We are in a series on leadership. You can read the previous articles in the series here: first, second. Fundamentally, leaders have followers. Well, duh! Still, there is lot underneath that statement to unpack.
You can’t make people follow you. Sure you might be the boss. But this isn’t necessarily leadership. True leaders have willing followers who are not coerced or manipulated. If your people only follow you because you are the boss, you are in a position of leadership, but you aren’t a leader.
Being
The third thing you need to know about leadership is you need to be the kind of person people want to follow.
Your first follower needs to be you. You need to lead yourself before you can lead others. This doesn’t mean you do it on your own, as we’ll talk about later. You need to lead yourself to become a person with the highest levels of integrity, compassion for people, and have emotional intelligence. People need to feel safe around you, that you aren’t out to scam them, and that you won’t fly off the handle at a moment’s notice.
People wont follow:
- complainers
- people who are only in it for themselves
- needy people
- emotionally unstable people
- people who don’t care about others
Leadership is not Evil
TV shows and movies are full of villain leaders, and I often wonder, “How do they possibly get to that position? Who would possibly want to follow someone like that?” This sort of plot line is so prevalent that we start to think that to be a leader, we must be a self absorbed, uncaring, emotionally unstable, a-hole. This can’t be further from the truth. Sure, you can probably find some real life examples of seemingly evil leaders, but if you survey the landscape of good leaders, you’ll find this as an exception rather than the rule.
We will gladly follow someone who is grounded, compassionate, patient, kind, and has our best interest in mind – even if they also expect a lot (our best), and are kind of pushy.
Become
There is not a “5 step plan to being a leader people want to follow.” There aren’t actions to check off a list that make you a natural leader. This is inner work to change how you show up. It’s a journey and a practice – one where there is always room for growth. We need to change instinctual responses and habits. We need to think different.
Becoming such a person requires someone else to help. We all need someone else to point out our blind spots and the mindsets in which we are stuck. Just like we can’t see our own eyebrows, we need a person to be our mirror to facilitate growth and change in our inner world.
What character traits are you attracted to in a leader? Become that person.
