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ChangingMinds Blog! > Blog Archive > 03-Jan-07

Wednesday 03-January-07

The leader-follower dance 

Leadership and management are often used in the same breath, largely because those who are appointed managers seek also to be leaders. Leadership, however is much harder than management. Managers have subordinates who obey commands in a basic transaction of obedience in return for pay and conditions. Leaders, however, have followers who choose to follow the leader. Working for a manager means doing what you are told. Following a leader is a voluntary position which you can resign at any time.

The leadership motivation model is thus very different. It is also makes leadership somewhat more difficult as followers may cease following at any time. Leaders have to pay close attention to followers to ensure their ongoing motivation and if followers' buy-in decreases, then the leader must act to re-motivate them. In this way there is a leader-follower inversion, in which the leader becomes the follower and vice versa.

Leadership and following thus becomes a complex interaction, where smooth movement on the surface may cover up an underlying, and perhaps unconscious, struggle for control. The circle of 'leader influences follower influences leader' can lead to a merry dance where who is actually leading at any one point may not be clear.

This is complicated further in groups where many people with differing motivations fluctuate in leading and following activities. Like a flock of birds a group moves and swoops as one, yet how this harmony is directed can be very unclear. Task leadership and social leadership may intermingle. Subject experts may take the reins when their domain comes to the fore. Individual enthusiasm for particular actions may hold sway for a while.

Good leadership achieves the leader's goals with catalytic motivation and minimum intervention. Whilst others may seem to be leading, they are also conforming with the real leader's wishes. The effective overall leader agrees the overall goal and keeps the team pointing in the right direction and moving forward apace.

In weak leadership, the titular or originating leader lets others change direction and take excessively risky actions. Whilst the weak leader may start the action, others soon grab and fight over the reins. Leadership may engage followers in decision-making but it does not abdicate control.

Leading and following is thus a merry dance, a balance of give and take, influence and motivation. It achieves strategic and practical goals through professionally social means. And it is one of the highest arts of changing minds.

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