How Followership Leads to Leadership
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[Music]
[Applause]
there’s a saying which goes
if you think you’re leading and you
turn around and look behind you and
nobody’s following you
well folks you’re just going for a walk
so we tend to pay a lot of attention to
leadership and i’d like to
rather than talk about leadership this
afternoon i’d like to talk about
what i call followership
to think about what followership is
and why it’s important right now why the
world needs great followers
some of the impact that followership can
have
some of the characteristics of great
followers and finally i’d like to leave
you with a couple of questions
to go away with as we close this
afternoon
so here’s the first question can you
think of a great follower
what are they like well
while you’re pondering on that question
let me take you back to 1953 now i know
most of us were never
never alive or weren’t alive in 1953
but it was a big year it was a big year
for new zealand
it was a huge year in the field of
mountaineering
it was actually the year that queen
elizabeth ii was ground as well
so 1953 if you think back
was a pivotal year
now i’m going to ask you another
question has anybody heard of john hunt
great okay just a few has anybody not
heard of sir edmund hillary
it’s always a relief when no hands go up
there
so the interesting thing was that as you
probably remember 1953 was the year that
cerebrum and hillary and tenzing norgay
sherpa
summitted mount everest so for the first
time
an expedition had put two people on top
of mount everest
and more importantly had come back
safely and this was huge news around the
world
um celebrated in new zealand celebrated
in the uk because it was
it was actually a british expedition uh
but the interesting thing was
most people kind of thought ed hillary
was the leader of the expedition he was
the guy who went to the summit
but that wasn’t the case john hunt the
guy that so few of us have heard of
was actually the leader of that
expedition
and the thing that interests me about
him i met him once it was a great
privilege
is that he chose rather than taking an
out the front leadership role where he
put himself in the limelight
and drew plaudits and accolades
for leading the expedition that put the
first people on the top of mount everest
he didn’t do that at all he chose to be
a follower
he chose to enable those people to get
to the top
of the mountain and he demonstrated what
i believe is one of the fundamental
prerequisites of followership and that
is
great humility
so i’ve been working with leaders
for probably 30 years now young people
on expeditions
senior leaders in boardrooms all sorts
of organizations around the world and
what’s
interesting to me
is that leaders may be the catalyst they
may be the architects of change
they may be the visionaries but you know
what it’s
followers who get things done it’s
followers
who make things happen so i’d like you
to come on a short journey with me a
journey of exploration if you like
as i started to explore this idea of
followership
which has intrigued me more and more
over time
so i’m going to go back to when i was 11
years old
i was at boarding school in england and
i was a chorister i was a cathedral
chorister
and it was a pretty privileged position
to be in i’ve got a choral scholarship
to winchester cathedral so one of the
largest most prestigious cathedrals in
europe
and this was significant to me because
my dad had also been a chorister
different cathedral
he’d also been headcorrester at a place
called litchfield cathedral
so i was pretty pleased i was going to
follow in dad’s footsteps
and like most kids with their dads i
thought dad was pretty cool
i thought dad was particularly cool
because not only had he been a head
correster
he was also a concert and opera singer
now he was really good
he sang alongside the likes of kirita
kanoa
the royal festival hall in the albert
hall so you know he was a big cheese in
the field of opera
and classical music and i wanted to be
just like him
so i sort of thought it was my
birthright if you like
to be head choruser at winchester
because hey dad had been headquartered
let’s feel it surely it’s in the genes
it’s just in the dna it’s going to
happen
so when the time came for the new head
correstor to be appointed
i waited expectantly
and then what i didn’t expect happened
so the dean and the head of music and
the headmaster and the committee
deciding on the new headquarries to got
their heads together
the announcement was made and hey guess
what i wasn’t head corister
i wasn’t even deputy head correster i
was the third chorister now
not like an olympic podium where you
have one two and three and the choir
there wasn’t a third place so basically
i was nothing i was out there
so an eleven-year-old privileged kid
probably doesn’t behave terribly well
and throws his teddys out of the cot
which is exactly what i did so i sulked
and i moaned and i looked for anybody
who’d listened to me
and i would complain and get angry and
grumpy and pout and do all those sorts
of things
until one morning i woke up and i
realized you know was i really going to
carry on doing this for the rest of the
time that i was in this wonderful choir
and i realized i had a choice i had a
choice
that i could be bitter
or i could be better
and happily i made the choice to be
better
so why is this relevant to followership
well it’s relevant because
when i look back on that i realized that
i had to make
the choice to be better around doing
three things
and that was to be faithful to be
focused
and to be fearless let me explain what i
mean
so the headquarter and deputy hair
correspond were appointed
i had to fall into line i had to accept
that these guys were the right people
for the job not me
they had been chosen by people older and
much wiser than me so i had to be
faithful to that decision
i had to decide i was going to fall in
line and do what needed to be done
second point i had to be focused
i had to be focused on as the athletes
say controlling the controllables
doing everything i could to make the
best music i could within this amazing
choir
to enable our leaders to do the job that
they were doing
and the final thing i had to be fearless
you might think what’s fearless got to
do with it well
here’s the thing at 11 years old i kind
of thought this is a disaster this is
the end of my wonderful career
as a future global international opera
star
of course it wasn’t it’s just a fork in
the road
so i had to abandon the fear that i
wasn’t going to be in the limelight like
john hunt i had to exercise humility
just go it’s okay i can do other things
now in
exercising those three characteristics
which i believe are fundamental
to followership what i did realize
i helped to do i was part of building a
choir that became
one of the most prominent and successful
cathedral choirs in europe
and i’m very proud
so moving on
i want to talk about what i’ve
discovered over time
which is the impact the importance of
followership
right now and there are three reasons
i’ve explored which i find fascinating
and quite powerful
so i’d like to share them with you
the first reason comes from the
situation that we find ourselves
in here and now in new zealand and
around the world yes it’s cobit
the word that we’re all sick of hearing
but i find it very interesting that in
new zealand think back to the 26th of
march
that’s when we all went into lockdown
nationally
and the government said to us we’re
going to go
hard and we’re going to go early
remember those words
and we were called a team of 5 million
and we’re still called a team of five
million
but the thing that interests me is yes
we’ve got a second wave of it now yes we
haven’t beaten it
but i am so proud to be here in new
zealand
having smashed that first wave yes we’re
still fighting it
but i believe that by choosing to get
behind our leaders whether or not we
agree with their political views or not
doesn’t matter
we chose to fall in behind to help
ourselves to help each other
and for me to demonstrate followership
now hey if that’s not having an
impact i don’t know what is
my next point comes from the world of
the demographic
i have three millennial kids
and i remember
we as parents in my generation for
whatever reason it was maybe because of
our parenting
but we tended to say to our kids you
could be anything you want to be
you can do what you want to do reach for
the stars the world’s your oyster just
rabbit and i’ll probably do the same
thing now
but with one significant difference
now you’ll forgive the generalization
but i do believe
from working with a lot of millennials
and leaders and managers and millennials
in organizations
there is a frustration out there a
frustration that
in many cases our millennial population
which represents well over half of the
workforce globally now
are frustrated frustrated because they
can’t get on
fast enough they reach these glass
ceilings
and the fascinating thing to me is that
i think we dealt with a bum card
i think as the generation before them we
forgot to tell them that yes by all
means reach for the stars
but don’t forget you’ve got to learn to
follow first before you ascend to those
heights of leadership
that you aspire to in fact
this is not an old principle by any
means two and a half thousand years ago
aristotle said he said he who cannot be
a great follower
cannot be a great leader
so the third reason this now delves into
the area of mental health
and as we know sadly in new zealand it’s
something we’re really wrestling with
we’re wrestling with increased cases of
depression globally it’s a
it’s another form of pandemic if you
like
but the fascinating thing for me is that
when i talk to health professionals when
i talk to psychologists that i’ve worked
with
they seem to agree on one thing
and that is that if you have something
to follow
something that’s bigger than you are
something that gives you a sense of
identity a sense of purpose
a sense of value that does two things
the first is and it has been proven
it can really help you from declining
into that dreadful state of depression
that so many people experience these
days
and the second thing is if you succumb
to a mental illness particularly
depression
it can be one of the things that helps
you on the road to recovery
so i took these kind of
realizations took them back into the
world of working as an executive coach
and i’ve worked with again leaders at
all sorts of levels
lots of different companies lots of
different countries and
one day i sort of stepped back and i
thought you know
there are real themes that come out of
so many of the conversations that i have
with
coaching conversations with executives
and they’re talking to me about not so
much
how do i get the best out of my team but
it’s more about
well i’m really struggling with the
relationship i have with my boss my
leader whatever it may be
how do i get the best out of them so
when i stopped back and i sort of
thought about it i thought well
actually these conversations aren’t so
much about leadership that was the that
was the brief if you like
leadership coaching it was actually more
about
helping them to understand what it was
to be the best follower they could be
in other words what could they do to
help create the conditions
for their leaders to do a great job
i’ve always said that leaders roles is
to
create the conditions for their people
to do a great job but
i’ve begun to realize that it’s just the
same the other way around
so let me finish up with one final story
and we’re going to fast forward now from
the age of 11 to the age of 21.
i was in the british army and i was
based in germany
quite dull to be honest not much
happened there at the time
so we were pretty excited when we got
off our chance to go to northern ireland
our first operational tour
and we were tasked with guarding the
high security
h-blocks in the maze prison so that
sounded pretty exciting
actually again it wasn’t terribly
exciting it was
kind of like glorified century duty
but when we got the chance a couple of
um
groups of bricks as we called them of
soldiers
to go out to a slightly troubled area
called logan
on an armored patrol we thought this was
pretty exciting
so myself and a group of the guys headed
out in two armored land rovers on patrol
vehicle patrol and we’ve been out of the
gates for maybe 10 minutes when the
radio burst to life
and the voice on the radio said you need
to go to this location now as fast as
you can
there’s an incident now we didn’t know
what an incident was
but we raced off there with excitement
thinking this could be the moment this
could be the moment where we really make
a difference we do something significant
we got there and i remember jumping out
of the land rover and there were two
policemen standing leaning against the
lamp post
they looked pretty laid back but it
transpired they weren’t very laid back
at all
and i went up and i said okay we’re here
and i’ll do my best
northern irish accent right now so the
conversation went something like this
you took your time we’ve got a problem
it’s over there there’s a bomb
so well i won’t say what i really said
but the fact was
this was it this was the moment we’d all
been waiting for the moment to shine
to show all our training and then
something extraordinary happened
i froze i just
as the athletes again would say i choked
and i stopped thinking and i just just
didn’t know what to do it’s like i was
paralyzed
and it felt like oh i don’t know it felt
like minutes but it was probably only i
don’t know
15 30 seconds but i remember people just
looking at me and
staring blankly kind of thinking what’s
the matter with him
and then very quietly i felt a jab in my
ribs and my number two
corporal steve mead i will never forget
his name
just quietly said to me he said come on
sir
you’ve got this you know what to do so
come on let’s get on and do it
now the good news is that at that moment
everything sort of came back i
remembered what to do we put in a cordon
we withdrew the
residence of the area back to a safe
distance we called in the bomb disposal
guys
they took the bomb away they detonated
it at a safe distance it was a bomb it
went off it made a big bang
but everybody was safe we went back to
the mess we had some beers
and we all celebrated but that’s not the
point
the point was what corporal mead did
that day
and that is for me one of the
loveliest examples of followership that
i remember
he could have usurped me he could have
shot me out of the way and said get out
of the way
you know you’re a 21 year old wet behind
the ears i’m 30 and i’ve been
doing this stuff for years he didn’t do
that he was faithful
he enabled me to get back on the horse
and do what i needed to do
he was focused too what he did was
he was absolutely aware of the fact that
he needed to get me
back doing what i needed to do in order
to help
us all through the situation so he was
focused on getting the job done
he wasn’t bothered about plaudits or
accolades
or anything like that and he was
fearless in another way yes he was
physically fearless it was a dangerous
situation but what was
interesting was that
he wasn’t worried about coming up and
challenging me now in the military and
that sort of time
it normally didn’t challenge or call out
your senior officer just wasn’t really
the done thing
but he wasn’t bothered about that he
came and he
fronted up to me and he told me what i
needed to do
and i salute him for that and in that
way he was fearless and my point is this
if you’re going to be faithful focused
and fearless being fearless as a great
follower
is not just about not worrying about
being in the limelight
it’s actually also about being not
afraid to challenge your leaders if you
think something’s wrong
i go back to the phrase i mentioned
earlier on our job as great followers
is to create the conditions for our
leaders to do a wonderful job
so said i was going to leave you with
three questions
and the questions are these so
if you ask yourself
what can we do now
to be or to grow
great followers
second question what is it
or how is it that we measure up when we
look at those
characteristics of great followers
to what extent can you look in the
mirror and say
i think i’m faithful think i’m focused
i think i’m fearless all wrapped up
in a beautiful bundle of humility
and the third question is when things
don’t go our way
are you going to make the choice to be
bitter or are you going to make the
choice to be better
so to wrap up
if leadership is the spark
followership is the flame
and i believe we can do every bit as
much good in this world right now
by being great followers as we can
by being great leaders
and i further believe that it’s the
great followers of today
who are going to become the great
leaders of tomorrow
thank you
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you