Would You Follow You?

Would you follow you?

It’s a question most leaders don’t ask themselves—but it’s one that can totally shift how you show up. In this quick video, I walk through a super helpful framework (thanks to Bobby Powers for the reminder!) that breaks down the real reasons people follow us.

Spoiler: it’s not just about your title or how well you perform. If you’re curious where you land—and how to keep leveling up your impact—this one’s worth a watch.

• Read the video transcript

  Leaders, I have a quick self-reflection exercise for you today.

  I want you to think about: why do your people follow you? What is it that makes them committed to you as their leader?

  I don't think we often think about this in detail, and recently Bobby Powers reminded me of a framework I've seen before but hadn't revisited in a while. Super helpful one. It's John Maxwell's Five Levels of Leadership. And this helps us think through the reasons why people follow us and how we can continue to move up in these levels to make the reason even more compelling.

  At the bottom, we have that people are purely following us because of positional power. And I'll admit that most leaders I work with do not sit in this space. However, I did recently interact with a leader who very clearly is in this space, and what a shame, a bummer for both the people in his care, but also for his own legacy that he's leaving. So clearly we don't want to stay here.

  Where I think I see people get trapped the most though, is that people are either following you because you have done great work or do great work for the organization. You are so focused on production, and yes, that draws people to you, and often people follow you because of that.

  But there's more opportunity and above that even is that you really care about the people in your care and you are focused on developing them and giving them opportunity, and they can feel that. And absolutely people want to follow us when they feel like we genuinely care and we are pouring into them, which is wonderful. And so I'm all about those people leaders.

  But folks, there's one step higher. At the pinnacle, people are following us because of who we are. That character we've demonstrated, that integrity. They're following us because they can see that we care about the work that we're doing and we care about what we represent and how we are leading them.

  And so I want you to look at this framework today, and I want you to think about where do you sit? Why do your people follow you? Where do you fall on this pyramid? And how can you take it a step further and a step further and continue to rise until you get to that pinnacle where people are so devoted to their work, to the cause that you are leading, because you have reached that level of leadership.