Leadership - the Flip Side

Leadership is an interesting phenomenon.

It is also critically important to the survival of any group, including political parties, government, volunteer agencies and businesses.

Leadership has many styles, some more suitable for the vision, mission, objectives and effectiveness of the organization being led than others ... perhaps.

We'll set that long discussion aside for now and deal with a narrow, but I think also critically important issue, that being the Flip Side of Leadership - namely Followership.

Now as a society we pay so little attention to this aspect that my blog spelling dictionary thinks followership is not even a word.

Let's look at a few examples.

Political Parties: In Alberta and Canada we have Ed Stelmach - Alberta PC leader, David Swann - Alberta Liberal leader, Danielle Smith - Wild Rose Alliance leader, Brian Mason - Alberta ND leader, Stephen Harper - Conservative Party of Canada leader, Michael Ignatieff - Liberal Party of Canada Leader, Gilles Duceppe - Bloc Quebecois leader, Jack Layton - New Democratic Party of Canada leader, Elizabeth May - Green Party of Canada leader.

All these leaders were chosen through due process as enabled by their respective party's rules for selection of leader.

Now comes the interesting part. All of these leaders must cope with dissent from within the ranks of the members of the party that chose them. Some dissenters are more public and vocal than others and except for Ed Stelmach, the most public of dissent comes for parties in opposition. Even Mr. Harper, who is reputed to tolerate no public criticism of his leadership from members within his party might remember that was not the case when he was leader of the opposition. Mr. Stelmach is the only leader who has no opposition experience. (An aside, is that one of the root causes of his current troubles arising from within his own party?)

My point is quite a simple one. The members chose their leader. Some members backed someone else who was not chosen as leader but they remained members of the party after the choice was made. So as we have in government, "The Loyal Opposition", we must have in other organizations, including political parties, "The Loyal Dissenters". Dissenters will have another goal than the leader's in mind or disagree with a given policy, but they remain loyal to the party and support the leader while working to help the leader see their point of view.

I think it is now every member's duty to help make that leader a better, more effective leader. If we see something that we think reduces the effectiveness of the party and therefore of its leader, we have an obligation to come forward with our concerns and proposed solutions. We have a duty to reconcile our positions with those of others and find some way of accommodating others whose concerns appear to differ from ours, yet making sure we don't sell ourselves out at the same time.

Many of us are aware of the leadership issues surrounding our politicians and political parties because they are in the news media. Unfortunately very often this takes form of professional blood sport where we are simply spectators calling out, "Hit the goalie!", or, "Hit the quarterback!". We mindlessly cheer for our team in the mistaken belief that when they start the game they are winning as opposed to playing the game, where if they play well the outcome might well be a higher total score than the other team and a win.

In daily life such as politics, volunteering and business, there is no defined time limit when a buzzer will go to end the "game" in sight. It's living day by day.

This is hard work. It is essential to the success of our democratic governments, even our NGO's and businesses. We have to work across party lines and lines of dissent in accommodating others' concerns in much the same way as we do within the party for the betterment of our whole society, organization or business.

We must not allow ourselves to fall into the politics of contempt wherein we hold contempt for all those who disagree with us. That tears society, organizations and businesses apart to the detriment of all its people. To hold contempt for any individuals or groups is to reduce the resources we need for society and the individuals in it to thrive. We can't be wasting all our resources disabling others in society' leaving fewer resources to accomplish that which needs doing.

So after the leaders have been chosen, we need to ask ourselves what we can do to make them more effective. We need to encourage our leaders to help us work to meaningful effect in the development and growth of our society.

So that means that good Followership is really only good leadership by us who have participated in the process of leader selection, adding our wisdom, judgment and activity to support our leaders' efforts.

The blog dictionary is then correct. In a democratic society, there can be no Followership so it does not need a word. We need to exercise our personal leadership by adding it to our leaders' leadership to make our leaders more effective and stronger leaders.

Mike

Note: Interesting real life exercise in an international company, Xerox, persuading employees to add their leadership capacity to that of the employer's leaders to the benefit of the company and the employees themselves.

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/02/21/business/21xerox.html?th=&emc=th&pagewanted=all