How To Follow

According to research, over 90% of college professors rate themselves as above-average when compared to their peers. Clearly, this is statistically impossible. Same result when students are asked about their performance. They all think they are well above average. When you ask workers if they lead or follow, 90% say they are leaders. In reality, people spend more time in roles where they are expected to follow rather than lead. That’s just basic Math. Just ask the army. Followership is under-rated but critical to leadership success. Yet we do not teach ever anywhere in the corporate world how to be a good follower, and, no, it doesn’t just mean agreeing with everything your boss says.

We worship leaders and there are countless books on how to be a great leader and on all kinds of optimal leadership styles. There are no books on how to be a great follower or on all kinds of followership styles so this article will take the first step in righting that wrong.

Organisations succeed when people follow well, not just when they lead well. Following is not passive. It is active engagement – aligning, executing, anticipating needs, giving feedback, making suggestions and influencing from below. In high-performing teams in the military, surgical units and elite sports, followership is ingrained through training. Yet in the business world, the word “follower” is looked at as something negative, akin to being a sheep, and the aspiration is always to lead, lead, lead. Even leaders are usually following something (the market, their ideals, personal beliefs) or someone (the Board, the investors, the leader of the parent company if a subsidiary).

Wherever I work, I bring in mantras that the company should live and die by, meaning ‘rules for the way we work’. The one related to following is “If the train has left the station, make sure you’re on board.” By this I mean that if you work at a company where your opinion is valued – or even if it isn’t – and you give your opinion yet the ultimate decision made by the leader is different from what you believe is best, then make sure you understand how that choice was made and that you stand behind that decision and support it. In the military, if the Captain issues a command and some of the troops say “No, we aren’t going to do it that way because it is not what we think best,” you would have a disaster on your hands. The same is true for the corporate world. The only exception is if you are asked to do something illegal or immoral. Then, you have to stand up and say no. And resign. Because the company will only get worse from there and you don’t want to go to jail, do you? Nor to be a sub-par human, I hope.

A great follower needs to give great feedback. Ho9wever, the ability to speak up as a follower is very dependent on the leader for whom you work. There is not always the opportunity to ask questions or share thoughts. At one place I worked, my manager said to me, “Throughout the study, you questioned the value of our work. Sometimes you even disagreed with me or with others. You see, we just think you have a problem with authority, and we are worried about it.” Visions of Cartman, the cartoon character from South Park, jumping around and shouting “Respect My Authoritaay”, as he beat up little old ladies and small children, flashed before my mind. To be successful at this company, you have to fall in line. I quit.

Following is not, of course, abject obedience, although so many think it is. In fact, it is embracing the direction of the company, and getting things done in alignment with the corporate plan.

Great followers ask a lot of questions to make sure they understand what is expected of them. They must be sure, when the direction of the train has been set, that then the railroad tracks are laid in the right direction, correctly connected, put in place efficiently, and all completed within the budget and timeline expected.

Less great followers ask too many questions, preventing the start of work, and eroding confidence in the plan among their fellow followers. Following is not a science but an art.

Great followers learn patterns and anticipate needs. At one consulting company where I worked, we did a lot of valuation modelling. After three times of being asked by the same manager to go back and run the model again assuming 5% more growth than in the model, I woke up. Before the next meeting, I had two model outputs, one with growth at the standard assumption of 10% per year, and another at 15%. I waited patiently until my boss had finished his review of the model. He then asked me to go back and “repeat the model with growth five percent higher please.” “Funny you should ask,” I said, as I laid the second model out in front of him. He couldn’t help but smile.

Unfortunately, we never give credit or prizes to those who follow well. That could change. We praise Sarah in product development for “coming up with a great new product idea for the company” but fail to praise Fred in operations for executing that idea to perfection. When I worked in engineering, products frequently over-ran budget and we never made any money. This was part of the reason I decided to pursue a career in business. The lack of profitability was caused by multiple changes in execution without an analysis of the effect on costs until the end of the project. It was a bit too late then.

At my daughter’s high school, they give an award each year to one child in the entire school for “tutoring”. This is the child who most helped other students learn. I am proud to say she won it three years in a row. She has been supporting with excellence, and soon it will be her time to lead. Ever heard of a company that gives a similar award? Neither have I.

Even as a CEO, you have to follow the guidance of the owners or Board of Directors, and also the major shareholders if the company is public. You might want to focus only on building something that you think maximises long term value, but, if your shareholders run out of patience in the short term, you won’t be there to build your long term.

Sometimes you have to follow first in order to earn the right to lead. At a couple of companies, I started out as COO before getting the CEO role. I had to show I could take existing ideas and run with them to make good things happen before I was able to run with my own ideas and rely on others to take those ideas and make good things happen.

There were also plenty of times as a follower when I messed up. As COO at one company, I thought we could gain efficiencies by letting certain managers work at home instead of paying for private office space in their neighborhoods. I thought I had got the CEO’s approval for that change, so I sent out a memo describing the new structure. The CEO was not happy when he found out. He believed the managers would be distracted if working at home, even if the managers themselves thought they could focus. It was a perfectly valid viewpoint. The CEO had been at the company longer than I had. Unfortunately, I had misunderstood the direction he wanted. I should have both asked more questions in advance and then got it in writing. Another mantra I bring to companies is “If it’s not in writing, it doesn’t exist.” It would have certainly helped in this instance if I had sent a brief email to the CEO outlining the new structure and asking for “written approval for this plan to which you and I agreed in our meeting”. He would then have had a chance to say he didn’t actually agree and I could have avoided sending one memo out saying “We shall do ABC” and a second shortly afterwards saying “No, we shan’t.” I wouldn’t have looked like such a twit, either.

Great followers are what make great leaders successful. Teams, and, therefore, companies thrive when people know how to follow well. That means taking personal ownership, supporting the mission, executing thoughtfully, asking insightful questions and helping your manager succeed. Simple as that! And who knows, if you follow really well, maybe you will even get to lead one day (if you want to).

Janet Lewis Matricciani is a two-time CEO who has worked all over the world and is multilingual, now sharing her business lessons publicly. She is a regular contributing writer to this magazine and can be reached at jlmatricciani@gmail.com. Click the link to see more of her articles.