Follow the leader by Alan Cousins, Paris Smith
This article was originally featured as a column in the May 2017 issue of LPM. To read the issue in full, download LPM.
There are plenty of business gurus that are happy to charge significant fees to come in and tell you what good leadership looks like – and how important it is to the success of your firm. What they usually omit, however, is how important it is to have strong and effective followers. I call this ‘followship’, which is essentially the willingness of staff to engage with and support a business leader. Followship is hugely important, because only once it’s achieved can the firm’s aims and objectives be realised.
First, strong and effective followship from a firm’s executive group will strengthen the confidence and resolve of its leader – and significantly improve his or her prospects of being a good manager. On the other hand, poor executive followship may have detrimental effects on the leader and, ultimately, the business. A wilful lack of followship from executives can deflate even the best leaders – making them less effective and preventing them from being great managers. Competitors are also likely to hear about friction at the top level of the business and seek to capitalise on it.
Key clients and referrers may become aware of hostility in the business – and the carefully crafted image of the firm as a well-managed and professional entity may be tarnished. Staff also often pick up on negative vibes from the top of the organisation and find it very unnerving.
Strong and effective followship at the executive level has the opposite effect, and will improve the general feeling of wellbeing and engagement of staff. The leader can encourage followship by understanding the necessary interplay between management and staff – enabling them to work together in ways that value the unique competencies of individuals. It’s important for the leader to respect the views of different people and take time to understand what motivates them. In this way, individuals are given confidence to take up roles within the group that fit their competencies and enable them to contribute – inspiring confidence in the leader.
But the group also needs to understand what constitutes unacceptable behaviour. This can be facilitated by individuals signing up to a document that clearly sets out what’s expected of a partner with defined partner-level responsibilities. This must include the responsibility to engage with the leader in good faith and be supportive of group decisions. It’s not acceptable, for example, for employees to constantly challenge ideas and point out what’s wrong without coming up with practical alternative solutions and remedies.
Everyone understands the importance of effective leadership for a business to reach its full potential, but don’t necessarily understand this won’t happen if individuals refuse to follow.
Of course, it’s important that individuals retain their independence and hold their leader to account, but this must be done in a fair and constructive way. By this I mean that individuals or factions mustn’t scheme behind the leader’s back and undermine their efforts.
Successful organisations have both effective leadership and effective followship. Only with strong and enthusiastic followship can the leader excel, enabling the executive group to work together as a combined force working towards the full potential of the business.
