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What social media can teach us about followership
What can social media teach us about followership? In recent years, there has been a noticeable increase in interest regarding followership. Partly, this is because our attitude towards being a follower has changed. When I interviewed people in the early 2000s, many portrayed followers in a negative manner. Words like ‘sheep,’ ‘puppets,’ and ‘yes-sayers’ were used to convey an image of followers as passive, uncritical minions. Today, many associate followers with individuals engaged on social media platforms. In these settings, followers decide who, when, and how they want to follow. In other words, the power to follow is in the hands of the followers. Now, imagine what would happen if…
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Why you can’t define followers by people’s actions
One reason why people struggle to understand true followership is that they try to define followers by how people act. For example, if people obey orders, they are usually classified as followers. When it comes to politics, followers are believed to be those who vote for a political candidate. Now, here’s why this type of definition doesn’t work. It’s very hard to know WHY people act the way they do. There can be a million reasons why someone obeys an order. Perhaps they WANT to obey or maybe they don’t have a choice. Perhaps someone threatens them or maybe they’re afraid of losing their job. People can also obey because they…
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Why we follow – Part 3 – Making use of our differences
We all have our own set of skills and talents. But different situations require different types of knowledge and abilities. For this reason, we humans have evolved to become exceptionally good at identifying and making use of each others’ strengths. If we’re facing a difficult situation or need help of any kind, we turn to the person or persons best suited to help us. In fact, our entire society is built upon this logic. If we get sick, we go to the doctor. If our car breaks down, we take it to a mechanic. This is so natural to us, we don’t even think about it – unless, of course,…
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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…
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Why we follow – Part 1 – Followership is like love
Through the years I’ve found that one way of explaining the very essence of followership is to compare it with love. We can be forced to do a lot of things that we associated with love, such as having sex, getting married, having kids etc., but that’s not love. No one can make you love them. In fact, no one can make you feel anything and it’s the same with followership. No one can force you to follow them. You can feel obligated, or even be forced to obey someone, but that doesn’t mean you follow them. In other words, the first thing to understand about followership is that it’s…