How Leaders Win Followers

In short, organization It is composed of superiors and subordinates, or leaders and followers. An organization cannot have only superiors without subordinates, or only leaders without followers. With respect to the superior and leader Person subordinate In terms of the concept of "follower", some scholars believe that it can be used as a synonym, such as Barbara Kellerman; Others believe that the meaning is not completely equivalent, such as Ira Chaleff. To avoid too broad discussion, this paper only discusses leaders corresponding to the concept of superior and followers corresponding to the concept of subordinate, and does not analyze leaders and followers from other perspectives. Based on this assumption, followers can be defined as subordinates who act according to the opinions and instructions of their superiors, while those who do not act according to the opinions and instructions of their superiors cannot be called followers. In this way, we begin to discuss how leaders can win followers.

　　 1. Clarify a premise assumption

In short, an organization is composed of superiors and subordinates, or leaders and followers. An organization cannot have only superiors without subordinates, or only leaders without followers. Some scholars believe that the concepts of superior and leader, subordinate and follower can be used as synonyms, such as Barbara Kellerman;. The leader will not be unprincipled to ignore the followers of his subordinates or accept any followers of his subordinates; Followers will not follow any leader without principle. In fact, leaders have their own basic judgments about what kind of followers they need and how to win them, whether their subordinates follow them and how to follow them.

　　 2. Leaders need to win effective and exemplary followers

Why must organizations have followers? Can't having subordinates solve all problems? The answer is obviously no, because the most essential characteristic of followers is "following", not "being led". In essence, it is meaningful to distinguish superiors from leaders, subordinates from followers. Although in a general sense, the superior is naturally a leader and the subordinate is naturally a follower, this understanding fails to grasp the essence of the problem. As far as subordinates and followers are concerned, subordinates seem to be followers, but followers can at least be divided into active followers and passive followers, active followers and passive followers. It shows that followers are not uniform, and there are many categories of followers. Barbara Kellerman divided followers into five categories: Isolates, Bystanders, Participants, Activists, and Diehards. The theory of the Followership Continuum also points out five levels of subordinates becoming followers: employees, committed followers, active followers, effective followers and exemplary followers. Therefore, followers are different from ordinary subordinates. Good and excellent followers are not only subordinates who act according to the opinions and instructions of leaders, but also active and active special subordinates who are creative subordinates. No matter from the perspective of organizational goals or the interests of superiors, there should be no subordinates without followers! Obviously, the leader needs to follow not the followers in the general sense, but the followers who have a positive effect on the organization and themselves and can produce excellent performance. From this perspective, how leaders win followers is only a low-level proposition. The high-level proposition should be: how leaders win effective and exemplary followers!

　 3. Leaders should fully understand and consider the motivation of subordinates to choose to follow

As long as a person is a person, his activities must have his own motivation and purpose, so do leaders and subordinates. As far as the followers are concerned, David Collins once listed five motives, namely, following the leaders' official positions in society; Followers generated to achieve a certain purpose of the individual; Followers who seek safe refuge from their superiors or leaders; Because of fear of chaos, they need to be followed by the superior to provide order guarantee; Follow generated by identifying with attractive and powerful leaders to improve self-esteem. {page_break}

As a rational subordinate, the direct motive and purpose for choosing to follow is that it is beneficial to oneself, at least not harmful. To win followers, leaders must actively adopt various ways and means. On the one hand, they must fully understand, consider and respect the interests of their subordinates. On the other hand, they must let their subordinates know that choosing followers can realize their interest demands. If leaders only consider their own interests or organizational performance and regard subordinates as a means to achieve their goals, then it is difficult for subordinates to choose to follow, or to choose active, active and creative followers.

　 4. Leaders should improve their conceptual ability

Leaders should put forward, explain and spread the concept, so that subordinates can have a good aspiration for the future in ideology, can build a good expectation, and believe that they can achieve their own needs by choosing to follow. Art Padilla believes that followers are more likely to follow when they share the same self-concept and emotional attachment with leaders. If leaders want to win followers, they must let their subordinates consciously choose to follow through their own thoughts and behaviors. The thought and behavior of leaders are directly reflected in their conceptual ability and behavior. The concept ability of leaders mainly refers to the ability of leaders to construct and disseminate concepts. Through their own concept system, leaders can win the followers of their subordinates, that is, the concept system proposed by leaders, such as enterprise mission, vision, goals and strategy, can largely understand and identify with their subordinates, and can provide them with a convincing and predictable beautiful picture. As the leader of an organization, his understanding of the mission, vision, goals, tasks, etc. of his organization should be comprehensive and accurate, and he can convey his understanding of the mission, vision, goals, tasks, etc. of the organization to his subordinates through his own interpretation or text, and ensure that they can understand and accept them well. A good leader is, to a large extent, a leader with strong conceptual power. It is easy to understand that every speech made by a leader with strong conceptual power to his subordinates is likely to inspire his subordinates to be enthusiastic and confident, and play a role in continuously strengthening their choice of followers; The speeches of leaders with weak conceptualization are more likely to make their subordinates depressed and lifeless, playing a role in weakening the effect of their subordinates' choice to follow.

　 5. Leaders should optimize their own behavior

Through the actual behavior consistent with the concept, leaders should make their subordinates feel the credibility of the leader's commitment concretely, improve the credibility of their subordinates' expected realization to a large extent, and then constantly strengthen their followers' choice. The behavior of leaders refers to the overall behavior that leaders show in daily work and even daily life and can be perceived by subordinates. Leaders must win followers through their own behavior, that is, leaders can be strict with themselves in behavior, can well translate concepts into behavior principles, and can well implement specific behaviors according to their own behavior principles. After research, James M. Kouzes and Barry Z. Posner found that the reason for following comes from the honesty, foresight, ability and appeal of leaders. For example, leaders can well translate the organizational strategy formulated under their leadership into specific operational tactical plans and supporting measures, and can strictly implement the relevant systems formulated and advocated by the organization, so that they are more likely to use their own model behaviors that are highly consistent with the concept to greatly encourage subordinates to strengthen their willingness to choose to follow. On the contrary, when leaders fail to implement the strategy well, or fail to model the implementation of the system, or when someone fails to implement the system but fails to be punished accordingly, it is difficult for subordinates to believe that the leader's commitment can be well implemented in practice, which is more likely to make subordinates have a general understanding of "leaders' inconsistent words and deeds", Therefore, it is more likely to construct uncertain expectations in thought, and then it is more likely to make a choice not to follow in behavior.

In a word, leaders who want to win effective and exemplary followers must start from their all-round cultivation, improve their conceptual ability and optimize their behavior, do their best to communicate with their superiors and subordinates, and comprehensively and deeply understand their subordinates' needs through various ways, Otherwise, your thoughts and behaviors may deviate from the direction because you do not understand the real needs of your subordinates. It can be said that whether and to what extent you can put yourself in the position to understand and consider the needs of your subordinates is the starting point for winning followers. More importantly, whether leaders can match their words with their deeds directly determines the success or failure of winning followers.