Rule #1, which is “Only Followers Can Choose Leaders,” compels us to think and act with humility about what we as individuals can achieve. To effectively lead, we must convince would-be followers that they can invest themselves in our vision of what can be done and in our capability to achieve not only the overall vision but the followers’ goals for what they want out of the endeavor.
Humility guides the effective leader in another crucial way. Every good leader needs to know when someone else should be the leader, either temporarily or permanently, and every good leader needs to have demonstrated enough personal integrity that the team has confidence that their leader is willing to follow another leader when it is best for the organization. Think about how your organization should respond to a financial audit — wise organizations identify a leader within the financial organization to coordinate with the auditors, of course. The response to a computer system crash should be led by someone responsible for Information Technologies, and the launch of a new product line should be led by someone in Marketing.
There’s another practical reason why good leaders need experience in how to follow others: good leaders should make it easy for others to follow them. It is one thing to comprehend the nature of clear communications, consistent messages, appropriate priorities, respect for the team, and other sound management practices. It is a convincing lesson for leaders to themselves experience a leader whose stated values match with the values demonstrated by his actions, and even a more convincing lesson to be frustrated by a leader whose, intentionally or inadvertently, appears to say one thing but do another. Note my purposeful use of the word “appears.” What a leader does is irrelevant; what the team perceives the leader doing is crucial, and that lesson is best learned when following someone else.