Building Followership

You may have the title, but do you have followers?

In this episode of The Leader’s Kitbag, I explore the often-overlooked side of leadership: followership.

We focus on three powerful behaviours that effective followers demonstrate, and how we, as leaders, can enable and encourage them.

From creating clarity to fostering intelligent disobedience, this episode is about empowering your people to challenge, contribute and take responsibility.

In this episode, you’ll learn:

• Why clarity around roles and goals starts with us
• How to encourage real, two-way communication
• What it takes to build a psychologically safe team that challenges upwards

Get Leadership Tools Straight to Your Inbox

If you found this episode useful and want more grounded, real-world ideas on leadership and team development, sign up for my newsletter right here.

No fluff. Just honest, practical insights that will help you build better teams and become a more effective leader.

Building Followership 

You may have the title of Team Leader, Head of X or Director of Y, but if you’ve got no real followers, I’m afraid to tell you…you’ve not got a team. 

So, having looked at the definitions of teams and workgroups in this latest series of the Leaders Kitbag, we’re now going to touch on the idea of followership. 

In order to be an effective leader, we need to focus on developing our followers – their followership skills if you will – as well as our own leadership. 

And that’s what we’re talking about in this episode of The Leaders Kitbag. 

There’s a lot to be said about effective followership, so in this episode I’m going to focus on just three elements. 

Number One 

Followers are clear about their responsibilities 

Effective followers are clear about their roles and responsibilities. 

If they are not clear, they will ask us or even work directly with their peers to gain the clarity that they need. 

But this rarely happens organically. 

It is our responsibility as leaders to set unambiguous goals and objectives, while encouraging them to ask if they are not totally clear. 

The leadership behaviours that enable this include slowing down and asking ourselves a simple before communicating; 

 “Where is the scope for confusion in what I am about to say or write?” 

Because there always will be. 

It also involves asking questions to test understanding, as opposed to asking if there are any questions. 

When we ask for questions and do not receive any, we assume that means people are clear. The reality is – more often than not – that people didn’t want to ask a question for fear of looking stupid. 

Number Two 

Effective followership is built on two-way communication 

Good followers speak up, ask questions, and share ideas, they don’t just blindly follow orders and directives. 

But leaders must foster and develop this through regular, relevant communication. This is about real dialogue, not one-directional updates. 

The leadership behaviours that facilitate this include listening with an open mind and genuine curiosity – rather than merely listening to speak. 

Number Three 

Great followers challenge flawed plans – in a constructive manner 

This is what the author Ira Chaleff calls “ intelligent disobedience”, or the willingness to speak up when something feels wrong. 

For this to happen, leaders must create a psychologically safe environment, openly welcome intelligent and relevant challenge, explain decisions, and be willing to adjust course themselves when required. 

The leadership behaviours that enable this are focused on thanking people for challenging you, modelling respectful disagreement, and not becoming defensive when challenged.