We spend a lot of time discussing leadership – what makes a great leader, how to develop leaders, and so on – but what about followship?  A leader is afterall nothing, without their followers and in our view the responsibility of creating good followship doesn’t rest purely with the leaders!

The skill of ‘followership’ (the capacity or willingness to follow a leader) is as important to the success of a company as the skills of its leaders – if the followers don’t follow, the leaders can’t lead. You could argue that the followers’ failure to follow is a sign of a poor leader, but that is not necessarily the case – we all have a responsibility to be professional in our role as followers too.

So what does it take to be a good follower? Phillip Meilinger, a retired colonel with the US Air Force, has some good ideas. His list of the rules of good followership included these gems:

• The follower’s role is to support, not undermine, the leader
• Fight with your boss if necessary, but do it in private
• If you see a problem, fix it – don’t leave it for someone else to clear up
• Accept responsibility when it’s offered
• Keep your boss informed, of the bad news as well as the good.

I’d say that being a good follower means being able to take instruction and direction well, and to deliver what’s expected of you. This is especially true during a programme of change. Change is difficult and we all know that ‘resistance’ to change is just part of any change process however, there is a difference between followers resisting change positively (with open heart, constructive challenge and open debate) and followers resisting change negatively (behind the scenes sabotage and criticism).  Being a professional with good followship skills therefore includes taking a proactive approach to embracing change and helping to shape the future.  This does assume of course that leaders possess good change management skills which is a subject for another day.

Generally you don’t become a leader without showing the ability to be a good follower; a constructive and engaged member of a team. Those with ambitions to become a leader spend a lot of time and effort learning what it takes to be a good one; we could all benefit from spending some time thinking about how we can be better followers, and this is something we often focus on at Space2BE.

The management writer Jim Collins often talks of performance in terms of ‘getting the right people on the bus’. Workplaces need positive, constructive energy but the responsibility for creating and maintaining that does not lie entirely with the leader, it’s the responsibility of followers too. When negative thoughts cross our mind or on those days when everything seems to be an effort it’s worth remembering – everyone needs to decide if they want to be on this bus.  There are afterall, many buses and many roads.

“There are two ways of spreading light: to be the candle or the mirror that reflects it.”    Edith Wharton