The 11 Leadership Secrets You've Never Heard About
The old distinctions between leaders
and followers are gone. Great followers follow by leading. Here’s 11 ways to
make sure you do just that.
In 1982 I left a great job at MTV:
Music Television for what is now the A&E Network for one reason: to work
for Jim Collins. A highly successful executive, Collins poured wisdom into
my head by the bucket while keeping me in stitches with his big-hearted Irish
sense of humor. One day he said:
“Remember Augie, everybody got a
boss. The vice president reports to the president and the president reports to
the CEO. The CEO reports to the chairman of the board and the chairman reports
to his wife. All God’s children got a boss. If you want to be a great leader
you must also be a great follower.”
According to Louis Mobley, my mentor and the director of the IBM Executive School, Albert Einstein
did far more than reinvent physics. Human beings are no longer just passive
cogs in Newton’s mechanistic machine inexorably driven by the iron wheel of
cause and effect. Instead we are all conscious agents, thinking for ourselves,
just as capable of causing change as being driven by it. Einstein’s universe is
a fluid place of feedback loops where cause and effect are interchangeable and
often indistinguishable. Does the media lead public opinion or merely reflect
it? Do parents produce children or children produce parents? Are consumers
hapless victims of marketing or are marketing folks just hapless victims of a
fickle consumer?
For leadership, Einstein’s
revolution means that the old, neat distinction between leaders and followers
no longer exists. Those bright lines between kings and subjects, nobles and
serfs, bosses and “workers” are gone. We often switch between leader and
follower many times in a single day, and success depends just as much on being
a great follower as it does on being a great leader.
Great followers follow by leading
and here are 11 ways to do just that.
1) Great
Followers Seize the Initiative: The days of leaders saying “Jump!”
and subordinates asking “How high?” are over. Today’s leader desperately needs
followers that bring fresh ideas not passive worker bees waiting to be told
what to do. Great followers say, “This is what I think we should do.” not “What
do you want me to do?”
2) Great
Followers Create their Own Job: Collins taught me a model for every
new job I took. Moving quickly I’d identify a quantifiable goal that I could
achieve in a reasonably short amount of time. I would then write up a plan for
achieving that goal along with a weekly reporting process. But most importantly,
I always presented my plan before my boss asked for it. In this way I
demonstrated that I could lead myself. The side benefit of creating my own job
was getting the autonomy that turns work into fun.
3) Great
Followers are Coachable: One time Collins shared a “secret” with me.
Rather than lug around a notebook, he folded a sheet of paper into thirds and
put it into the breast pocket of his jacket for notes. I faithfully imitated
him, but the first thing I did after leaving the company was stop carrying that
damn sheet of paper. It may seem that I was just playing the phony to
ingratiate myself, but I had a nobler objective. I wanted to demonstrate to
Collins that I was coachable. I used a little thing to signal that
I was coachable on the big ones.
4) Great
Followers Anticipate: One of the most humorous bits from the TV
series M*A*S*H is Cpl. “Radar” O’Reilly consistently anticipating Col.
Blake and later Col. Potter. They can barely open their mouths before Radar
finishes their sentence by assuring them that whatever they are looking for is
already done. Like Radar, great followers stay a step ahead of their boss by
proactively asking: “If I were my boss what would I want next?” My 23- year
-old sales assistant at MTV, Sheri Gottlieb was so good that within weeks 90%
of the work that hit my in-box went straight to my out-box with only “Sheri,
please handle” for instruction. Soon and without being asked, like Radar, she
was intercepting most of my office work before it even hit my desk. Sheri,
unsurprisingly, quickly rose from “lowly secretary” to vice president.
5) Great
Followers are Great Communicators: If your boss ever has to ask for a status report, you
are failing as a follower. Great leaders are great worriers. Great followers
preempt worry by proactively communicating in writing. If you do not
communicate your boss will naturally worry that you are hiding bad news. Besides,
unbidden information is treated far more credibly than information demanded.
Poor communicators consistently find themselves on the defensive and
perpetually wondering why.
6) Great
Followers are Goal Driven: Leaders are busy. The last thing they want to do is “supervise.”
Great followers reason backwards: they use future goals to prioritize today’s
“activity.” Poor followers reason forward: They react to their in-box and email
in the forlorn hope that just staying busy will magically produce results
somewhere “down the road.” Your boss is not paying you to “stay busy” or even
to “work hard.” He is paying you to strategically deliver on clearly
defined goals that materially impact the mission. This is true no matter where
you are on the corporate ladder as my assistant Sheri repeatedly demonstrated.
7) Great
Followers Show Don’t Tell: I
am coaching a young MBA student. At our first meeting I began groping for a
quote, and this young man quietly pulled out a neatly tabbed binder with
everything I had ever written and quickly pulled out the quote. His preparation
demonstrated seriousness far more convincingly than an impassioned
speech ever could. I am now investing far more in him. Human beings are wired
to value action and discount verbiage, use this trait to your advantage.
8) Great Followers Earn Trust: My number one
goal upon taking a new job was getting my boss to relax. The sooner I
earned his trust, the quicker he would spend his most valuable asset, time,
worrying about something other than me. Louis Mobley said trust relies on
promise and fulfillment. People who keep promises can be trusted. Those who
don’t cannot. Great followers keep promises. It is critical, especially early
in your relationship with your boss, that you deliver on every committment no
matter how trivial.
9) Great
Followers Offer Solutions: Any
damn fool can turn his problems into problems for his boss. Great followers
solve problems. If they cannot they always offer their boss solutions along
with the problem.
10) Great Followers
are Compassionate: Often referred to as “managing your boss,” great
followers are sympathetic to the enormous pressure that leaders must endure.
For example, leaders may wait too long to make a change or fill a position.
Then they spend months and many thousands of dollars recruiting while Rome burns around them. Once they fill
the position they still spend sleepless nights haunted by the chance that they
hired the wrong person. If they have, not only must they go through the
agonizing process again, but answer to their own unsympathetic boss about their
poor decision. Examples like this are the ordinary lot of leadership, and great
followers not only empathize but look for ways to reassure their boss that at
least one person understands his pain and can be counted on to alleviate it.
11) Great Followers are
Loyal: If I could not, in clear conscience,
back my boss to the hilt then it was time to change jobs or take an unpaid
sabbatical. Great followers take pride in making their boss “look good.” Even
if I disagreed in private, it was still my job to present a united front once
the decision had been made. I never undermined my boss to curry favor with my
own people or played politics at his expense. I only went over his head to let
his superiors know how great he was, and I constantly looked for reasons to do
just that.
As I hope you’ve noticed, many of
the same traits I ascribe to great followers apply to great leaders. Great
leaders not only acquire these traits as followers, but model them for their
own subordinates. But most importantly their interchangeable nature makes my
point: Just as the distinction between noble and serf is a thing of the past so
are the distinctions between leaders and followers.
Everybody got a boss and I was
fortunate to have the privilege of avidly following a number of great teachers
and business leaders like Jim Collins. And my efforts to become the best
follower I could possibly be paid off handsomely when I finally found myself
leading my own company…
http://www.forbes.com/sites/augustturak/2012/07/17/the-11-leadership-secrets-you-never-heard-about/2/
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