Yes, this is an article on Great Leadership. And yes, this topic has been chewed, swallowed, digested, and ‘recycled’ almost as many times as the Earth orbited the Sun since the beginning of time. So why should you be interested in reading yet another piece on the subject?
Well – let’s therefore not talk about Great Leadership then. Let’s talk about voluntary followership instead. In my work as a leadership development specialist, I have come across more than two thousand leaders from all walks of life. I always ask my trainees the same question: Why should anyone want to follow you? Usually, in response, I see them frown. And then I continue to ask them to describe a ‘Great Leader’ whom they have followed voluntarily at a certain point in their life.
‘Why voluntarily?’ you might ask yourself. Well, just think for a moment. As a manager or people leader – how much easier your life could be if you did not have to spend all your time and energy trying to convince people that this or that direction was the right one to take, or why this or that approach was the one to follow.
Voluntariness is people’s response to great leadership. When you reach that point with your personality and leadership style you have time to focus on what really matters: On coaching your people beyond what they think is possible, on your answer to the shifts in the marketplace, and on how you can jointly outsmart the competition.
When I ask groups to describe the leaders whom they have followed voluntarily, I ask them to close their eyes and visualize the person who achieved this type of followership with them. It usually only takes about a minute or two – so why don’t you quickly do this exercise yourself right now? Close your eyes – and think about the person who made you follow him or her voluntarily. And when you picture the person in your head, ask yourself the question: What exactly made me want to follow this person?
In my seminars I ask participants to use a very simple model: The model of the Head, the Heart, and the Hand. So, if you want to do the exercise yourself – take a piece of paper and draw a symbol for the Head (😊) in the top left corner of the page for intellectual competences, a symbol for the Heart (❤️) in the middle left of the paper for emotional competences, and a symbol for the Hand (🖐️) for action-oriented competences in the lower left hand corner. Then proceed to describe the person in detail and list his or her competences, placing the characteristic to the corresponding dimension. Remember – this is not a scientific exercise. It will simply help you to consciously reflect on what contributes to voluntary followership for you personally.
I have been doing this exercise for more than fifteen years now with very diverse groups of people: a huge number of industries, all adult age groups, all hierarchical levels, with or without people leadership responsibilities, both genders, people from all over Europe, the United States, Canada, South America, and Asia. The interesting point is – whether they are top executives or individual contributors, all groups come up with a similar result, with similar lists of characteristics and competences. And it matters not whether they come from a national or organizational culture which predominantly favors an autocratic, or participative or free-rein leadership style.
All in all, more than two thousand people have done this exercise, so you might even call the outcome statistically relevant.
Let’s see if your list has a similar look and feel to the ones I usually get. I will just state a few typical non-prioritized characteristics per dimension:
😊 A visionary, an intellectually astute person, a great sounding board, open minded, has great ideas, open to ideas of others, professional expert, a quick thinker, cuts through complexity, knows what s/he does not know, etc.
❤️ Trustworthy and extends trust, honest, empathetic, a good listener, generous, optimistic, is a good coach, gives meaningful feedback, a good sense of humor, a role model, warm- hearted, ethical, respectful, shared values, passionate, self-aware, etc.
🖐️ Has a great track record, finds solutions, is successful, is action-oriented, is energetic, perseveres and gets things done, delegates interesting work, a great communicator, decisive, builds great teams, a risk-taker, etc.
Let me add one more comment. Very often, when I do this exercise, I spontaneously get sixty to seventy percent of the listed competencies in the Heart dimension. I must press the groups to come up with a little more in the Head and Hand categories, as I personally believe that the balanced combination of Head, Heart and Hand – let’s call it Balanced Leadership – is what makes it great. Apparently, however, people have natural tendencies to follow people that have distinct emotional competences. In fact, much more so than people who are merely highly accomplished technical experts.
So, now that we have established what makes people in general want to follow someone voluntarily, please ask yourself the question what the people you lead might expect of you.
