>> I have no idea how people expect it to work if no one follows. I just don't know. Wrestling for dominance has its place, but it's not actually always that productive. <<
Exactly. I've seen this problem a lot. Okay, part of it is because I won't follow just anyone, but a lot of people seem to be either unwilling to follow anyone ever or just don't know how. So there's almost always an argument, and it just wastes time. People need to have followship skills as much as leadership skills.
>> I'm... kind of picky about who I'll follow as well, though I can follow most people. I draw a line in places where I really don't think they understand what they're doing, but that gets smoothed out if they're willing to explain when I ask or at least assure me that they do have a plan. <<
That's sensible. Another toxic trend is pretending that followship should be blind. Quite the opposite, a good follower is alert and responsive.
>> People that I trust to lead and who have proven themselves get my best though. Those are the people I'll try to anticipate the needs of and take over little details they're too busy for before the problem even comes up. <<
See now, that's the kind of thing that makes me say you're a good follower. It's exactly what a leader needs. Ideally, the leader should be a big-picture person and the follower should be a details person. A big-picture person usually won't remember to make sure the copy machine has paper in it and all the apppointments have been written in the community calendar. That's what the detail person is for. And most detail people aren't happy being asked to design vision statements or make large-scale plans. The world needs both kinds.
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
dancing_serpent
Re: From: The Tadpole
Date: 2014-07-07 08:27 pm (UTC)Exactly. I've seen this problem a lot. Okay, part of it is because I won't follow just anyone, but a lot of people seem to be either unwilling to follow anyone ever or just don't know how. So there's almost always an argument, and it just wastes time. People need to have followship skills as much as leadership skills.
>> I'm... kind of picky about who I'll follow as well, though I can follow most people. I draw a line in places where I really don't think they understand what they're doing, but that gets smoothed out if they're willing to explain when I ask or at least assure me that they do have a plan. <<
That's sensible. Another toxic trend is pretending that followship should be blind. Quite the opposite, a good follower is alert and responsive.
>> People that I trust to lead and who have proven themselves get my best though. Those are the people I'll try to anticipate the needs of and take over little details they're too busy for before the problem even comes up. <<
See now, that's the kind of thing that makes me say you're a good follower. It's exactly what a leader needs. Ideally, the leader should be a big-picture person and the follower should be a details person. A big-picture person usually won't remember to make sure the copy machine has paper in it and all the apppointments have been written in the community calendar. That's what the detail person is for. And most detail people aren't happy being asked to design vision statements or make large-scale plans. The world needs both kinds.