Cultivating followership in your teams
Gardening is an apt metaphor for the leadership our teams need. Photo by Jed Owen on Unsplash
The leadership that our teams need is no longer that which is reliant upon authority, positional power or crude applications of generic reward (and punishment) strategies. What we need for high performing teams in the 2020s is a style of leadership that cultivates followership. This might be different from the picture that you have in your mind of what leadership is, so here is a very brief explanation:
Followership
If nobody is buying, you're not selling. If nobody is learning, you aren't teaching. If nobody is following, you're not leading. Irrespective of your title or job description, leadership inherently requires that others make decisions and take actions that align to a direction that you have laid out.
Cultivating
Cultivating followership means acknowledging that we do the things on a consistent basis that make us more likely to be followed. In Team of Teams, Stanley McChrystal talks about moving from being "chessmasters to gardeners". Gardening is an apt metaphor. I'm not a gardener, but I can get my head around the fact that we can't guarantee the success of any flowers that we plant - ever. What we can do is plant them in suitable soil, in a place that gets the right amount of sun, at the right time of year and then water, feed and prune them appropriately. After all of that, we have given the flowers their best chance. We can't change drought, or flood, or fire or a bug that may prevent those flowers from reaching their potential.
So it is with leading teams in a modern world. Success can't be guaranteed because of the inherent complexity of the task at hand. Leaders can only consistently make the decisions and take the actions that make success and growth more likely in their teams.
It is important to point out that I am referring to leadership (the behaviours that cultivate followership) and not the appointed boss of a team. In the best teams, there is shared leadership. Using the definition above does not limit the behaviours of leadership to the appointed leader.
Some questions for you to consider in your teams:
How do you define leadership for your teams?
What makes you (or others) worth following?
How can you create an environment that allows others to bring their best work?