What leaders want in followers
November 12, 2007 by Miki Saxon
Leaders, whether in business, politics, religion or community, fall broadly within two categories—those who KNOW and those who THINK they know, Think of it as a line graph
Leaders with high KNOW ratings prefer people willing to follow blindly and agree without questioning.
Leaders with high THINK THEY KNOW ratings prefer followers with strong critical thinking, who challenge their ideas often forcing them to evolve, improve and even change them.
Both types are passionate and prefer passionate followers who are willing to evangelize their cause.
Which type of leader do you prefer?
Which type of follower do you choose to be?
I think this chart is missing a vital piece – Leaders Who Know They Don’t Know. These are the leaders that have a strong leadership ability but surround themselves with others that DO know.
Great point, Jesse! There are great leaders out there who recognize that they don’t have all the vision or answers. Shame on me for leaving them out, since they are some of my favorite people.
I want a leader who knows what he knows, recognizes he may sometimes be wrong and accepts he can not know everything.
Excellent description, Denis, but I would add ‘willing to listen and take input from all levels’. Knowing that one may be wrong or not have all the answers doesn’t assure that one will listen, let alone listen to all.
But one does not necessarily have to listen although I would contend that no one reaches this kind of self awareness without listening.
Delegation is a perfectly acceptable way to compensate for that. Sometimes simply staying away from what you don’t know is good enough.
Denis, You have a viable point that one doesn’t reach that awareness in a vacuum.
As to staying away, I find that most managers (and people in general) are far more interested in messing with the areas in which they have no expertise than in the ones they do—unfortunately
new is always more fun and exciting.
I share that with those managers ;)
But remember we are speculating about leaders :D
I agree that the terms manager and leader aren’t always synonymous, that’s why I added people. But I think most leaders are prone to mess outside their expertise, too.
I love to, it’s fun:)