Oct

9

Leadership: Measured from the Follower’s perspective

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I stumbled this post on the Fast Company weblog:

The signs of outstanding leadership appear primarily among the followers. Are the followers reaching their potential? Are they learning? Serving? Do they achieve the required results? Do they change with grace? Manage conflict?” - Max De Pree (1924 - ) Former Chairman, Herman Miller Furniture

Exhibiting leadership traits” doesn’t make one a great leader. If you really want to know how well someone is leading, look at his/her followers. How are they behaving? What are they producing? How have they grown? While traits are good at predicting leadership success, only followers’ actions can demonstrate it.

This reminded me of the Servant Leadership approach described by Robert K. Greenleaf, where:

“The servant-leader is servant first. It begins with the natural feeling that one wants to serve. The conscious choice begins one to aspire to lead. The best test is: Do those served grow as persons; do they, while being served, become healthier, wiser, freer, more autonomous, more likely themselves to become servants?”

When evaluating leadership we need to distinguish between the what and the how of leadership. Although the results, the what of leadership is important important, the means used to obtain the results, the how, is of upmost importance. This is what seperates the Hitler from the Jesus and Ghandi. The how of leadership, is primarily an expression of the leaders character, as the true leader is not defined by results alone, but by also includes the character.

“We ultimately produce what we are - individually and collectively - not what we intend.” - Rex Miller

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