Leadership via Followership

What is the basis of great leadership?

Asking members of the organization, various leader types are identified…

• I trust Luis to walk me through this career decision

• I trust Karl's technical advice on this algorithm

• I trust Anne's political take on this marketing decision

• I trust Rita's grasp of what our key customer wants

• I trust Pat to guide this organization through troubled times

Notice the key word in each sentence: trust. We follow others for various reasons, some because of their knowledge, some because of their vision, some because of their inspiration, and all for the confidence we place in them. No trust, no follower-ship. Without confidence from others, a person can not effectively lead. No follower-ship, no leadership.

"But, wait!" you say -- "My boss is the VP of Human Resources, surely she 'leads' the HR mission in this organization." Or, your business card states "Project Leader" -- "Surely that means you have the final say in what happens in the project you manage." All organizations have prescribed leaders (verified by the organizational chart) and emergent leaders verified by everyone else (colleagues, subordinates, bosses, customers, suppliers). Sometimes the prescribed leaders and the emergent leaders are the same. In other cases they do not.

Figure 1 – Prescribed & Emergent Leaders

Figure 1 shows a Venn diagram of Leaders in an actual company. The red circle on the right shows emergent leaders -- those chosen by the employee population, those who naturally attract followers. The blue circle on the left shows the prescribed leaders, those designated by their job description and/or place on the organization chart -- this is a leadership position proclaims management. The leaders in the intersection are "what we usually expect." The informal leaders are also the formal leaders -- they overlap.

It is the left part of the blue circle, and the right part of the red circle – outside of the intersection in the middle(purple) – that draws management’s interest. These edge areas are where the designed(prescribed leadership) and actual(emergent leadership) do not agree. Charlie is in the far left quadrant of the Prescribed circle. He is supposed to be a leader, but not many are following him. In the far right area of the red circle, one of the names is Maria. Her job description does not include "leader", but she is viewed as a leader by many.

Figure 1 is similar to what I showed a client team – these are not the real names. Upon seeing this diagram the division manager was appalled. "Why is Charlie in the low/no follow area? We just spent a ton of money to recruit him. He is supposed to be one of the top experts in his field!" the manager exclaimed. The room was silent. People were looking out the window and doodling on their note pads.

Finally, a brave soul raised his hand and started to explain to the boss what everyone else in the room was thinking. "Charlie, is a true expert in his field" he started. "But he is also the biggest jerk! No one likes working with him. We have stopped seeking his opinions. He is rude, a hoarder, and does not know how to explain his reasoning. He does not want to be bothered by what he thinks are silly questions. He has trained us to avoid him." Others soon piped in with their own "Charlie stories" -- the division executive was appalled. "We are paying him a ton of money -- and the company was getting very little in return." There was an uneasy silence in the room, as the executive's body language spoke volumes about his disappointment.

I broke the silence, "There is some good news also, you have two emergent leaders that have been flying under the radar". The division manager responded that he was aware of Jon's rising star, but he was surprised to see Maria nominated as a leader. Soon, stories from around the table verified Maria's emergent leader status. The conclusion was, that although she was not as well-read as Charlie, she knew how to get things done, and she knew who all of the pertinent experts were, both inside the company and with the customers. Not only was she in the network of emergent leaders, she knew who else was in the network, and how they were connected – a win-win for Maria. Maria knew what questions to answer, she knew how to share knowledge, and what questions to send to a deeper expert. While Charlie, never seemed to have "time for others", Maria always did. She readily discusses a problem and makes sure she understood the whole context before answering questions, or introducing an employee to others who could better assist them.

How did we create this helpful Venn diagram in Figure 1? We did it via Organizational Network Analysis (ONA) -- an outgrowth of Social Network Analysis (SNA) a field that had its beginnings in the 1930s. ONA works in a similar way to how Google analyzes web pages on the WWW and assigns them a PageRank.

The employees in this division all completed a survey that provided data for the network diagrams below. All employees responded about all other employees in the survey. Answers to the survey questions help determine: who followed whom about what. The emergent leaders for any topic area can be mapped.

Figure 2 – Who sees Charlie as a Leader?

Figure 2 shows the sub-network of employees who view Charlie as a leader in major organizational projects – only his three direct-reports and one other person. Follow the arrows: A --> B means that A views B as a leader, or A follows B. Just like with Google, the incoming links are important.

Maria’s follower-ship network, in Figure 3, is quite different. She is not only followed by more employees, most of the employees that follow her, are also viewed as leaders by others (A --> B --> C: A views B as a leader and B views C as a leader). With Google, it is good to have many web pages pointing to your web page, it is better if other often-linked-to web pages point to your web page. In organizations, it is good to be sought out by many, but it is better to be followed by other leaders!

Figure 3 – Who sees Maria as a Leader?

Now, imagine a different scenario — the division manager does not know the information revealed above. Charlie continues in his position, a knowledge hoarder, smug in his abrasive manner. The knowledge in Charlie's head remains locked up and unavailable to others who need it to get their job done. While Maria, after years of her true worth being ignored, leaves the company. The removal of Maria's node from the network creates a gaping hole in the information flow and knowledge exchange in her workgroup. This absence (Maria and her connections) soon starts to affect the output of the whole group. Deadlines are missed, mistakes are not caught, and poor decisions percolate throughout, causing unforeseen problems. Her replacement does not have the same network that she had developed over the years. Of course the division manager will not understand what is happening — he will not have his current insight into how his organization works. He will watch, as his once productive organization, fails to execute properly, and wonder why.

Leadership network mapping has been successfully applied to:

• Fast-growing organizations, in chaotic environments, who don't have time to design and facilitate a multi-year leadership development program.
• Small to Medium businesses who do not have a full HR function, yet need to spot and develop leadership talent amongst their employees.
• Large-organizations who want to spot high performers, or innovators, hidden in layers of hierarchy and multiple project teams.
• Sports teams that want to recognize their true leaders. It turns out that team chemistry and performance is greatly improved when the prescribed and emergent team leaders are the same!
• Leadership network mapping works in Commercial, Government, Social, Non-governmental and Community organizations -- anywhere that people work together to get things done.

Connected leaders are a key part of your organization's success in collaboration, innovation, learning, and change. Where are the connected leaders in your company... and who is following them?