Why we follow – Part 2 – What triggers us to follow

In the previous post, we concluded that followership is voluntary, that it, like love, starts within a person. But then the next question is: what triggers us to follow someone else?

I’ve spent years trying to understand this. The traditional view on followership is that people follow leaders because of who the leader is or what the leader does.  That is, we follow people because we look up to them or feel inspired by them, but I’ve found that’s not the case. In fact, it’s one of the greatest myths regarding leadership. 

You see, it’s not the individual per se we follow. It’s what the individual can do for us that’s important. We only follow someone we believe can take us one step closer to a specific goal or vision. Our goal and our vision.

In other words, we follow people when we already want to achieve something! Put differently – Revolutions are not started by one person with a dream. They’re started by one dream shared by many.