At Votive Leadership we believe that engagement is part of each of us learning how to Self-Lead. Self-leadership is something that we believe is a key element of a happy and successful work life and yet is a topic that is rarely taught. From our experience of working in many different organisations, in different sectors, we find many unhappy, disgruntled, disengaged, disenfranchised employees. These tend to be those who are not yet in leadership positions – the “followers” in an organisation; those who are carrying out immensely valuable pieces of work for their organisation.

During October and November 2007, we ran a series of self-leadership programmes for the operations/clerical function of a FTSE top 100 financial institution. Up to 15 people per time were invited to a 3-hour session and overall we worked with around 200 people. Comments that we heard at the start of each of these sessions are typical of those we hear in many organisations:

“We’re just a number these days”
“Management only care about costs”
“It never used to be like this”
“We’re understaffed”

Over each of the 3-hour sessions we listened, empathised, coached and also delivered some hard-hitting messages – but all done in the context of a fun, and dynamic learning experience. At the end of every session we asked attendees to agree or disagree with six key statements. All the answers were collated and the results are shown below:

Attendees were asked – “As a direct result of this programme, I fee more able to:”

*Of those who expressed a choice. A handful of people neither agreed nor disagreedDelivering the above feedback to the leaders at the organisation, the comment that best sums up the power of the above is one leader saying “We would KILL for results like that in our employee satisfaction survey!”

How did we achieve such amazing results? Without giving away too much about our unique proposition, we work with attendees on “correcting” some of the thoughts that they have in their head and also sometimes just tell them how it is. As an example, many of the people we work with have been in an organisation many years and in their head they compare the current state of the organisation, its values and their own job with “how it used to be.” By the end of our sessions they realise that all the time any of us compare our current situation to the past it can lead to feeling disappointed, upset and even angry. We also work with attendees on helping them REALLY understand what, for example, “providing shareholder value” means to them and how it affects them directly.

If you would like to learn more about this specific project or how we can help you increase employee engagement, please contact Votive Leadership.

keith@votiveleadership.com | 07977 519773

Leadership is apparent at different levels within an organisation, but key to the release of potential is the effectiveness of “Personal Leadership”. This is ensuring that you as an individual are able to self lead in a variety of situations. For example, consider you’re coming in to work and you discover that a report you have asked for has not been completed. Although there is a huge temptation in letting the individual know, in no uncertain terms how you are feeling about their lack of respect, would this be the most effective way of dealing with the situation? Successfully coaching the individual (raising their awareness and creating ownership) may generate a better response from them, especially over the longer term. In order to do this you have to keep very tight control over your own emotions and choose your response carefully; self lead. Another example may be you find yourself in the canteen having lunch when a colleague sits with you and begins to complain bitterly about the process found within the company. The easy approach is to join in the moaning and get a few of your own complaints off your chest. Of course this may not be the most resourceful thing to do. The resourceful response needs self leadership.

This article aims to briefly explain the five different categories of “Followership” and to highlight some of the core traits found therein.

Sheep

Not wishing to offend the lovely woolly creatures themselves, sheep are not renowned for their free thinking and independence. However all too often in the corporate world we find followers who fall into the sheep category. They rarely challenge anything and will blindly follow those around them. They add little to the team, except the ability to carry out simple instructions, like “hit your sales target!” They keep themselves to themselves and rarely offer any challenge. Nor do they work against the company however.

Poor leaders love these people, especially leaders who require feeling the power of authority. They enjoy the fact that the team does what he or she has told them and thoroughly enjoys the way the team constantly look towards them for guidance. You can often identify the manager who has populated his team with these individuals, because with their peers they appear disloyal to the team members, complaining about their ability and often complain about how little time they have to do their own work. They also talk as if they are indispensable, doing such things as phoning into the office whilst they are on holiday and micro managing the team and its members.

Of course this is a dangerous state of affairs, as sheep can behave lemming like when faced with a crisis. They offer little input and therefore the team’s ability to generate high quality innovative solutions to today’s challenges will be limited to the expertise of the individual leader and of course there is little growth within the team. Turnover tends to be high within these teams, or alternatively underperformance becomes a constant factor (which of course the leader blames on the team).

Yes Men

Forgive the gender specific title, but this obviously refers to team members of either sex. Yes men are active members of the team in that they will readily join in the discussions that abound, however the quality of their input is questionable due to their passive nature. These characters will tell you what you want to hear. They are eager to please, and constantly seek approval from the leader. They can be quite jokey and fun to be with, and the weak leader loves them for their support and willingness to please. They will do all that is asked of them, but rarely exceed expectations except in areas where there is no potential for controversy or areas of routine process. An example of this is that they will get their expense claim in on time however when asked to write a challenging report, their views will be bland and manager supportive.

These people can also be two faced in their dealings with others. As they do not seek any conflict they will tend to agree with the majority in any given situation, seeking to keep their own head well below the proverbial parapet at all times. As a consequence they can blow with the wind. Their opinions can be dangerous.

Weak leaders tend to like these individuals, because they are constantly having their egos supported. Conversations can often collapse into mutual moaning sessions as the leader finds a “companion mind”. Teams made up of these people are weak and lacking in innovation, but more importantly the amount of learning which goes on in the team is considerably stunted due to the lack of risk taking.

Alienates

These people abound in many organisations. Something or someone has generated a negative emotion within the individual, and as a consequence they spend a considerable amount of time moaning to others about their plight. However they rarely take this up directly with the leaders they support. They will ensure they get an audience, the junior the better, and will be extremely active in recruiting the sympathetic. They will moan constantly about the company processes, the way remuneration is apportioned, meetings, and work life balance and of course about individuals, especially senior management. They will blame everyone and everything else for their own relatively poor performance. If they have performed well this will be despite the efforts of others and the company as a whole and they will portray themselves as heroes. They certainly believe they could do a better job themselves than the management who support them.

Weak managers suffer these individuals. They are aware they exist, however are unwilling to take them on as they are often strong characters. As the manager is seen as part of the problem, they wish to avoid conflict with these individuals and either court their favour or hide from them. The manager becomes bullied in some way and they allow the individual to spread the doom and gloom. Alternatively the manager has no idea that this behaviour is going on. He or she is so removed from the real workings of the team, allowing them to become detached through position; they are unaware of the behaviour being exhibited behind closed doors and as a consequence take no action. Result is a reduction in performance due to a considerable increase in interference.

Effective

Effective followers are wonderful for the team. They are strongly connected to their own values which will generally mirror the corporate base values. They fully understand that their leader / manager is the there to guide them, but that this individual will not have all the answers. They understand that their manager needs their support in all they do, but support does not mean blind following (Yes Men). These individuals are willing to challenge the manger about decisions made. They question on what basis policy is being made and will have a goods grasp of strategic concepts. They are very willing to look well beyond their own boundaries and generate solutions, which may have no direct benefit to them, but will support the wider team. Their willingness to question and challenge however, comes from the intent to build. They will criticise openly with the manager, and not with others behind closed doors, in order to provide the manager with alternatives. They however have a thorough understanding of the concept of loyalty, and having challenged, they will support whatever decision the manager decides to go with wholeheartedly.

The weak manager sees these people as a threat and a challenge to their authority. They tend to manage these people by either avoiding them wherever possible or by complaining about them to others. Effective followers can hurt the manager’s ego. The weak manager finds this difficult to cope with. These individuals are often moved away from the team or isolated. The weak manager will look for weaknesses in these individuals and will exploit them to the full. For example this individual may be poor at getting their expenses in on time and the weak manager will highlight this for all to see.

Obviously these people ideally need nurturing, delegating to but most importantly these people need to be listened to.

Survivors

This group tends to span all four major groups, choosing to wear the hat of the majority at anytime. They are chameleon like in their nature which means that their values based leadership is weak. They offer a poor mirror to the leader, as on the face of it they are good team members, but will have a tendency to fall into the trait of the majority. This means they are inconsistent in their behaviour. They are average performers who are unwilling to challenge the majority. However if they are pressed by the manager to become active and to challenge they have the capacity to do well. They do have opinions, do think things through and do have a huge amount to offer the team as a whole, but their desire to please and have an easy life means their potential is capped.

These individuals do not live to their values, although if pressed and forced to consider their values, they will mirror the team basics. They are fundamentally good people, but are all too easily distracted. They often feel that they have a lack of support from their management and are fearful of consequences, so they keep to the easy way of life.

Summary

The reason for this article is that it is the leader’s responsibility to create an environment which is suitable for effective followership. This means they have to be proactive in allowing information to flow two ways and deal with poor followership issues immediately.

But before you can expect great followership of others you must look in the mirror and question your own behaviour. In which category do you spend most of your time? And what actions are you going to take to ensure you become a more effective follower?