Follow The Leader: The #1 Task Of The Leader Is To Attract Followers!

Nearly everything I read has something to say about leadership.  In one way or another, authors tell us:  “this is what a leaders does; this is what a leader needs to do; this is what a leader should focus on.”

In the book I presented last Friday at our monthly event, the First Friday Book Synopsis, Good Strategy/Bad Strategy by Richard Rumelt, we learned that “developing and implementing a strategy is the central task of a leader…”

I don’t disagree with that, or most of the other things I read about leadership.  The fact is that leadership is an all-encompassing, incredibly important role.  Good leaders can create good and successful companies and organizations.  Bad leaders can lead to genuine problems, even the destruction or disintegration of a company or organization.  Many stories of each are everywhere available.

But I think there is one “this is the main task of leadership” consideration that trumps them all.  It is the task of a leader to attract followers.  Because, if there are no followers, there is no leader.  Leadership is not a “title,” it is a fact.  And followership may be the single biggest signal of successful leadership.

In the book, Tribal Leadership:  Leveraging Natural Groups to Build a Thriving Organization, Dave Logan, John King, and Halee Fischer-Wright focus on the “tribal” metaphor for companies and organizations.

It’s as though our tribe is part of our genetic code.  Birds flock, fish school, people “tribe.”   

In a tribe, leadership is truly critical.  And as they describe successful tribal leadership, they give this short, simple assertion:

Tribal Leaders are talent magnets, with people so eager to work for the leader that they will take a pay cut if necessary. 

People have a need for good leaders; people need to follow good leaders.  Tribal leaders attract followers — followers practically fight to get “under the leadership” of a good tribal leader.

The book proposes five stages of tribal leadership (from the book):

Stage	Collaboration	Mood	Theme
5	Team	Innocent Wonderment	“Life is Great”
4	Partnership	Tribal Pride	“We’re Great (and they’re not)”
3	Personal	Lone Warrior	“I’m Great (and you’re not)”
2	Separate	Apathetic Victim	“My life sucks”
1	Alienated	Despairing Hostility	“Life sucks”

In this list, the goal for the tribal leader is to aim for stage 5, and help each tribe member move up the stages together.  Yes, to “move up together – to “follow the leader.”

The leader says, “this is where we are going – together.  Now, let’s go.”  Building followership to take that journey together is the test of, the proof of, genuine leadership.

 

 

How and Why to Serve Your New Ideas Raw

 

Here is another valuable Management Tip of the Day from Harvard Business Review. To sign up for a free subscription to any/all HBR newsletters, please click here.

If you struggle to find new ideas in your organization, don’t assume there aren’t any. Instead, look at the ideas’ processes before they’re presented. Are they batted around, revised, screened, and debated before anyone with authority sees them?

1. Instead of thoroughly vetting ideas before they reach senior management, find ways to expose executives to ideas when they’re raw.

2. Skip the PowerPoint presentation—it only creates high expectations for a slick, refined idea. Remove the well-intentioned gatekeepers from the process.

3. Hold an idea science fair where people present ideas in their earliest stages on poster board to a room of mingling executives who can stop to discuss ideas that catch their attention.

Today’s Management Tip was adapted from “How Iteration-itis Kills Good Ideas” by Scott Anthony.

To read that article and join the discussion, please click here.

Check out the new book Management Tips from Harvard Business Review, based on HBR’s Management Tip of the Day.

 

George B. Bradt: An interview by Bob Morris

Geortge Bradt

George B. Bradt has a unique perspective on transformational leadership based on his combined senior line management and consulting experience. He progressed through sales, marketing and general management roles around the world at companies including Unilever, Procter & Gamble, Coca-Cola, and J.D. Power’s Power Information Network spin off as chief executive. Now he is a Principal of CEO Connection and Managing Director of PrimeGenesis, the leading global executive onboarding and transition acceleration group he founded in 2002. George is a graduate of Harvard and Wharton (MBA), author of three books published by John Wiley & Sons: The New Leader’s 100-Day Action Plan (now out in 3^rd edition), Onboarding, and The Total Onboarding Program, as well as of The New Leader Smart Tools iPad app, as well as a weekly column for Forbes.com, “The New Leader’s Playbook,” and the musical “Twitter Pi.”

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Morris: Before discussing your books, a few general questions. First, which person has had the greatest influence on your personal growth? Please explain.

Bradt: Got to be my wife, Meg. She is so strong in areas that I’m so weak in that she has helped me to see the value of opposing views and attitudes on a continuous basis over the past 35+ years. Not that I’ve adopted her views and attitudes, and not that I’ve tried to become strong in the areas that she’s strong in, just that knowing and understanding those things has helped me develop into who I am.

Morris: The greatest impact on your professional development?

Bradt: I’m blessed to have the ability to take things in from a wide variety of sources. I’ve learned bits and pieces from the people I’ve worked for, worked with, and had work for me, from suppliers, from customers, from teachers, and thought leaders. I am the sum total of all these bits and pieces.

Morris: Years ago, was there a turning point (if not an epiphany) that set you on the career course you continue to follow? Please explain.

Bradt: At age 23 I took over a sales unit from my former boss. He was a dramatically better salesman than I was so I knew I couldn’t cycle his numbers by outselling him. I chose to out manage him.

I gave one of my key accounts to each of my four strongest salespeople and spent the next six months training them.

• Month 1:  They came with me on the key account calls and didn’t do or say anything.
• Month 2: I let them do the paper work after the call.
• Month 3:  I let them prepare the presentation – which I gave.
• Month 4: I let them give the presentation – but not answer any questions.
• Month 5: I let them give the presentation and answer the questions – with me there as back up
• Month 6: I had them meet me before the call, take me through their presentation, explain how they were going to answer questions.

Then I let them make the sales call while I waited outside.

Then we debriefed immediately after that

Then, I took a one-week vacation and went to a one week sales management meeting. When I came back, these guys were 150 percent of the month’s target – through two weeks. They knew what to do and owned their results.

It changed me. I know the leverage of a team vs. an individual. Since then, I’ve always put my first, best efforts into developing others and building the team.

Morris: To what extent has your formal education proven invaluable to what you have achieved thus far?

Bradt: I look good on paper and that gives me some credibility. Many of my best friends and business colleagues are people I met either at school or through post-school networking groups.

The real value is in the basics. My elementary school, St. Bernard’s, is remarkable. Had the most extraordinary teachers and students. Anyone that spent more than a few years there has a discipline around the use of words that is rare in the world. That was my foundation that allowed me to get the most out of Choate, Winchester, Harvard, and Wharton – though some of those were pretty good too!

Morris: What do you know now about business that you wish you knew when you left the classroom to begin a full-time job?

Bradt:

1)  Defining your own win. Must, must, must define your own professional and personal goals – and understand the trade-off choices you are going to make across those two. Everyone is different. Everyone needs to understand what’s really important to them and what’s not.

2)  The importance of a long-term view. It’s very hard to look way down the road at age 22. There’s so much power in thinking about what you want to be later on and what knowledge and skills you choose to acquire to get there. Steve Jobs says you can only connect the dots backwards. I buy that. But you can make choices about which dots you want to put on the paper.

3)  The applicability of where to play/how to win my own career. One of the most important choices people make is which industry to play in and then which company to play in within that industry. Choose wisely and the rising tide helps. Choose less wisely and your fighting the trend the whole way. The second part of that is choosing how you’re going to differentiate yourself to win within your industry.

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To read the complete interview, please click here.

George Bradt cordially invites you to check out the resources at these websites:

www.primegenesis.com

www.newjobprep.com

www.onboardingprogram.com

www.newleadersmarttools.com

[1] Bradt, George, and Vonnegut, Mary, 2009. Onboarding: How to Get Your New Employees Up to Speed in Half the Time. New York: John Wiley & Sons.

[2] Attributed to Martin Luther at the Diet of Worms, 1521, when asked to recant his earlier writings.

[3] Neilson, Martin, and Powers, “The Secrets to Successful Strategy Execution,” Harvard Business Review (June 2008):