Postcard from the Edge
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Postcard from the Edge
The responsibility of following
When we follow, we make an active decision to place our futures in someone (or, in the case of technology, something) else’s hands. We may or may not know them or trust them, but we are still the owners of the decision. When it goes wrong, we cannot blame them. There is no contract.
Yet we do. It is easier to listen to rhetoric and propaganda, accept it uncritically, and tag along for the ride.
Propaganda penetrates open minds and seizes what they are already open to.
Eric Hoffer
Following is a huge responsibility because we legitimise the leader.
If we do so without making the effort to understand why and what we are empowering, we cannot complain about the consequences.
We will get what we follow.
I am often asked about followership. In the early nineties, it was a promoted concept in the leadership studies world. The way it tended to be viewed was a choice between leading and following. I found that traditional corporate structure ideology dictated this perception. The reality is that we are all followers and leaders. I believe it was Robert Greenleaf of servant leadership fame who advanced a similar idea related to teams. He saw leadership coming from a relationship between members where the first among equals would lead. Context and program responsibility would point to who took the lead. In this way every leader must learn to be a follower and vice versa.
'We are still owners of the decision' is a key idea here.
In martial arts, when we sustain an injury it is, to some degree, often because we didn't commit to following our training partner's lead. We were tentative. We didn't follow the script of a technique. We' didn't follow.
I sense that if we balanced the idea of followership more then your thesis would become more accepted consensus. By that I propose that when we lead we also follow and when we follow we also lead.
The etymology of leader, as I'm sure you know, is læden and my favourite version of what this means is to 'accompany and show the way'. When we accompany others we and they take responsibility for the journey. If we end up at a different destination to that which was intended, we are all responsible.
I'm reminded of the lyrics to 'Going Underground and the stanza, 'the public gets what the public wants.' Very appropriate.