To become a leader, be the best follower!
Contributed By - Yogs Jayaprakasam
Google Search Trends for the term “Transformational Leader” has been strong and consistent from 2004. “Ability to drive transformation” is a common occurrence in almost every leadership profile that you can find on LinkedIn. “Driving Transformation” is an expected New Normal in the current day leadership positions.
Transformation is commonly referred as “a thorough or dramatic change in form or appearance”. As a successful leader, you may have defined a compelling strategy, based on your past experience on similar initiatives, external trends and based on clear winning metrics. Several studies show that “More than 70% transformational efforts fail to achieve target impact”.
To become a leader, be the best follower!
Going with open mind on the possibility of failures, and ensuring all measures to get the full benefit of your intended initiative is crucial for success. In order to get the full benefit, apart from the strong strategy and execution plan, it’s also pivotal to get every one in your organization fully vest into the initiative and invest all their efforts and energy into the same direction.
"Every person in your company is a vector. Your progress is determined by the sum of all vectors." - Elon Musk
How do you do that? As I continue to gain wider perspective in leading large-scale transformational initiatives, my perspective on leaders’ role in driving transformation has significantly changed as well. I believe it’s crucial to get the initial followers to buy into the vision, as they are your important “change agents”, who will bring the critical mass to your vision and drive success.
“There goes my people. I must follow them, for I am their leader.”
- Mahatma Gandhi
To best articulate the concept of first follower and, why that’s important, watch the 3 minute video “First Follower: Leadership Lessons from Dancing Guy” on YouTube. This video best articulates the role of the “First Follower”, which I would argue is even more important than the leader herself. As you can see in the video, this first follower brings additional followers, and once you get a few initial followers, gathering critical mass to push the results becomes effortless.
“If a movement is to have an impact, it must belong to those who join it, not those who lead it.” – Simon Sinek
How do you make the movement belong to those followers?
There are two ways to doing it.
1. If the success of your movement is very clear and evident, just articulating that success would help bring initial followers and then more followers. For example, if you invite people to join you to voice concern against the current immigration challenges, people will join immediately, as it’s already most people’s problem and they all want this issue to be resolved for their benefit as well.
2. If the success of your initiative is not clear and easy to understand, you need to approach it by articulating the negative consequences of doing nothing. For example, if your initiative is about “Global Warming”, well, pulling your initial followers will be much harder, as the success in this case is not simple and clear. In this case, you need to first explain with evidence on what the downside of not doing anything about Global Warming and get people feeling connected to the problem.
"You say you want a revolution
Well, you know
We all want to change the world" - The Beatles
“Originals”, the book written by Adam Grant explains these scenarios in much detail. As I stated in the beginning of this article, examine the role of a leader now. It’s very clear that the leader’s job is to define the vision and strategy for initiative, but more important to bring the initial followers by articulating, “what success looks like” or “what doing nothing will cost”. It’s those initial followers, who play the crucial role of “driving the transformation” as they bring the critical mass to the party that leads to massive success.
Important takeaway for all aspiring leaders out there, watch out for those “initial follower” opportunity, as that has the potential to making you into a breakout leader. In retrospect, my career growth started when I played that “initial follower” role diligently.
“To become a leader, be the best follower; to be a successful leader, continue to emulate being the best follower”
Disclaimer: Opinions expressed in this article are solely mine and do not reflect the views or opinions of my employer.