In a previous post I posed this question: “more people are followers than leaders, so isn’t it more important to cultivate effective followership than effective leadership?”  In reality the distinction between leading and following isn’t very interesting.  The goal of each member of a group should be to contribute to individual and shared goals in a balanced manner and promote the dignity of group members.  In every group effort, whether business, charity, sports, or anything else, everyone leads and everyone follows.

I recently read Testimony, Solomon Volkov’s controversial publication of the memoirs of Dimitri Shostakovich, the great 20th century Russian composer.  There were three different individuals in the book who demonstrated three different ways of “leading”, or behaving with character within a group.  (See the note at the end of this post on the question of authenticity) Continue reading →

Not everyone gets to be a leader, and most leaders are also followers in their own right.  The project manager follows instructions from the project sponsor, the CEO from the board, the politicians from the polls, and so on.

Followership is the yang to leadership’s yin, and according to many interesting sources following can be as fulfilling and important as leadership. For example, check out this site: http://www.exe-coach.com/followerPartnership.html.  Quoting: “When both the leader and follower are focused on the common purpose a new relationship between them arises. This new relationship is candid, respectful, supportive and challenging. It is a relationship that honors open communication, honesty and trust from both parties.”  The article argues that effective followership is the key to making today’s flat organizational models successful and mitigating risk of corporate malfeasance and scandal.

Think about it: more people are followers than leaders, so isn’t it more important to cultivate effective followership than effective leadership?