Purposeful followership is a value-driven choice to support a leader, team, or mission, a conscious choice to support worthwhile goals. The concept of purposeful followership is a powerful and energizing alternative to the old school leader-centric perspective of organizations, recognizing that unlocking the fullness of human potential requires an ongoing partnership between leaders and followers.
Purposeful followers are highly engaged and passionate, demonstrate self-leadership and diplomatically provide useful feedback (“The greatest threat to good leadership is silent followership.”- Barbara Kellerman). They invest time and energy to make an impact and their motives are multiple. First and foremost, they know that happiness and contentment spring from having a meaningful mission and that a life spent going through the motions 8 hours a day is a wasted life. They also know when you give your best daily, life and the folks around you reflect back that good energy in a self-perpetuating beneficial rhythm that makes the world a better place.
Closing Quotes:
“He who thinks he is leading and has no-one following him is only taking a walk” – Malawi proverb
“In great teams, followers lead, and leaders follow. They switch seamlessly depending on what the situation calls for.” – Daniel Coyle, The Culture Code (paraphrased)
“If a man is called to be a street sweeper, he should sweep streets even as Michelangelo painted, or Beethoven composed music or Shakespeare wrote poetry. He should sweep streets so well that all the hosts of heaven and earth will pause to say, ‘Here lived a great street sweeper who did his job well.’” – Martin Luther King, 1929-1968
As always, I share what I most want and need to learn. – Nathan S. Collier
Note: Every effort has been made to properly source any 3rd person material. I am, however, a voracious reader. If anyone finds any unattributed material, pls let me know asap and I will be delighted to give credit where credit is due.
“All intelligent thoughts have already been thought; what is necessary is only to try to think them again.” – Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, 1749-1832