Building An Organisational Superpower: Followership

Introduction

In my 20+ years as a management consultant working with talent, driving transformation, and developing leaders in the revenue functions, I have noticed a cavernous gap in what is taught in organisations and business schools. You see, in the realm of organisational dynamics, leadership has long been the focal point of discourse, commanding attention and resources. However, there exists an untapped reservoir of potential that holds the power to revolutionize the performance of organisations across all industries and scales: followership. As a business leader, you hold the key to unlocking this transformative force within your organisation. By recognizing and harnessing the power of followership, you can create a catalyst for unprecedented collaboration, innovation, and success. This article aims to challenge conventional wisdom, redefine the role of followership, and provide a practical framework for embedding it as a core value in your organisation, empowering you to build a true organisational superpower.

Redefining Followership

Followership, often overshadowed by the allure of leadership, is frequently misunderstood as a passive or subservient role. However, this narrow perception fails to capture the true essence and potential of effective followership. At its core, followership refers to the deliberate act of willingly and actively supporting a leader. It involves individuals who choose to follow, cooperate, and collaborate, playing a pivotal role in achieving shared objectives. Effective followership is not merely about blindly following orders; it is an art that requires active engagement, critical thinking, and a high degree of emotional intelligence. When executed with skill and intentionality, followership becomes an amplifier of vision, drive, and collaboration.

The Characteristics of Effective Followership

To cultivate a culture of effective followership, you must foster and encourage a set of key characteristics within your organisation. Firstly, effective followers are proactive in pursuing their leader's vision, rather than being passive recipients of instructions. They operate from a foundation of trust and loyalty, aligning their efforts with the leader's objectives without continuous second-guessing or undermining. Open and honest communication is a hallmark of effective followership, with followers providing constructive feedback, sharing concerns, and offering innovative suggestions. Adaptability and flexibility are crucial, as followers must navigate the ever-changing landscape of business, remaining agile in the face of evolving circumstances. Initiative, proactiveness, and ownership are the cornerstones of followership, with individuals taking responsibility for their actions, decisions, and outcomes.

Overcoming Barriers to Followership

?Despite the immense potential of followership, several barriers often impede its cultivation within organisations. One significant obstacle is the lack of value and recognition accorded to followership. In a culture that places a premium on leadership, the contributions of followers are often overlooked or underappreciated. As a business leader, it is your responsibility to actively acknowledge and celebrate the efforts of effective followers, creating a culture that values and rewards their contributions. Additionally, you must foster an environment of trust, where proactive followership is encouraged and supported, rather than perceived as a threat to authority. By clarifying the role of followership and emphasizing its compatibility with autonomy and independence, you can dispel misconceptions and create a shared understanding of its importance.

Implementing and Operationalising a Followership Framework

To harness the transformative potential of followership and embed it as a core value in your organisation, you must take deliberate and strategic action. This involves not only implementing a followership framework but also operationalising it to drive tangible results and measure progress.

Start by formulating a clear vision around followership, articulating its importance and potential impact on organisational performance. This vision must be communicated effectively throughout your organisation, ensuring that every individual understands the value and significance of followership. As a business leader, you should then stipulate the practices and behaviours that exemplify effective followership, such as active engagement, honest communication, continuous feedback, trust, and support for leaders' decisions.

To build the necessary capabilities, a comprehensive learning curriculum should be developed, equipping individuals with the skills and mindset required for exceptional followership. Alongside this, it is crucial to operationalise followership by establishing clear metrics, setting targets, and implementing processes to measure and track progress.

Consider the following steps to operationalise followership:

1. Define key performance indicators (KPIs): Identify measurable indicators that reflect the effectiveness of followership within your organisation. These may include metrics such as employee engagement, collaboration, innovation, and project success rates.

2. Set targets and benchmarks: Establish clear targets for each KPI, aligned with your organisational goals. Determine industry benchmarks to gauge your performance against best practices and identify opportunities for improvement.

3. Implement tracking mechanisms: Put in place systems and processes to regularly measure and track your followership KPIs. This may involve employee surveys, performance evaluations, project assessments, and other data collection methods.

4. Analyse and report on progress: Regularly analyse the data collected and generate reports that highlight the impact of followership on your organisation's performance. Share these insights with stakeholders to demonstrate the value of followership and gain support for ongoing initiatives.

5. Continuously improve: Use the insights gained from your followership metrics to identify areas for improvement. Implement targeted interventions, refine your followership framework, and adapt your strategies to optimise performance over time.

By integrating the implementation and operationalisation of followership, you create a holistic approach to embedding this core value in your organisation. This not only ensures that followership is actively practiced and promoted but also provides a mechanism to measure its impact and drive continuous improvement.

Finally, it is crucial to recognize, reward, and celebrate outstanding examples of followership, reinforcing its value and encouraging its widespread adoption. By taking these practical steps to foster and support effective followership, you can create an organisation that is more agile, innovative, and resilient, poised to thrive in the face of ever-evolving challenges.

Practical Steps for Business Leaders

To embed followership as a core value in your organisation, consider the following practical steps:

1. Lead by example: Demonstrate effective followership in your interactions with your own superiors and peers, modelling the behaviours and attitudes you wish to see throughout your organisation.

2. Communicate the vision: Articulate the importance and potential impact of followership, ensuring that every individual understands its significance and how it contributes to organisational success.

3. Provide training and development: Invest in learning programs that equip individuals at all levels with the skills and mindset required for exceptional followership.

4. Recognize and reward: Celebrate outstanding examples of followership, acknowledging the contributions of effective followers and reinforcing the value of their efforts.

5. Foster a culture of trust: Create an environment where proactive followership is encouraged and supported, promoting open communication, collaboration, and a shared sense of purpose.

Conclusion

In the pursuit of organisational excellence, you, as a business leader, must recognize and harness the untapped potential of followership. By redefining followership as an active, engaged, and collaborative practice, your organisation can unlock a powerful catalyst for success. Cultivating a culture that values and nurtures effective followership requires a paradigm shift, challenging traditional notions of leadership and empowering individuals to contribute their full potential.

You have the opportunity to champion this transformation, embedding followership as a core value and unleashing its transformative power. By implementing a followership framework and operationalising it through clear metrics, targets, and tracking mechanisms, you can drive tangible results and measure progress. This holistic approach ensures that followership is not only actively practiced and promoted but also continuously improved and optimized.

The path to building an organisational superpower lies in embracing the art and science of followership, and the time to act is now. Seize this opportunity to redefine the future of your organisation and unlock the full potential of your most valuable asset: your people. By fostering a culture of effective followership, you can create an organisation that is more agile, innovative, and resilient, ready to tackle the challenges of the ever-evolving business landscape. Embrace followership as a core value, and watch as your organisation transforms into a true superpower, poised for unparalleled success.