Traditionally, people assume that a company has to have leaders and followers to grow, with the leader as a visionary and innovator, and the follower as a compliant doer. That theory was challenged by research conducted by PsychTests. Their team discovered that having a lot of followers may not actually help a company grow at the rate it desires.
Followers tend to dislike taking direction or receive feedback about their faults. Some aren’t willing to ask for help even when their stubbornness jeopardizes a project.
Companies can take two responses to this new information. They can find new ways to coach the followers and see if they can overcome their natural resistance, or they can focus on developing more leaders within their organization.
If you want to turn more followers into leaders, here are three ideas:
1) Give all employees bigger goals. People who have mountains to climb tend to plan better, establish clear directions and push for the top. If all the tasks you give a person are ones they are easily capable of achieving, they will have little reason to tap into their hidden leadership skills and seek new ways to accomplish higher goals.
2) Increase the capability of your staff through more challenges as opposed to coaching. Being coached is easy to ignore. Striving to accomplish a new challenge is difficult. By encouraging people to think, you may be surprised at the solutions they come up with. The idea with coaching is that employees will learn leadership skills from an employer or mentor who has more experience, knowledge etc. Everyone learns differently and, as mentioned above, learning something from example can easily be ignored. However, what is more effective is doing, learning new leadership roles by actually having leadership skills implemented in the employees’ everyday job tasks.
3) Allow leaders in your organization to soar safely within their own borders. Instead of pushing for teamwork while sticking to strict definitions of boundaries, encourage completion of tasks within one’s team or by working with another team. Let the employees make the decision. If they get together, both sides will see it for the greater good and you can avoid territorial wars of competing leaders.
Include your employees in important events. If the boss is the only one that usually goes to important conferences and meetings, it might be a good idea by bringing along some of your top performing employees. Networking and being more involved are great ways in raising your employees’ reputations and experiences in your industry. Attending important events is also a simple way for employees to get on-the-job informal training. Understanding how to behave, speak and positively represent your company is a great way for employees to learn how to eventually attend events and meetings alone. Leaders take initiative, so any employee willing to step out of their comfort zone is a great sign.
With these three innovative steps, you begin to turn followers into leaders and give them the independence they need to grow. People who feel they are leaders and are in control of themselves are more apt to work with others to reach a final goal.
Roz Bahrami is a regular blogger for Skyprep.
