Leadership is not just about the title, it is about how you demonstrate the title you hold. Many people aspire to be a leader. In fact, the majority of us wanted to become a leader. Furthermore, many believe that as long as you are intelligent, you will become a leader. However, most of us missed the point that to become good leaders, we should be good followers first.
As a leader, you need to become an inspiration. You should be followed not because of your authority but because they were inspired by you. Inspired by your actions, attitude, and words. That is what being a true leader is.
On the other hand, being a follower is not about just following orders and reporting to higher-ups, it’s about being always driven and strategic in handling the task well and being empowered to do well at work. You should be flexible enough to handle changes and manage to push your way forward regardless of the challenges given by your boss.
Have yourself change your perspective. Because being a good follower is understanding things in other light and perspective other than your own by being open-minded.
It is essential to know what makes a person a leader and a good follower. We’ve asked the leaders and CEOs of companies and they share their expert insights about being a leader and a follower.
1. It’s about being on the right course of action.
When we do want to achieve something, we make sure that we exert all our efforts. We make sure that our course of action is necessary and beneficial for us to achieve it. In the roles given to us whether at home, at work, or at school— we should give everything that is required to have remarkable journeys and results.
It is the same with being a leader and a follower. The founder of VVS Jewelry, Bruce Miller described the role and responsibilities of a leader and a follower as follows:
- The role of a leader.
A leader must be able to recognize the team’s strengths and flaws and understand their emotions. You can assign the necessary duties to the appropriate team member by determining who performs each work best. Finding opportunities for improvement and the right course of action is also beneficial. I’ve discovered that although people will forget your words and deeds, they will never forget how you made them feel.
- The Role of a Follower Being a follower.
Being a follower involves more than only following instructions or unquestioningly believing everything a leader says. Active participation in pursuing organizational goals is a sign of good followership.
This frequently includes working independently, accepting responsibility for your actions, and assuming ownership of essential activities.
Being on the right course makes you more reminded of your role in a certain group, team, or company.
There is a famous line: “Give and take.”. The people who are followers are mostly doing their very best in everything that they do so they should be appreciated at all times. And so, leaders should always support their team and make time and effort to give attention to their concerns.
2. The more experience you have, the more knowledge you can have.
In any role we take part in, we must know what is our role about. However, before we can be knowledgeable about something, experience takes place first. If you want to do better than what you did today by acquiring new knowledge, take time in exploring to gather experiences about the matter.
That is why Andre Kazimierski, the CEO of Improovy, a next-gen painting service in Chicago Illinois, said the same thing about knowledge and experience concerning being a leader and a follower.
He says, “ Whether I am more of a leader or a follower depends primarily on the situation. In a new environment, I often take the lead to foster approaches that help everyone achieve success. When taking on tasks, I consider various viewpoints and strive for accuracy, efficiency, and collaborative solutions. However, when it comes to experienced professionals with greater knowledge than mine, I prefer to follow instead.”
He is a leader himself that envisions the success of everyone, which is one of the good characteristics of being a leader. Your learning does not end when you become a leader, instead, you strive to look for someone that you can learn from.
“Following in such cases enables me to learn from those with more knowledge or experience than I have. Being both a leader and follower has allowed me to develop flexible thinking, creative problem-solving techniques, strong communication skills, and improved decision-making with every project I take part in,” he added.
So, based on what the expert said, aside from being a leader, we should always have the mind of being a follower. As result, being a leader and a follower at the same time will help us improve more in critical areas like communication skills, decision-making, and problem-solving.
3. Doing the roles and responsibilities as one.
Being a leader and a follower is not a position, it is a SKILL that everyone should have. Whether you are a leader or a follower, it is crucial that these two work as one. Doing the responsibilities as one to achieve the goal and come up with good results.
“The roles and responsibilities of a leader depend on the type of organization within which they operate. Generally speaking, a leader’s primary responsibility is to set clear expectations, communicate effectively with their team, develop strategies for achieving goals, provide vision and direction, delegate tasks appropriately, and make decisions based on data. Followers should be helpful teammates who use their knowledge and experience to contribute solutions and support the efforts of the team,” says Omer Usanmaz, the CEO and Co-founder of Qooper Mentoring and Learning Software.
It may seem that everyone has different roles and responsibilities but they are doing the job as one. Why? Because when they do the assigned task well and help each other, they can accomplish something that benefits them all.
4. Leaders provide the vision and followers offer invaluable support.
The only difference between leaders and followers is their position on the hierarchy. But if we talk about their value, both are important. No one can become a leader without a follower, and there will be no followers if they don’t have a leader they can follow.
An insight from the CEO of Hey Benny, Andy Kalmon says, “I am more of a leader than a follower since I have always had big dreams of making an impact in my personal and professional life, so taking charge and guiding others helps me move closer to achieving these goals. However, I understand the great benefit of having supportive followers who value contributing their time and effort; this is why I strive to surround myself with those who challenge my thinking yet are open to embracing new ideas and strategies. Leaders provide the vision while followers offer invaluable support.”
Regardless of the contribution of both parties, if they make a great team, success will be guaranteed.
5. A Confident leader and a receptive follower.
As mentioned, being a leader and a follower is a skill. It defines you as a person when it comes to how you take something to improve yourself.
According to the CEO of Abrams Roofing, Kim Abrams, “If you want to be successful as a corporate leader, you need to have a strong vision and the ability to motivate others to follow you. You must have the confidence to lead your team and make important choices on their behalf. It takes self-assurance, decisiveness, and the capacity to articulate one’s thoughts clearly to succeed as a leader.”
About being a follower, he also added, “If you want to be a good follower, you need to be receptive to the feedback of others, cooperative with teammates, and flexible in new situations. Additionally, you must be open to taking advice from others and learning from them as needed.”
Indeed, for a firm or company to succeed, leadership and followership are required. Someone has to lead by example and a good follower has to follow the inspiration set and apply it to oneself.
6. Encourage and motivate those around you.
Whether you are a leader or a follower, you should have the initiative to encourage and motivate those people around them.
An expert opinion contribution about leadership from The Groom Club CEO, Dustin Sitar says, “It’s not only important that I strive towards high performance in my own goals but also that I help encourage and motivate those around me towards their goals as well. In addition, implementing plans of action by keeping track of our milestones is key to staying on task and making sure everyone involved feels valued and heard in the process.”
About followers, his short opinion is, “Follower roles are important so we can gain perspective from other viewpoints about how best to attack challenges or problems that arise.”
Anyway, when everyone is working while encouraging and motivating each other, both will reap good results.
7. Leading is an exciting endeavor.
Excitement makes us work with joy and happiness. How to make something exciting? Take a risk! Leave your comfort zone! Most people who are successful are those who took a risk and are continually willing to take a risk. This way, we are not only creating an impact on ourselves but on the world as well.
Aaron Jerez, the founder of Home Bar Select says, “Through leading others, taking risks, and pushing boundaries we truly make an impact on the world around us. Leadership drives innovation and creativity, encourages self-improvement and personal growth, and builds strong teams with shared values. “
Indeed, your leadership skills will also show a part of you, it will give the people around you a hint of who you are as a person. Be an exciting and positive person and make leadership not a task but a privilege.
8. Leading by having the consciousness of a follower. Following being conscious of its significant role.
There’s no doubt a leader should be a good follower first. Always have the heart of being a follower. Yes, you have power when you are a leader. However, when you are a leader, you ought to serve not to be served. That’s why leading must be having the consciousness of a follower.
On the other hand, a follower must always be conscious of how important his/her role is. By this, you already did a favor to yourself, because when you realized how important you are in the team, you’ll do well more and so you will grow professionally and as a person as well.
Based on the experience of the founder of a real estate company Suburbrealtor, Rina Patel, “ In my years and experience in business and generally from human relations, I have observed that the only way to succeed as a leader, is by having the consciousness of a follower. By this, I mean that the only way any leader can succeed in his leadership position is when they carry the consciousness that whatever rule or doctrine they set equally applies to them, and also commands their obedience. Because to lead, one must first learn how to follow.”
She also added, “I think of a follower more as a team player, a person who is conscious of the fact that they are playing a significant role in a team/unit. This person is not ashamed to serve their purpose because they strongly believe in the course that they are collectively working towards. This person sees obedience not just as a duty or obligation, but as a necessity.”
Success will always be close at hand when we know what we are doing regardless of position and title.
9. A leader must be accountable for the team’s actions
“With great power comes great responsibility.” All of us know this famous phrase. Once again, we are reminded that we should not take highly of ourselves even if we become a leader.
Leading, from the word “lead”, your follower ought to do the thing you told them to do. If something goes wrong, it’s all on you. And as a leader, you must be accountable to acknowledge the mistake. This is a quality a leader must have.
Speaking from experience, Brian Lim, the CEO of iHeartRaves– an online shop, says, “I believe that taking on the responsibility of leading can help develop my character by allowing me to be more accountable for others and their actions.”
At the end of the day, everyone should be accountable for their actions. But in the real world, there are situations where it weighs more on the leader than on the follower. Either way, it is everyone’s basic etiquette to own our mistakes.
10. Fostering a sense of ownership. Challenge the authority.
“Leadership is Instilling a sense of ownership in others with whatever they do for the organization. Fostering a sense of ownership to others for the benefit of the organizations and employees breeds loyalty and a culture of excellence in the workplace. Employees tend to do their best when they have a sense of ownership of what they do,” says the CEO of Mortgage Relief, Dan Belcher.
When a task is already delegated to an employee, it means they are expected that they already know what to do. Every employee has their own duty and job that requires full attention. We are not assigned to a certain task if we don’t know what the task is all about, right? So, it is only right that as leaders and followers, we develop that sense of ownership, whether or not it’s in our favor of us.
In other words, “ Take pride in what you did, do, and will do.” Because everything that happens is the result of what we do. We all know that.
11. The Art of Flexible Leadership: Navigating the Fine Line Between Leading and Following
This is what Andreas Grant, the founder of Networks Hardware says about leadership, “The Art of Flexible Leadership: Navigating the Fine Line Between Leading and Following.”
Regarding this, he says in detail, “A leader is supposed to help the team achieve a common goal by taking charge, motivating, and inspiring everyone. He or she will be prepared to get their hands dirty. A follower, on the other hand, is prepared to support the person who is in charge. They have to trust their leader and be communicative to understand their leader’s vision, and where they are
coming from. At the end of the day, both roles are essential for an organization to succeed.”
Leaders are mostly taking charge. However, we could not agree more about what Andreas Grant said taking control is about motivating and inspiring everyone. This means that when you are a leader, you are not just taking charge but you become a good listener of others’ opinions and suggestions, and as one is in charge, your job is to execute their suggestion if needed.
Easier said than done but this is very essential when you’re a leader. On the other hand, followers should always be there to support their leader along the way. This way, both will win.
Are you more of a leader or a follower?
All of us came across situations where we became a leader and where we became a follower. We know that there are specific qualities a person must have to lead. Not everyone can lead but it does not make you less if you are a follower. Both have the same value. Once again, position and title are not important, it is how you make that title more meaningful in a way that does not just benefits you but would benefit the people around you as well.
No matter what is your answer to the question above, it all boils down to you being responsible for your roles and responsibilities.
