I Can Support Leaders And Counsel Them, And Receive Support And Counsel From Them

The next meditation on followership from Ira Chaleff’s excellent book “The Courageous Follower”is: I can support leaders and counsel them, and receive support and counsel from them. This can only happen if we reach the place where we relate to our leaders on a peer basis and refuse to create or accept a power paradigm where leaders are treated as oracles – the source all corporate knowledge and widsom - as opposed to being treated as a resource of the group or organization.

This principle flourishes to the extent we develop and maintain the posture of being purposeful actors in our organizations.  We understand clearly why the organization does what it does, why those things matter so much, and why our role in the organization, however large or small that role might seem to us, makes a difference. Our loyalty is to the purpose and those leaders and followers that align themselves with the purpose, and the purpose authorizes all our actions.

We need to ensure we can master receiving support and counsel from our leaders BEFORE we even think about reciprocating. We need to be as autonomous as possible as we perform our assigned duties, but we also need to learn when and how to ask our leaders for support.  When our purposeful leaders counsel us about our performance or behavior, we need to listen for the content of what they are saying and assume full responsibility for initiating action to accomplish the improvements they require from us. If there is a stylistic imperfection in the way our leaders deliver their counsel to us (e.g. they loose their cool, curse, or otherwise demean us), we should NEVER ignore that, but should ALWAYS address that in a separate conversation.

We must reach the place as followers where we accept that it is our responsibility, in right relationship with our leaders, to support and counsel them as well. The things we provide support and counsel to our leaders about are the things that they can change to help the group better accomplish its purpose – their policies, processes, and behaviors. As we counsel our leaders, we NEVER dump on them (this sucks and so do you); instead, we always identify the things we are willing to do to help.

Remember, even if we are not invited and encourage to behave this way as followers it does NOT relieve us of the responsibility to develop these competencies in ourselves. We do this for ourselves, for those that are watching us today, and for those that will someday grant us the privilege of assuming the role of leader.

Related Posts:

My Leadership Development Goal: Purposful Servant Leaders

I Am A Steward Of This Group And Share Responsibility For Its Success

Shared Accountability

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Tags: accountability, courageous follower, partnership, responsibility, systems
Posted in Leadership, Purpose, Video