Reading time: 4 – 6 minutes
This is Part 3 in a series of articles that introduce the main ideas about Reflection Leadership.
As I like to say, there are only two things that you need to be a leader: a willingness to lead and followers. Let’s face it leading others towards some sort of vision or destination is what leadership is all about so Follower Reflection really is what is sounds like; taking the time to reflect on those that you are leading. As leaders we can’t possibly do everything that needs to be done ourselves, that’s why we need to have folks following us. Since people aren’t machines that can just mindlessly do the work, we need to be aware that our actions as leaders always effective living, breathing, caring individuals. As much as Self Reflection lets us understand who we are as individuals, Follower Reflection allows us to understand those living, breathing, caring individuals for who they are and helps us guide our interactions with others.
Follower Reflection is not some psycho babble about getting inside your followers’ heads. Nor does it have to be about getting all touchy feely with the creepy dude from the third floor. Follower Reflection is about taking the time to watch, listen and learn more about the people we work with so that we can begin to understand why they do the things they do. The more we know and understand about folks, the better we can understand what motivates them and how we can help them to achieve their goals.
Practicing Follower Reflection
Follower Reflection allows us to look at our interactions with those we work with. It helps us to understand not only what is going on with our followers, but also how we feel and what we want from our interactions. It allows us to recognize how we go about getting the work done without having to do it all ourselves. Practicing Follower Reflection allows us to ask questions like:
Why won’t Marcus do what I asked?
Why is it that Erin always seems to be doing work above and beyond, but Julie is content just doing the minimum required and what should I do about it?
How do I determine the best person to do any given task?
Do we tend to just be a group working on the same stuff or are we a real team?
Follower Reflection enables us to answer these questions and determine the best way to interact with others in any given situation.
Follower Reflection really has two distinct functions: understanding others and understanding our relationships and interactions with others. Taking the time to understand others is not an instant process. It requires time and energy on our part. In order to do this, we need to become like intelligence officers, constantly gathering information through out the day about those we work with. This is not about gathering dirt to use against people, but rather to help us gain insight into why folks are the way they are. Gathering this information should never be an interrogation it should be done through natural everyday interactions, which is why it is not a quick process. It really is just about paying attention by listening and watching people interact day-to-day.
As we learn more and more about our followers through the observation process, we begin to form opinions and judgements about them. We can form these opinions and judgements in an instant but many times these split-second judgements can be wrong and once we have made an initial judgement it is really hard to disregard it, sometimes even in the face of overwhelming evidence to the contrary. This is where the second part of Follower Reflection comes in. When we are able to reflect on our opinions, judgements and feelings about others we do it to help us understand our interactions with others. Follower Reflection allows us to stop and look at the opinions and judgements we have made to make sure that they reflect reality. It gives us the time to form better opinions and judgements as we reflect on more and better information.
The end result of practicing Follower Reflection is that we better understand those who are following us which then allows us to help them do the best job they can do. Which, at the end of the day, is really what we want for the folks we work with because if they are doing the best job they can do, it allows us as leaders to accomplish what we need.
What barriers do you have to being able to successfully practice Follower Reflection?
