eubie

Nov 07

Leadership is Overrated

By Steve Eubanks Followership, Leadership No Comments »

Let me start by saying that I don’t think that leadership is unimportant. Every one of us, at some time in our lives, and most of us for most of our lives are subject to, influenced by, under the care of, organized by, and otherwise affiliated with leaders of some kind. We’ve all had parents or bosses or pastors or presidents who make decisions, set priorities and influence the circumstance in which we live. Clearly, leaders and leadership are very important.

However, a trip to the bookstore, or a glance at the newspaper or a fly-on-the-wall listening post in most any business class will leave you with the impression that leadership is not just important, but all-important. The state of the economy is the result of poor leadership on Wall Street. The state of the nation is the result of poor political leadership. Our churches, schools, families, sports teams, banks, you name it; their successes, failures, gains, losses, trophies, dropped passes, converts, scandals, graduations and divorces are all attributed to the quality of their leaders and the effectiveness of their leadership.

Leadership is everything, or so it seems.

I suspect, though, that there is more to it. I am not sure that every losing season is the result of poor coaching. I am not sure that every great product launch is attributable to an outstanding CEO. I don’t believe that every teenage pregnancy is the result of poor parenting, or that every record quarter reflects the genius of the VP for Marketing. I am convinced that leaders do not accomplish greatness, nor do they fall from grace entirely on their own.

Leaders have followers.

“Duh.” you might say. Of course leaders have followers. The point, though, is that the followers do what the leader says. So if they succeed, it’s because the leaders told them the right things to do, and were good at getting them to do it. If they fail, it’s because the leaders gave them bad instructions, bad resources, bad advice, bad motivation. Bad leadership. So, good or bad, the leader gets the credit.

Ok. Let’s say you’re right. That would mean a great leader, let’s say Abraham Lincoln, could take any group of followers, let’s say the 1962 New York Mets, and accomplish any task, let’s say developing a room-temperature nuclear fusion generator. I know, I know. That’s ridiculous. But that’s my point. We so easily ascribe the success of a project, or a movement, or an idea to the efforts of the leader that we often completely overlook the contribution of the followers.

And the reality is that, quality of leadership notwithstanding, it is followers that get things done.

So, back to the original premise. Leadership is overrated. Not because it is unimportant in its own right, but because the other half of the equation is so underrated. Followership is what makes leadership. And our understanding of followership is abysma

Quick, before reading any more of this article, write down three important characteristics of good leadership. My guess is that the exercise will not be difficult. Even if you’ve never studied leadership, you’ve probably heard people talk about what makes leaders good, and you can come up with three characteristics off the top of your head.

Now, with the same amount of effort, write down three important characteristics of good followership.

My guess is that this exercise will be much harder, if you can even get past the question, “What the heck is followership anyway?” I would even hazard to guess that you have never heard anyone give a speech, lecture or seminar, nor read a book by anyone on the topic of followership.

So how do we know? How do we know what makes a good follower? How do we know what characteristics to look for when building a team of people to accomplish a task? We spend millions every year learning how to identify or become the leader side of the equation, but we ignore the follower side.

And we ignore it to our peril.

So, I suggest we start looking for an answer to the question, “What is good followership?”. I have some ideas, that I’ll suggest in future posts, and I’d be interested to hear some of yours as well.

Sep 25

The Importance of Followers: A Parable

By Steve Eubanks Followership No Comments »

Two armies gathered for battle on opposite sides of a broad plain. As the soldiers set up their camps and built their fires, each army pitched a large tent just out of reach of the enemy’s arrows. In these large tents, the leaders, officers and rulers gathered to hear counsel, debate ideas and draw up battle plans. The tents were large, in order to accommodate the various groups of strategists, informers, lieutenants and sub-commanders. Since the armies were equal in size, in weaponry, in courage and in ferocity, the battle was surely to be determined by planning, strategy and leadership.

During the day, a crow flew across the plain and into the tent of the eastern army’s leaders. The crow landed on the table in the center of the tent, voiced one loud, piercing screech, then flew up onto one of the supports in the top of the tent, where he stood watching the leaders debate their strategies and make their plans. Before long, those in the tent began to feel ill. The sickness took them quickly, and within the hour, everyone in the tent was dead.

The western army’s scouts had seen the entire course of events play out in the eastern army’s tent, and when, after the last man in the eastern tent had died, the crow emerged and began flying toward the west, the scouts called out the alarm. The leaders of the western army quickly pulled the flaps of their tent shut and secured them tightly. From within the safety of their tent, they could hear the crow flying back and forth, screeching and cawing in frustration. Smugly, they continued to make their plans, confident that, with the demise of the eastern army’s leadership, the battle would easily be theirs.

Some time later, the calling of the crow began to grow distant and faint, until it could no longer be heard. With the crow gone, the western army’s leadership emerged from their tent to discover that every one of their soldiers was dead.

Leaderless, the eastern army became undisciplined and chaotic. Their efforts were disorganized, the movements of their companies and regiments were uncoordinated, and their actions proceeded under no coherent plan or direction. When the sun rose the following day, the attack they launched against the western army, though zealous and enthusiastic, was possibly the clumsiest, most inept military action of all time.

The western army, with the benefit of its unparalleled planning, brilliant strategy and exceptional leadership was decimated in a matter of minutes.

Jun 24

How the Best get Better (From HBR)

By Steve Eubanks Excellence No Comments »

There is a great article in Harvard Business Review this month by Graham Jones, a sports psychologist and cofounder of Lane4. He uses a number of parallels with sport to describe how high-performers get to the top of their field and stay there. He talks about thriving on pressure, using short-term goals to pursue long-term goals, embracing competition and feedback and celebrating victories. While I found his comments very insightful, there are a few additional points that I would have added to his list.

Embrace Your Team

Jones alludes to the team concept in the article where he talks abouty the value of competition, mentioning that high-performers use the challenge of competing with those they train with to spur them on to higher levels of accomplishment. However, it is important not to forget the support end of the classic challenge/support formula. Even those athletes/executives/employees who work in highly individual sports/roles have teams. Trainers, coaches, families, staffs and co-workers surround all of us, and high-performers are those that can best utilize the support these teams provide.

Emphasize Your Strengths

I realize this is a trendy concept right now with the Strengths movement, but trendiness notwithstanding, there is value in the concept. Each of the high-performers that Jones mentions has this in common: they pursued excellence in an area that highlighted a strength as opposed to a weakness. Greg Searle, the Olympic rower, is a great athlete that could have found a reasonable amount of success in many different sports, including his other great love, rugby. However, he was able to identify his strength and passion for rowing, and to capitalize on that to the tune of Olympic gold. This is not to say that he ignored his weaknesses, rather that he set himself on a trajectory that maximized his success by setting himself on a trajectory that emphasized his strengths.

Never Quit

Again, while this is a sentiment that is almost too cliche to include, it is also too important to exclude. Consider Roger Bannister, whom Jones mentions at the beginning of his article. After discouraging performances in 1950 and at the 1952 Olympics, Bannister considered hanging up his spikes, but decided instead to set a new goal. His decision not to quit gave us the first sub-4 minute mile in 1954, fully two years after Bannister set his new goal. The moral, of course, is that early dissapointments do not mean success is unattainable. Quitting, however, is an assurance of failure.

Jun 12

Finishing Off DePree

By Steve Eubanks Followership No Comments »

As I finish looking at Max DePree’s characterization of an excellent Follower from his book Leadership Jazz, I’m going to get a little out of order. This is because four of the last six characteristics are very closely tied together, and I would put them under the general heading of personal responsibility.

DePree posits that excellent followers resist fear of the unknown, are open to change, take responsibility for constructive relationships and pursue what DePree calls being a “builder, not a taker”. Each of these points at the followers’ responsibility to manage themselves in constructive and productive ways. Though he doesn’t spend enough time to go far down this road, there is a great foundation here for a discussion of the role that followers play in a leader’s success. Leaders must have productive, constructive, proactive followers, or the fact is that nothing gets accomplished. The role of the follower contributes much more to the actual accomplishment of goals than the role of the leader.

Sure, the other side of that argument is that the leader is primarily responsible for the existence of the goal to begin with, but I’m not trying to say that leaders are irrelevant, only that the importance of the role of the follower in the leader-follower relationship is so often given short-shrift.

I have just started reading Barbara Kellerman’s new book onFollowership, and will share my thoughts about her thoughts in future posts.