Many of my posts here, especially lately, are about what I'm calling Followership.
I'm really discussing what others call leadership but I'm making the point that you're not leading if no one's following. And, I'm highlighting the fact that, in my part of the institutional church, people who perceive themselves to be leaders aren't because following isn't taking place.
I've been contrasting my own role in leadership in my lowly position on the management team among a crew of about 50 cashiers and baggers in a Supermarket...a group of people who, incidentally, are wildly praised by the store's owners as well as its customers...
...and the self-proclaimed leaders, or holders of institutional authority in my denomination, who talk leadership ad nauseam but who generate virtually no followership apart from the others who serve on their own Commissions, Committees, Councils and Task Forces.
How frustrating must it be for the holders of institutional authority in a heavily institutionalized religious body to think about leadership so deeply and to write and talk about it with such sophistication to have to face the fact, when they do face facts, that no one is following.
It's pleasant and fulfilling for me, in my position, where it's actually part of my job to be a leader, to create followership, to be followed so very easily.
As I've said in the past, I understand that much of my success in attaining followership is that there is a highly functional system in place. That is to say that the work culture encourages people who are tasked to lead, to lead and makes it easy for people who must follow, to follow.
I've had almost nothing to do with the creation of that highly functional culture, though I'll claim the smallest role in the development of the culture itself.
I do two things within the work culture that make me both effective and productive.
1. I embrace the values of the leadership culture with wild abandon.
2. I fill the role in leadership that I'm best equipped to do with abundant enthusiasm.
Interestingly, there's no job description that assigns my role to me. Yet, among the things that a good leadership team does, I achieve a vital task that must be done.
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I'm the team guy.
My boss is a great leader. I've blogged about his leadership before. He gained control of the department about two years ago and immediately began to introduce cultural changes to the way the group functions. Those changes are organic in that they flow from who he is, and he is a naturally gifted leader.
The power in the changes he's introduced is that they come from who he is authentically. They didn't come to us because he read a fascinating leadership book...though he may have actually read the fascinating book...they flow from two places, and this is crucial. They flow from:
First, who he is, and,
Second, what he actually does, i.e., he actually and always, walks the talk. The change in the department came 100 percent from what he did, never ever from what he said.
Trust me, Justin is a good and gifted guy. But, he is human. Like everyone he has strengths and weaknesses.
One area where I compliment him is that I love being connected with the lives of the people we lead.
As a kid, I loved playing sports and I was not a good athlete. But, I loved being on a team...being part of something bigger than myself.
Being a team member has always been how I've want to do life. It's essential to the authentic me.
(Perhaps some day, I'll muse over how my yearning to be a part of something bigger than I am has produced the disaffection? that exists between the holders of institutional authority in the CGGC and me.)
Anyway, Justin's authentic self doesn't include knowing about the kids and grandkids and parents and grandparents of the geezers and the teens we lead...
...and I absolutely groove on that stuff.
So far today, its now 8:36 a.m., I've exchanged about a dozen and a half texts with coworkers...and, it's my day off!
Justin would be crawling out of his skin.
Even though we collaborate on most issues pertaining to human resources, I kill myself not to bother him when he's off site, because I know that I would bother him.
So, one role I have assumed in leadership is to be the team guy.
I'm good cop. Justin calls himself, "bad cop," though he's a very personable guy. He can exert authority as sternly as he needs to because I'm a presence on the team...
...and, of course, my role is authentic to me and flows from me. It pleases me. It invigorates me.
(As a side note, because of culture issues, there's never leadership burnout here. I'm a geezer and I'm burning out physically but do it hating to have to step away from the team...
...whereas, in the institutional church, burnout, well, we all know...)
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So, I'm the team guy.
Oddly, when I was a part of the institutional church, I loathed being a pastor and despised being in the role of the parish priest, provider of religious products and services.
But, in a functional leadership environment, it's natural for me to lead as the team guy.
What's the difference? Values? Culture.
Anyway, I'm the team guy and I'm lovin it. And, based on feedback, doing okay with it.
Functionality.
Culture.
Authenticity.
Creating followership.
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