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The Honolulu Advertiser
Posted on: Monday, December 15, 2003

Good followers are key to success

By Del Jones
USA Today

Jamie McCarty isn't a corporate leader. No one reports to her.

She's an employee who makes sure orders at Robbins Bros. World's Biggest Engagement Ring Store in Glendale, Calif., meet expectations. Buyers are demanding when selecting engagement rings, and McCarty says the pressure sometimes makes her cry. But that's because she takes pride in her job.

McCarty, 28, is a follower, only such people aren't called followers, because the word denotes a backhanded compliment. Leaders are the ones with the vision and magic that everyone aspires to. CEO compensation has risen 1,900 percent since 1980, while the pay of those they've led has grown 74 percent, according to the AFL-CIO.

One small detail: There aren't any leaders without followers.

That doesn't seem to matter. There's a leadership industry but almost nothing on followership. One day of training at CEO Academy in New York costs $10,000. Anyone who seeks a good course in followership will likely have to enlist in the military. A search on Amazon.com turns up 57,000 hits on leadership, including "Tony Soprano on Management: Leadership Lessons Inspired by America's Favorite Mobster." A search for followership turns up 494 hits.

Ask leadership experts what makes a good follower and they fumble a bit and then revert to talking about good leaders.

Experts have long been saying there's a shortage of leaders. But some are beginning to propose that the real shortage is in followers. In his book, "The Leader's Compass," Dennis Haley, CEO of Academy Leadership, writes that recent scandals were "at the very least enabled by yes men and yes women who adapted chameleonlike."

At a leadership training camp, Yale University psychiatry professor and leadership expert David Berg asks future CEOs to name great followers from literature and pop culture. Several are named, but Berg focuses on Tonto and Mr. Spock.

The Lone Ranger and Captain Kirk could hardly have functioned without their followers. Spock and Tonto were not mindless servants. They knew their place, yet pushed their leaders' boundaries. They eliminated blind spots. Spock's logic offset Kirk's intuition. Kirk had so much faith in Spock that he wouldn't hesitate to beam down to a planet and leave Spock in charge. The Lone Ranger's daring came from the assurance that Tonto would rescue him from tight spots.

Followership requires courage, Berg says. There is no guarantee whistle-blowers, or employees who speak their mind, won't get fired.

"The closer you get to the customer, the more you know about where the opportunities are. All good ideas are not in the headquarters of corporations," Lucent Technologies CEO Patricia Russo says.

But so little attention has been paid to followership that followers are failing, says John Miller, author of "QBQ! The Question Behind the Question." If workers believe that leadership is the only important asset, then it becomes OK to lay dormant waiting for some prince of a boss to wake them with the kiss of inspiration. That sets up followers who blame, complain and procrastinate when the boss is imperfect.

"Followers are not morally obligated to follow," says Wess Roberts, author of the "Leadership Secrets of Attila the Hun." "Kirk has no property rights to Spock."

Want advice on followership? Pick up "The Boy Scout Handbook." Everything important is in the Scout Law, Roberts says: Be trustworthy, loyal, helpful, courteous, obedient, thrifty, cheerful and brave.

Leadership experts say those happen to be the qualities of great leaders as well, which begs the question: Are great leaders and great followers one and the same?

If leaders and followers aren't the same, they are very close, says Max Messmer, chairman of Accountemps and author of "Motivating Employees For Dummies."

"I've never known a great leader who wasn't at one point a very good follower," he says.