Leadership needs Followership

I’ve been a member of the American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE) since college - almost 30 years. I had let my membership lapse when I switched to the new job, but have since “caught up.” I now get a weekly summary of discussions in the ASCE forums and this one topic the piqued my interest earlier this morning.

Leadership

The basic premise of the discussion was talking about career development and training for non-technical skills. Commonly, folks are sent to leadership training as they progress in their careers and move more into management of projects, clients, and project teams.

I won’t even attempt to rehash the tomes of content on this subject, other than to say that I definitely agree. Leadership is an important skill to be honed over the course of one’s career.

What about Followership?

Has anyone ever gone to a training session or conference focused on followership? Probably not. But in many ways it might be just as important in the context of high-functioning, efficient teams and organizations.

I don’t mean blindly following orders or being a passive “yes” person. There’s more nuance - can you put your ego to the side and let someone else take the lead?

Can you continue to push yourself to complete tasks, even when you might disagree with the specific direction? Can you survive difficult personalities and respectfully offer correction to help smooth rough edges?

Sports analogy

The discussion summary mentioned sports teams. Given that we’re just a couple of weeks into another NFL season, American football is a good example here.

Everyone has heard of the “high maintenance” wide receiver that complains about a lack of targets even when the team is winning. Or even at a more fundamental level, a running back isn’t going to gain any yards if there isn’t an offensive line in front. The back still needs to follow the blocks.

My experience

I have been fortunate to largely have high-quality leadership to follow. So I guess it’s been easy for me to excel at Followership. I have definitely seen that the best teams take on the characteristics of their leader, and like to think that I have picked up some of the better qualities and characteristics of these folks over the years.

I’ve always said that I want to pattern my career and leadership style around the qualities that I admire in others, while minimizing traits that I don’t think are particularly effective.

In one case it was actually the opposite of what you might expect. I once worked for a supervisor who (I believe) had been micromanaged himself as a junior civil engineer. So his course correction lead to erring on the side of “do what you want, within reason” as a manager. This might be very effective for some folks, but not so much for others that are maybe more timid to speak up when they sense a problem starting to develop,

Another analogy

Outside of work I enjoy making music as a bass guitarist in a local cover band. The group that I play in has been together for more than 25 years, with very minimal turnover.

I see Followership as an important quality here. No one fights over what songs we learn, the guys take turns with lead guitar solos, and everyone mostly knows where they fit in to the big picture.

Wrap up

So here’s a toast to Followership. Maybe I could start another side hustle as influencer, writer, and public speaker with this as my niche?