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LEAD-FOLLOW-FIRED

Learning to Lead or Follow is challenging.

People new to management often don’t understand their role as a leader.  Common approaches are ‘My way or the highway,’ or ‘Lead, follow, or you’re fired!’  When managers don’t understand that leadership is earned and not a position you’re promoted to, problems can ensue.  If you’re struggling with a team, today’s episode of the Manager Mojo podcast may be the perfect antidote providing the solution you’re looking for.
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Learning to Lead or Follow is essential to being a leader.

                I’m really excited to share with you today and I think I have a very interesting topic.  My headline and the title of this message is Lead, Follow or You’re Fired.  Now doesn’t that sound strange? Lead, Follow or You’re Fired.
Well, I’ve learned through the years that, unfortunately, this type of attitude exists far more often than we think and it’s a sneaky kind of attitude.  So I want to talk about it, because I think it will help you to understand how to look for the signals that something’s not quite right.

When I asked managers, “Do you consider yourself a good leader?” I’ve got to tell you, I’ve never once had anybody say, ‘No, I really suck at being a leader.’  If I ask them whether or not they consider themselves to be a good manager I’m more often than not going to get a more honest answer.  I’ve got one friend that I get a kick out of, because he actually apologizes for being a lousy manager – ‘I’m just a lousy manager. I’ve always been a lousy manager, I’ll always be a lousy manager.’    I tell him that he’s defeated before he gets started with a terrible attitude like that.  But, that is what this individual continues to say, to use it as an excuse for poor behavior.   But if you asked that same individual, “Hey, are you a good leader?” they would say ‘Yes, I’m a great leader!  Look at all I’ve accomplished and all I’ve done,’ and that attitude is really at the core of what’s going on here.

            When I say Lead, Follow or You’re Fired, let me ask you a question – who is that really all about?  Is that about you, as a leader, or is that about your people?   The perspective is clearly that you are focused on yourself.  It’s a common problem and I’ve seen it at all levels of organizations, from entry-level all the way up to CEO.  I do have to say, if you see this type of attitude at the highest levels of a company you can almost be 100% sure that it exists throughout the entire organization.  Because there’s a tolerance level for the type of attitude and behaviors that are associated with this type of thinking it holds companies back and keeps them from growing in the way that they should grow.

Now, don’t misunderstand, it doesn’t mean they can’t be a growth company. I see companies that grow very rapidly up to a certain point, because these types of attitudes and the behaviors that cause this kind of thinking will get a lot of stuff done.   But what happens is, the more pressure that builds up and the longer it goes on, the harder it is for people to tolerate.  These kinds of behaviors and disengagement in the workplace begin to occur.  Disengagement means people are just showing up to do their job, but they really don’t want to be at work.  They’re there just because they need the paycheck and that causes tremendous problems for people.  So let’s talk a little bit about this.

Let’s talk about lead from Lead, Follow or You’re Fired.  The underlying attitude that’s causing the problem is that I’m the boss and you are my minion, meaning that you’ve got to do what I tell you to do.  This often occurs when people are under high pressure and are not managing their time well.   They’re feeling unproductive and their way of being more productive and to move faster is to order people around.  When they begin to believe ‘I’m the boss,’ and when they see people starting to hop to it and do things because they’re ordering them around it reinforces in their brain that this behavior actually works.  ‘Hey, it works! This is pretty good stuff.  This must be what a leader really is.’

The next thing you know is that they’ve embedded this attitude of ‘I’m not leading  unless I’m telling people what to do.’   They begin to explain things in terms of, “I’m the leader here. You are the follower. You have to follow me,” and the problem with that is, it should be very apparent to you if you’ve been in management at all, people don’t have to follow you.  They may have to be at the job. They may need the paycheck, but choosing to follow, respect and trust you is 100% in the employee’s control.  It’s not in the leader’s control, and so many leaders don’t understand that.  They begin to believe, “You must not have heard me, so let me tell you again so you get it more clearly this time so that you can understand.  I’m actually giving you the privilege of making the decision to line up and follow me.”  I’ve even heard managers use these very terms.  ‘I’ve got to get everybody lined up behind me on this, so that we can get this done.’

            If you’re trying to line up everybody and get them behind you that is not giving them the privilege of making their own decision. You’re actually ordering them to do it.  It’s much better characterized to say that it is a very thinly veiled threat to other people and what you’re doing is exhibiting the power that you have by position.  It becomes a power play and the attitude is that I’m giving you a limited amount of time to decide to follow.  I’m leading, I’m running as hard as I can, I’ve got what needs to be done, let’s get going.  Everybody line up behind me — let’s go, let’s go, team!

Then they’re crushed when people look at them and say, “Okay, dude, you are absolutely crazy.  You don’t know what you’re doing.  I’m not following you anywhere because I don’t respect you and it’s just a matter of time before you run headlong into the sword and you’re gone, you’re fired and I don’t have to deal with your attitude anymore.”  This is what causes people to look at their manager and give him that look that says, “Hey, you are from another planet.”

Now, how do I know that? Well, because I actually got that look.  I was one of those guys. I didn’t get it. I thought that I was doing the right thing, but the good news for me is that I began to really pay attention and I to see that people were not responding the way I thought they would.   I began to look for clues on what it really meant to be a follower.   This is really critical.  

If you’re struggling with this I hope that you will take this to heart and begin to see what really happened here. The reality was that I was a horrible follower myself. I truly did not put my effort into following the vision of the bosses that I had.  I didn’t understand that. I didn’t know what it took to be a great follower and I began to realize that my attitude was ‘You know what? I’m smarter than they are and I’m more experienced than they are and, gosh I can’t believe I have to report to this guy.’  The next thing I knew I had clearly identified the source of my problem.   

I didn’t understand how to be a great follower myself.  I didn’t even know what it meant.   So I started to look for clues that would help me to understand how to be a better follower myself.

I began to analyze my behavior.  I started to realize there were many things I could change and many things that were totally in my control.  I began to improve my listening skills.  I began to pay attention to what my leaders were trying to convey.  I began to understand their vision a little bit better.  When I began to understand their vision I began to see that if I follow and I line-up the way that they’re talking this is what it is going to look like. 

By listening better, the first thing it gave me was time to think.  Thinking about how could be a better follower myself allowed me to begin to understand that I was not connecting properly to my own team.   It allowed me to explain what the vision really was and to begin to teach and share in such a way that they wanted to follow me.  They wanted me to lead.   There was not any necessary exhortation or execution of power of the position.  I didn’t need it. 

 Everybody understands if you don’t perform you can lose your job.  You don’t have to remind them.   That was a great Ah-ha moment for me.   I realized that as a follower I was always measured by results.   As a good follower I would fulfill the expectations for my results.  I would get things done and do it with a good attitude and a good spirit.  I would value other people’s input, and it began to transform me as a leader with my own team.

I began to realize that the ability to really value other human beings more than ourselves begins to separate leaders from people that are pretending to be leaders.   True leaders always respect and value the other person so much more because they know the position they’re in as a good follower themselves. They understand the commitment it takes to be a good follower, so rather than ordering they begin to treasure it and begin to relate to it in a way that’s incredibly powerful and motivating.   But if you continue to go operate and believe that it’s about your power as the leader, let me share a few things that will happen to you over a period of time.  These are things I learned and none of them are good, but you need to be aware of them.

If you’re not sensitive to this type of leadership –

  1. You’re going to create conflict with your team. That attitude of “I’m the boss,” actually sets the stage for conflict.  The more pressure that’s put on an individual to perform to deadlines and objectives, the more conflict you’re going to create.
  2. You become the great demotivator instead of motivator. You will see your team beginning to be totally demotivated. They start to go through the motions. This doesn’t happen overnight.  Over time you will see your better performers start to slack and their results go down.  Their enthusiasm goes down.  If you begin to see this type of trend, you’re already on the way to creating a disengaged team.  It should be your signal to know you need to start looking at yourself.  Begin to ask yourself, ‘What am I doing? What am I sharing that’s causing this demotivated attitude?’
  3. The attitude of I lead, you follow or else is going to destroy team creativity. Having people’s full participation to willingly offer their ideas, opinions, and suggestions is a great differentiator between top-performing teams and those that are mediocre.  Teams that have that type of creative input, openness and willingness to suggest are using the collective brain.   It’s not just one person’s opinion, it’s not just one person’s brain, it’s actually networking all the brainpower together.  That’s what the collective brain is. If you’re having trouble envisioning this, think of it as having a computer network and you’ve got multiple computers tied together through the network.  The network is far more powerful when you can pull all of the processors together where everybody’s working on the same problem at one time. You’re putting all of that firepower onto the issue and it’s so much easier to solve it.

 Great teams, I have found, have an abundance of openness. They have an abundance of creativity. They have an abundant attitude of knowing they can do this together.   That simply does not exist when you have a team where the manager is leading by saying, “I lead, you follow or else you’re fired.”  It’s so much more powerful and effective if you will look inward and say, “I’m going to be a better leader, and in order for me to be a better leader I have to understand how I can be a better follower.”

 There’s no reason every person in management cannot conquer this, but it requires commitment and dedication.  Most of all, it requires an awareness of what you’re doing that could be causing issues with your team and your team’s productivity.

I hope that has helped.  Now, you understand that learning to lead, follow, or getting fired is a choice! Thank you for stopping by today!