Lead, Follow or Get out of the way!

The sentence above was relayed to me many years ago and has often challenged me over the years. It really strikes at the heart of what leadership, accountability and personal responsibility means in all organisations large or small.

I would be as bold as to say if you are awake and in business today then you must be doing one of these three activities… there is a fourth option mind, but as I will explain, it has no place in any organisation or anyone’s mind-set.

To start off with, I hope we can agree a basic truism, that to be a leader you must have followers and vice versa. This is an important context though. Leadership is entirely imaginary unless it involves a willing, motivated and engaged followership. That’s not a word often used… Followership, I can’t however recall any seminars, training courses or coaching on the subject of effective followership, yet if one is entirely reliant on the other, Followership is the Yang to leaderships Ying!

If we look a bit closer at these three activities, it may give us a brand new perspective about how organisations can grow and develop through the people it employs.

Choose to Lead; Leadership is not a status, it is not a job title you earn through promotion, nor is it genetic, or a predisposition. It is an activity, it is a response of both action and attitude to a given situation. In a nutshell, when something needs to be achieved by a group of people, someone is selected/elected/appointed/self-appointed to support, assist, drive motivate coordinate and look after the welfare of the people involved. The role of leader is transient and can fall to any individual. A receptionist is just as capable of leading a team as a managing director, it’s simply a matter of who is best suited at that time for that activity.

Choose to Follow: When you are not leading whatever you are doing remains integral to achieving success. It is a mistake to believe that when you are not leading you are no longer responsible for the outcomes. The best leader can be thwarted by unenthusiastic, cynical or disengaged followers. An average leader however can be hugely effective with followers who all share one fundamental belief, that everything is everyone’s responsibility. If you believe that, then you quickly see that followership is not about simply doing what you are told, it is about being determined, collaborative, challenging and motivated to achieve a common successful outcome.

Choose to Get out of the way: a purposefully direct instruction, but an action nonetheless. If you are not leading, and you are unable to be the effective and essential follower described above, then the most constructive thing you can do is… get out of the way! It takes self-awareness and emotional intelligence to recognise when the best thing you can do is allow others to get on with it.

Let those who are engaged and motivated to be so lead or follow, do not hinder or hamper with dark predictions of failure made in corridors and tearooms. Don’t remain ‘almost’ involved with half-hearted efforts and persistent deep sighs, ready to jump at the first sign of difficulty.

So whatever your role in an organisation, at any one time you should stop and check, are you leading? Are you actively following? Or are you proactively getting out of the way? Each day may be different and you may be required to swap between the three activities on a regular basis. The time to be concerned is when you find you are none of the above!