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Organize a good followers' conference and I might be among the first to signup. I'd probably learn more there than in leadership seminars. After all, smart guys have said that good leaders are good followers. Not that I dream to lead. But I'm sure I can get more out of lessons on following. Unfortunately, there aren't many good materials on it. Are there? Here's how to be liked by most people. Click here.
Because they're all after leadership. And I'm a nonjoiner.
Did Jesus talk on leadership? All I can remember are his words about "Come follow me." Or, "If anyone comes after me." Umm, okay, he did talk on leadership, like the parable of the unjust and the faithful stewards, though they're more on stewardship. He certainly proved the model of a good leader and we can get lots of powerful principles on leadership from that. But teachings on how we can become boss and lead others? I think he focused on followership. Discipleship, to be exact.
According to MyEmail.ConstantContact.com, followership "is defined as the willingness to cooperate in working toward the accomplishment of defined goals while demonstrating a high degree of interactive teamwork. Effective followers are active participants (partners) in creating the leadership process."
See how important it is? It creates "the leadership process." So how come there are not many followership conferences or seminars? Not even in church. I bet if you try to do a followership conference and charge a fee as high as what they charge in leadership conferences, not many will go. Because they do not have the imagination. They all want to ride the leadership bandwagon.
They're all joiners. Joiners are often robots. They don't have imagination.
They all have this grandiose self-image of being great. But try to imagine if all of us were leaders--yeah, even great leaders at that. How can you be great without followers? And that's what we'd all be--leaders without a following. And I assure you, nothing will move on this planet with all of us being leaders. Followers are more important.
A growing population is a king’s glory; a prince without subjects has nothing. [Proverbs 14.28]What to tackle in a followership conference? How to obey instructions or follow rules and regulations is a good start. And the important thing is to make people see that following instructions or rules as a habit is a MUST to success, not necessarily to leadership. Most people think that the way to success is beating others in the contest or proving yourself better than others. Why this mindset? Because there are no good followership conferences.
Few people really believe (and apply it in their daily lives) that humility, cooperation and obedience are paths to real success and greatness. They pursue their college degrees, pursue masters and doctorates--not to cooperate and follow a leader--but to become instant leaders and start ordering people around. To them, that is success.
Thus, if you grow old and die just being a follower all your life, they pity you and say you'd been a loser, or you just wasted your time. They never realize that they're in position now because some people decided to follow them and put them in position, not grab it from them or compete with them. To me, that's greatness.
I've met people who should've been in leadership but never bothered because they were happy being followers. But they solved all the problems of their leaders, did all the dirty jobs for them. Who got the glory? Their bosses. And them? They're just happy to live quiet lives away from the limelight. I salute these people. To me they're great. They're bosses? I have other ideas about them.
It's also a problem if you decide to skip followership phase and jump to being boss or owner of your own business. If you're not a good follower you will never be a good leader. I've met people in high position, or owner of businesses, who stink when it comes to how they treat people. You may even see them speaking on stage in a leadership conference and people applauding their wisdom on leadership, but in person they fail terribly in human relations. Yup, it happens.
Why?
Because they never went through the process and rudiments of followership. And why this? Because all organizers do are leadership conferences. The church is guilty, too. I mean, I've seen churches where almost everyone is a pastor, assistant pastor, associate pastor, youth pastor or something. They're all pastors. No one wants to follow. Even the church board wants to lead the pastor. So they quarrel.
If they see how you're able to speak or teach, they make you a pastor. If you just showoff some leadership potential, they declare you a pastor. Pastors should have undergone the Jesus discipleship before they become pastors. The apostles went through the Jesus discipleship process--they assisted Jesus, ran errands for him, were scolded by him, taught by him, faced dangers, healed the sick, cast out demons, and most of all--they gave up everything as Jesus also did.
As Paul said, all his accomplishments and potentials he treated as garbage "that I may gain Christ." That's the spirit of true followership. The apostles learned radical obedience from a discipler, not from a bible school or seminary professor or in Sunday school. Followership is deeply relational. You learn hands-on from the very hands of the guy you follow as you both do the actual hard work out there in the field.
Second, most people are lost as to who to follow. Who deserves our followership? In a followership conference, we should be taught how to discern real leaders. Many voters are tricked into voting wrong candidates because they don't know who to follow. Why? No followership conference. They're oriented to think that whoever has the gold deserves their followership.
So you see, we really need a followership conference today.
