it every day to impact our organization, yet when we look at it through our own experience as learners, we can hear that small whisper of doubt in that statement, and deep down we get that in order to translate learning into action, simply telling…and even classroom teaching alone…doesn’t give us the return on investment for the time and money spent during that one “telling” or “teaching” event.  Real action requires follow up after the event to truly apply that skill.  If you have ever had children or can harken back to your own childhood, you understand this.

We all see that kids need follow up after teaching them a skill in order get results. When we tell a child how to tie their shoes, we don’t expect them to do it well after just one explanation.  We don’t even expect, after spending an hour teaching 10 kids in a classroom how to tie their shoes, that they will be able to do it well right away.  What do we do instead? We practice WITH them every day, PRAISE and REDIRECT them along the way, and soon we no longer have to bend down every few hours to retie their trampled on, dirt-crusted shoelaces…saving us much-needed time and shoelace money!

When it comes to learning new skills in a coaching session or a training class, we, and our employees, are all kids with untied, trampled on shoelaces sucking up time and money!  That’s not to say that coaching and training classes aren’t worth the investment; it simply means that they aren’t, on their own, the magic shoelace-tying answer.  Consistent, planned follow up after training is the final answer.

So how we do we do that?  A post-class process for reinforcement is the key:

On our own, or with the help of the training professional, we can commit to meeting with the employee within 3 days of the training event to discuss the following questions:

• What are the top 3 skills you learned and can use right away?
• Why do you feel those 3 are the most impactful for your situation?
• What struggles do you anticipate as you begin to apply those skills?
• What can I do to help you practice those skills?
• How would you feel about meeting every Friday morning for 10 minutes to plan how to use those skills during the next week and review how things went the previous week?

During those Friday meetings, we can ask the same 5 questions each time:

• What did you do around that skill this week?
• What successes did you have with it?
• What didn’t go so well?
• What did you learn – good or bad?
• What’s our plan for next week?

Those 5 simple questions allow us to praise and redirect while truly involving ourselves and our employee is the process of learning.  Benjamin Franklin was spot on when he said involving is the key to learning and application, whether you’re a kid attempting to lace shoes or a business leader working to enhance your skills to help your organization succeed!