Chapter 18
The Season of Following
If I had to reduce the responsibilities of a good follower to a single rule, it would be to speak truth to power.
—WARREN BENNIS
When you were growing up, I doubt that there was ever a time when your mother said to you as you walked out the door, “Be a follower!” In fact, all of us were admonished to be leaders, which meant that every one of us was socialized to believe that being a follower is an undesirable role. Is it any wonder, then, that followership is the harshest of all the legacy environments? We simply don’t like being number two.
When we enter the workforce, this belief confuses us because we quickly realize that there are more follower positions than there are leadership roles. We were taught to ...
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