Leading with Followership Opportunities

Leaders produce followership opportunities by empowering their followers to find ways to connect their concerns for living a good life with the leader’s own objectives for the group. Followers can be anyone whose concerns or goals leaders want to connect with their own.

As a follower, I assess every potential leader with one simple question: If I accept their offers, can I live the life Koni and I desire?

As a leader, I ask “How do I know what others care about?”

First look at what you care about; then ask them.

For most of my career, I’ve been able to follow the leader of my choice. Occasionally I have followed a leader or group that was not my choice.  In one case, my boss’s strategy, tactics, goals, or ethics were not the same as mine. In fact, I made the assessment that Koni and I could not live the life we desired, nor could the group I led if I did exactly as he asked. When this happened, I tossed myself the line, “Create a followership opportunity for me!”.

A Followership Opportunity I Created

My boss’s goal was to minimize costs by not hiring any more field staff. My goal became to build lean teams but also develop the story about how staffing with insufficient manpower will raise costs of safety, quality, and identity.  I created the connection between his concern for minimizing costs and my concern for safety, profitability, and producing a mood of fun instead of stress.

My team’s subsequent performance led us to decline business we could not safely and profitably take on, resulting in increased gross profitability. We became the first company in the industry to declare limited capacity and have our authentic speaking be assessed as a strength. Later in a speech to the top 500 performers in the company my boss announced that declining work was the turning point in our business!

I toss the create followership opportunities line with new managers and employees, and with people who are struggling to help themselves or others take action. And here is the fun part! You don't have to create their connection between your followers' and your goals or the group's goals, because you can't. Only the followers can create the connection in their heads. You simply bring up what they care about and ask them to connect it to your goals or the group goals.  Thus, a connection will exist and they will follow. This is a fundamental of creating followership opportunities.

How to Create Your Own Followership

“Followership will always be in the shadow of leadership.  But there are no leaders without followers and on-going success with weak followers will usually prove elusive.  It is true that an organization is only as good as its leaders.  It is also only as good as its followers.” -John S. McCallum, Ivey Business Journal

To know what everyone cares about, ask this question of yourself first and then the group:

"What actions do you want to take, skills you want to develop, or identities you want to produce so you can live a good life?"

Then to invent the goals to take care of you and the group, ask yourself this question:  

"Where can you take care of the concerns of the group and create the identity you desire, the skills you need, and the actions you enjoy?"

When they choose to follow you, you are now a leader.

Or you can toss this line to your followers for them to create an opportunity for their colleagues, customers, and possibly you to follow them. When their colleagues, customers, or you choose to follow your followers, they are now leaders.

‍