Why Follow?

Why Follow?

John Paul Derryberry

I remember watching some folks I worked with as a young professional apply for every leadership position that came open. I never really asked them why they wanted those positions. I always kind of assumed it was just a matter of needing the extra funds. Frontline work in my line of work means not really bringing home the bacon.  I passed on a couple of promotion opportunities because, as a young 20-something, responsibility looked overrated. Leadership comes with so much more stuff; it felt weird to jump into it with the main driving force being money. Yet all these years later, I’m smack dab in the middle of being a leader for a non-profit and a community in North Central Iowa. So that begs the question, when did I change my position on responsibility?

I didn’t- responsibility is overrated, I feel like we say it’s not because admitting that would show how we chase a lot of the wrong things in life. But today I do not run from leadership like I did when I was a young guy. I actually enjoy the process of leading a group of people to a better community. As I have grown through middle-management leadership positions, leading teams, small non-profit leadership in a large community, and large non-profit leadership in a smaller community, my understanding of leadership has changed. At first, it really started centered on myself; this is why I should be a leader. Center around my skill set, my vision, and my abilities to get stuff done. It’s not a bad place to be; everyone has to discover their own strengths and weaknesses, who they want to be, and what they want to accomplish. Yet leaders who stay in this space often miss the point of leading.

The question we should always be asking about leaders is not why they lead, but why we should follow. The slight adjustment has changed my leadership 180 degrees. Constantly asking myself why people should follow you changes the leadership decision matrix in profound ways. Leading means others following, but that idea is often an afterthought. Leaders often assume people have to follow them, but that is not an accurate dynamic. People can switch parties, jobs, faith communities, and seek out a different style or approach from a leader. No one has to follow you. Asking whether you are worthy of being followed means looking at your actions through the eyes of those who would follow.  It is an acknowledgement that we only get the privilege to lead if certain folks decide to follow.

When I realized this and asked some of my trusted staff why they followed me as a leader. Their answers and my list of strengths as a leader were vastly different. It was an eye-opener into the complexity of leading presentations. What you think about and what those you lead think about can be as narrow as the thickness of a piece of paper or as wide as the Grand Canyon. Leading is rarely about your internal monologue, but about filtering the thoughts, feelings, and actions of those you lead. They are always circling the question of whether this person is worthy of being followed. The question I have to answer daily, and any leader should answer, is not, how do I lead? Is it about asking whether I am worthy to lead? and go from there. Starting by being worthy is a healthy place to start because leading has never been about one person.