What being a follower taught me about great leadership
A tale of learning by experiencing
Imagine…
I was nervous, heart racing with excitement and a little bit of trepidation, I was proud of my new art project and walked confidently up to the photographic curator who I had booked and paid time with for a photographic folio review. I introduced myself, presented my work and right from the beginning before I even opened my folio this curator had turned his gaze, barely looked me in the eye, sat on his phone the whole time, reviewed my work for 5 mins (I had booked 20), flicking the pages like it was a newspaper, then said abruptly great — I have what I need, thanks, you can leave now.
As quickly as it had started it was over…. I was like… what… hold on… I stumbled on my words… some feedback, anything… I said what about some feedback, he said — Why? I was gobsmacked, like… hmmmm… cos that is why I am here. Even if you don’t like my photographic folio all feedback is useful. The feedback was a short blank stare before he resumed texting on his phone. So I got up and left.
Luckily, I wasn’t bothered and just brushed it off and went to the next review. Twenty years ago I would have been upset, my confidence shattered, thinking this feedback was proof I was a total failure and imposter.
Depending on how confident we are in the moment of experiences like this, it has the potential to dampen our enthusiasm and our confidence completely. We may just give up or spend days super deflated and unproductive or just take the pedals off our work, projects, creativity. It also has the opportunity in that moment, to motivate me, teach me something new, inspire me to do better and just keep trying.
This curator’s lack of engagement, leadership, mentoring (which he was paid to do) and his focus on his needs, not mine — this was a mutual experience after all — is all too common behaviour of those in positions of authority across all types of business, government & creative disciplines.
For some parts of my career (not all, please I am not that bad) I used to be like him. I used to sit across the table with my team, on my phone, computer, laptop multi-tasking. I thought it meant that I was justifiably busy and my time was precious and I was important. Yes, yes, yes I used to say, nodding my head while still on my phone and never fully engaging with those present and in the room. I thought I was being productive because, being busy meant I was influential but in reality I was just being plain rude. I was also completely ineffective with my time and my brainpower was stretched to the point I was unable to provide structure, guidance, consistency, vision or inspiration to my teams.
The moment with the curator crystallised an idea that I had being ruminating on over the last few months.
Leaders should become followers again to remind ourselves first hand what great leadership, mentoring and support feels like.
A leader who became a follower
For the last few months while on sabbatical (walkabout), I became a follower by default. By design, I had no job title to hide behind and no perceived authority, so I had the luxury to observe and learn what great (and poor) leadership feels like again. As a follower I was able to observe techniques and approaches used by those around me. I was right in the middle of learning how leadership impacts my motivation and my attitudes and feelings towards myself and others — when people asked me to do things, how did I feel, how did they make me feel, did I want to work harder to impress or did I not engage. What were the triggers and motivations and how can I apply the things I learnt to my own leadership practice.
This has led to many amazing experiences and a mixed bag of emotions from fear, nervousness, joy, excitement and growth.
What I will share is nothing new. You can google listicles and information from people well more qualified than me that tell what makes a good leader and follower based on research & surveys & data.
But this is not a surveys and data. This is actually what I experienced, a diary study based on events over the last few months.
So this tale begins with one simple principle over all principles—
The quality of our relationships determines the quality of our life.
From there I have simplified my learnings
To be a better leader I think these 10 principles matter
Say Thank-you
Vision and strategy succeeds with actions not words
Be your team’s loudest cheerleader
Share your networks to create connection & collaboration & thriving teams and company culture
Time is only currency anyone has — respect it.
Ideas grow & evolve based on richness of conversation. A flow between listening, reflection, observation.
Multiple voices & perspective creates catalyst for change
Your team wants learning and growing just like you
Know what motivates people? Helping them achieve their passions and ambitions
Be approachable — you are never that busy
1. Say thank-you
When I left my last job, one of my team members took me aside on my last few days to say thank-you. He wanted to do it in person because he felt an email would not be sufficient. He wasn’t a direct report and he wasn’t long in my team. He told me a variety of stories that transformed my thinking on my role but the most important was coming to say Thanks.
Apparently, he was nervous about approaching me and didn’t know if I would make time for him but he felt it was important for him to share what he learnt from me.
What he didn’t know was at the time, I was falling apart. I was crying almost everyday thinking I had failed myself and my team. What he didn’t realise was this five minutes, just him taking the time to say thank me for being a positive leader to him stayed with me throughout my sabbatical. It made me realise I had helped many people in their career’s journey like many people have helped and guided me.
In hindsight this was the beginning of my journey into how to be a better future leader.
Now for anything and everything where I learn something or someone helps me in my journey whether they realise or not, now I say thank-you too. To people who have transformed my life. Even the ones where it ended badly, and I learnt what not to do, I feel it is important to say thanks and recognise their positive contribution to my life’s journey.
Because saying thank-you is the most transformational of experiences for both people. Most people don’t realise the value or inspiration they create or the impact they have. And you never know what their backstory is or current situation.
You don’t even need to be a leader to follow this one because maybe just saying these simple words thank-you reminds us all that we all doing great things and we are all in this together.
2. Vision and strategy succeeds with actions not words
It is a well known tale that people don’t just follow individuals, they follow the vision and the cause. They will move mountains and work hard if they believe. And believing is an emotional not rational experience.
If you want to succeed as a leader, you need a super clear vision, you need your team to believe, you need them to contribute their ideas and you need them to deliver your vision. This is a truly symbiotic process.
So this is where actions come into play not your words. You lead by example.
Another way of looking at it is — What is the company’s or your teams Plan A and what is Plan B?
Let me explain based on my personal life strategy. Over the last five years, I had a clear Plan A in my head, but I spent all my time telling people what Plan A was but all my actions were successfully over-delivering Plan B. The messages I gave everyone were confused between what I wanted to achieve (Plan A) and what I was doing (nothing, I was delivering Plan B). I was acting confused and also frustrated when I wasn’t achieving my expected Plan A goals and taking it out frustrations on those around me.
So these past few months I refocused my personal strategy, I prioritised, I created focus in my life and removed Plan B off the table. Now I act Plan A while slowly achieving Plan A.
Read about it here. Is Plan B distracting you from living a life filled with Plan A?
This is where the actions need to meet the words. Plan A + Plan B applies to corporate strategy as much as personal life goals.
Think about how many times you have heard a message from senior management but then the actions did not reflect the strategy.
CEO says… “Our focus is on X,Y, Z. We are going to prioritise on these areas. We have a mission statement. We have company values. We believe in our people and each other.”
But what happens when almost no actions make this message a reality? As leaders we need to be reliable and deliver on our commitments. If we want people to deliver the strategy, we need to clear on the focus, repeat consistently and give people the ability to contribute to that vision with their own ideas. And if we say this is the strategy we don’t keep changing it or doing something different.
If we constantly change focus or do not deliver of our promises, people naturally feel confused, they don’t want to take risks for fear of not understanding the focus as it keeps changing. They are always waiting for further instruction rather than taking initiative, because they know if they work hard it is likely that the focus will change again or they don’t even know where to begin.
So if you want to be a great leader, be clear on what you want people to follow & what needs to delivered to get their successfully. You just might find your team wants you to succeed also and will help you with their contribution and even ideas of doing it better, more efficiently and with a little bit of their own creativity.
3. Be your team’s loudest cheerleader
Your team’s contribution delivers your vision successfully. Encourage people to contribute and reward and recognise them for it.
As part of the photographic portfolio reviews, I was staying with a group of photographers I met on twitter. These people had no investment in me, nor did they have to help me or vice versa. Throughout the three days we shared a random house together (an incredible experience just for that), but more importantly, we shared advice, support, ideas and supported each other with some of our triumphs and also challenges. Many things were shared and we have continued to support each other in our new projects in the past few months. Fast forward three months and one of the photographers emailed me this week to say how much I influenced her work and I said vice versa. The mutuality of the experience was life changing, life focusing and also rewarding.
As a team member (and this isn’t about reporting lines, this is all about collaboration and sharing) we want to contribute and we want to be recognised for our efforts. We want to know that our work, ideas and thoughts matter and the time we spend was worth it and rewarding, not just as an outcome but also a process.
Also, if we help enough we want to be rewarded. Career doors opened, introductions made, safe space to grow, develop us as a leader also. And vice versa, if we can do the same for someone else, we pay it forward, tenfold.
We want to contribute and enjoy what we do and know that it is making a difference no matter how big or small.
Great leaders are also the best team-players. A strong and inspiring leader recognises that they are only as good as the team.
To be a successful leader, you will need competent and confident followers. As David Ogilvy once said,
“If each of us hires people who are bigger than we are, we shall become a company of giants.”
So our job as leaders is to break down barriers and connect the dots and connect your teams. Have clear channels of communications. Reply if people send you a message, encourage feedback. People will respond to your openness and trust. Help them deliver the vision by encouraging everyone to be their best selves.
4. Share your networks to create connection & collaboration & thriving teams and company culture
Although I didn’t expect much from the portfolio reviews, an introduction, a connection is all I needed to keep me on my journey. It was the little confidence booster to keep me on track to my goals.
Those little pieces of encouragement were something to consider to improve my work and creativity. It was then my opportunity and responsibility to explore the feedback, idea or topic and incorporate it into my thinking.
Of the eight reviews I had, the most valuable contribution from all curators and art directors was simply this — here is something to consider to improve your work — insert here “a book to read, a person to meet, an introduction to someone who can help me”. I got this from five of the curators.
They weren’t solving my world problems but they were giving me food for thought. Each connection, collaboration and introduction to the network has made be a better creative, thinker person, leader and contributor.
Why this matters and makes for better leadership, I didn’t know what I didn’t know. At that moment. I was unconsciously incompetent in this topic (as the HR learning manuals would say). I couldn’t see what I was missing.
As a leader we often sit at a higher altitude of strategy and knowledge. We can see what others can’t see. So we need to share — our experience, ideas, connections and even our network.
Too many people fear sharing in case others take credit or used against them as a disadvantage. If you keep it all to yourself then it isn’t a network because it is actually it is the opposite. The point of the network — is the connected elements. Sharing ideas is king. It makes us all collectively stronger and working together.
But also as leaders, if we make sharing core to our philosophy. Guess what, it rubs off on the team and they start sharing and collaborating without you. This is where scale comes in. If we shut that down into a command and control environment we stifle productivity & creativity.
5. Time is only currency anyone has — respect it.
Respect the effort and respect people’s time.
I have been in consideration for senior executive roles recently. I have pulled out of 3 major roles that were amazing not because the roles were not right (well they were) but it was because of how my time was disrespected during the recruitment process. Long delays in feedback, no feedback at all, making me wait endlessly for next steps. I realised if people could not respect my time and give honest feedback during the recruitment process it is unlikely they would in any senior role or otherwise. When I withdrew from the roles, I was met with shock — but you are our best candidate, we loved you, we want to hire you. But I simply said, if you loved me that much, you would have respected my time and my needs as well which were clearly communicated in the process.
How people treat your time is also a good marker of the kind of culture you will enter. If they can’t respect you at the beginning they certainly won’t when you join.
Let me explain another way. One of your team has spent hours on a presentation. You know they have worked all weekend on it. They have been practising the presentation with colleagues to make sure they nail it. When they deliver it, what is your response? Do you just get up and leave with no comment, do you trash the contents of the presentation or do you thank them for their effort, their contribution and even give some constructive feedback?
I have been in situations where all three have happened and watching the face of the person delivering can be soul destroying if they feel all their time and effort was for nothing.
Time is linked to emotional responses and how people feel about their work. So let’s treat it with kindness, even if we don’t agree with contents of the presentation.
On the flip side how you treat your relationship with time is also crucial. I learnt this the hard way with burnout. Now I know how to protect my time so I can be a more effective leader and contributor and to do this for me – I need downtime for my brain to relax.
In short, we all have lives outside work. So our time at work is precious and leaving on time for personal commitments is also more precious.
No matter how you spin it — time is the only currency we have, so let’s use it wisely and encourage our teams to use it wisely also.
6. Ideas grow & evolve based on richness of conversation
A flow between listening, reflection, observation
Relationships are strengthened through constant conversation and collaboration.
The best leaders listen before they respond. They don’t know all the answers but they are masters of seeing patterns and joining the dots. Experienced at reframing the questions and briefs to both challenge team members in a good way and also align people to a single vision.
As part of the conversation how do you want your team to feel and how do you want them to contribute.
Active contributor or silent frustrated participant?
I have been sitting in a few meetings recently where I was constantly but subtly corrected as were other people in the meeting. This is cool but after a few times of being corrected, I decided to stop offering ideas even though I was constantly being asked for my opinion.
The key here was the language used by the facilitator. I was offering suggestions and then being ignored or spoken over the top.
There is a simple response after this happens. I just stop participating.
However if the leader had changed the tone to be more active listening with feedback rather than continually reacting and correcting then I would have kept contributing and finally got to outcome they wanted.
The way you communicate will have a direct correlation on how you are perceived and will people contribute and collaborate.
And then as the leader, if we are bringing groups together where people don’t know each other or are shy, our role is to break the ice, connect people, so they are comfortable before they start.
The leader is the in the position of influence. So get to know the people before the content, that way you can understand the topic more and provide more meaningful and helpful feedback.
7. Multiple voices & perspective creates catalyst for change
Diversity in people, thought, ideas, approach
Did you watch Frances McDormand deliver this amazing speech at the 2018 academy awards. You should or at least read the insight after. In it, she appealed to all those with influence to become Inclusion Riders.
An “inclusion rider” is a clause that an actor can insist be inserted in their contract that requires cast and crew on a film to meet a certain level of diversity.
As a leader it is our role to ensure diversity happens. This is not just an HR policy or a quota to fill during interviews or panels discussing we need to do more.
We need to do more, act more, demand more as leaders.
Over the past few months, whether travelling to a foreign country and learning something new about their culture or interviewing people for roles, or meeting people from around the world, I am constantly reminded daily that although we live our lives the same, pretty much all over the world, there are nuances in behaviour, attitudes and ways of working that are a heritage or time, place, experience. This should be celebrated not homogenised.
Diversity is more than gender, culture, race, religion and sexuality. It is also opinion, thought and ways of working. A creative soul has different needs to thrive than financial analyst. But we are all working to the same outcomes, so how do we set up teams, systems and processes where both thrive and bounce off each other.
We all think differently, the ideas might be similar but in fact we want convergent and divergent ideas so we need different voices in the room. Without differing views, opinions, ways of working we don’t get true innovation or growth.
And it is lip service if we say we are diverse yet our management teams are still dominated by white men.
As leaders, it is our role to facilitate and ask before joining what the policies are and how we will contribute when we join to make it better.
Leaders should be advocating for Inclusion Riders in their contracts
Leaders should ensure all voices are heard from the creatives, the finance people, the HR team, you know everyone.
So many times I observed people cutting people off / ignoring them / losing them / literally telling them to be excluded
8. Your team wants learning and growing just like you
Back to the story of the photographic curator. In this experience I wasn’t looking for the big introduction or ‘being discovered’ I just wanted to share my work and learn. But it was still intimidating because I was personally attached to the work. It had been so long since I had shown my work and this time, it was with a group of people outside my safety net of friends who always say nice things rather than give constructive feedback.
We are always be learning — so encourage it for yourself and others. To learn is to accept constructive feedback which is also an art that needs practice.
As a follower we all want to learn & grow. We want to stretch ourselves higher and make a contribution. Being a follower can be bloody scary. Sounds dumb right? You are following, you do what you are advised and push back when you feel comfortable, so why is it scary?
Think of it this way, followers are not in the position of influence. So if you need something you need to ask. That means facing the concept of criticism, rejection, being ignored or just getting it wrong. It also means confidence, reward, growing, learning, pushing yourself to do things you have never done before. It means taking risks and even if it doesn’t work it is still a learning. And if we take risks and grow we transform and change. Which is ultimately what we all want, as individuals and businesses, right?
Even the most confident and centred people can find it nervous to approach people, because asking for help is hard.
So imagine if you are not that confident or early career or never done this before? You might be new to the topic, You might not be a great presenter, you might be presenting in a 2nd or 3rd language that you are not proficient in and you are translating while trying to present.
I have seen it on both sides. Regardless of the situation — asking for help, guidance and support is one of the hardest things a person can do, because ultimately you don’t want to look naive or stupid.
So be kind. It is really that simple. Just like you are giving up your time, this is their time too and often their heart, their energy and their ambitions wrapped into one. Treat their heart with kindness.
If you are blunt, direct and not considerate of their situation in one conversation or repeated experiences, you can destroy their confidence and then ultimately their ability to deliver, be creative and thrive both now and in the future.
As a leader our role is to offer advice, support, guidance and giving our teams time to find the solution within the frameworks we provide them with the room to truly make mistakes.
To help with us all grow some simple approaches
Be passionate and allow for new ideas, contributions and new insight to be discovered in the journey
Be accountable — if you can admit mistakes, apologise, make amends, then your team will also be honest, transparent and share when things do not work right.
Be bold — encourage new ideas, new approaches but give better clear constraints and boundaries to allow people to grow without crashing. Little positive and negative steps along the way compound into success. No big crash and burn.
9. Know what motivates people?
Helping them achieve their passions and ambitions
We all have Plan A and Plan B. Some are work and career related, some are personal. We even have life stuff that just happens that we need to deal with. No deadline is worth missing an important life event.
This is not even a sabbatical learning, it is the one thing I learnt years ago early in my career and is my go-to-technique to learn and understand my team & fire up their motivation fast.
I am not asking for people to share their personal secrets but when I meet a new team, I really aim to understand what their current motivations and passions are.
I ask simple questions — what are your career ambitions, what are your personal ambitions, do you have family commitments. What is your secret passion? What makes you tick???
Why do I ask these questions… ?
We all have ambitions and passions we want to pursue. And if in some way your current job, project, role can help make it a reality, I will be your biggest champion.
Following your dreams makes you more motivated, more willing to contribute and also super excited when you achieve it.
My proudest moments are watching people in my team go onto bigger and better things.
Let’s make sure we support each other in those ambitions.
Compassion
As a follower, team player, leader we all have lives to live. Our lives are full of family, friends, personal projects and work. All of these have ups & downs in the rollercoaster of life. We are not robots and if we are treated as robots with simple inputs & outputs and deadlines then ultimately we shut down, like robots. We becoming binary, we stop listening and we stop contributing.
As a leader we need to understand the things that motivate our team personally as much as professionally. I don’t have to know your life story, you share what you want but if I know the things that matter to you out of work, I can make sure work doesn’t interfere. This is requires listening then planning.
Maybe someone wants study night class and has to leave 100% on time every Monday after work— how do you make sure deadlines don’t interfere? Someone wants to work less because their mother is sick. How do you make the deadlines work around this?
This means not acting like a robot, emotionless and ignorant to the impact business life has on people’s personal life.
People will remember the experiences not just the decisions and people work productively when you respect their needs and time and ambitions also.
Pretty simple right?
10. Be approachable — you are never that busy
Put that phone down
We are sitting across the table, I am trying to tell a story or share an idea or actually tell you something that is important to our project. And the whole time you are on the phone texting away or on your laptop tapping away. Or every 10 mins you are interrupted by a call, message and text you must answer so you do and you lose the train of the conversation.
You know how it makes me feel? Not important, not worthy of your time and I can’t concentrate either because everytime you text, I pause and how to wait until you finish. It is erratic and destroys the flow of the meeting or conversation.
Put down the phone, it can wait. No slack message is that urgent. Turn off all notifications also — people will reply when they can.
The most important conversation you need to have right now is with the person sitting across from you.
Busy-ness is a mask
No-one is too busy, they either can’t prioritise, not interested in talking with you or don’t leave time to breathe.
Trust me, I was one of the ‘busiest’ person I knew. Getting into my calendar was a nightmare and that even included my family. I associated being so busy that I had no time was linked to productivity — and I now know that is total bullshit.
Being a follower you think… They are my boss, they are always ‘too busy’, so I can’t approach them with my simple questions. In meetings they say they are too busy, they are distracted, always multi-tasking and never focusing. Ideas rush out of their heads quickly.
But this is where time management truly comes in. We all have limited time — that is also true and downtime, thinking time and reflection is key for leaders. So is managing time.
So create forums and places where people can come to you. Walk the floor, find ways that work within your daily life to be present and available and less busy.
End thought
This in turn has fundamentally made me think, review and understand what makes a good leader in others as well as myself. To be honest, it is not even about leadership, it is about being a better person.
And if you want to be a better, take the time to be a follower again. There is nothing like feeling the emotions, the trials and tribulations and successes when you are surrounded by great leadership. And it is pretty eye-opening when you are around poor leadership.
If you are lucky to be a leader, we often forget we have a role as leaders, whether through job title, teams we manage, positions of influence within an industry. We set the benchmark for the people who look to us for advice, support, guidance and mentoring and we learn from our leaders about what good (or bad) looks like. When the people you interact with become leaders, well they will have learnt how to behave like you — the good and the bad.
So let’s all be careful what behaviours we subconsciously teach.
