Rowitz On Leadership

In these posts, I have talked about a leadership mindset as a way to live your life. It will be a life of creativity and innovation. You will enjoy challenges and be able to see the big picture. Leaders in mind will not be afraid to take risks in order to make life more exciting and full of new experiences worth taking. People with this mindset will see a life dull of choices and opportunities. They are not afraid to build new relationships with others. The status quo is not appealing. Change is good and exhilarating. However, a leadership mindset does not automatically create a leader.

Leadership without followers is not leadership. Most of our leadership activities involve relationships, building and sustaining them, and using them to create change. However, there are many different ways to follow a leader. Followership is tied to the ways people can relate to their leaders. In his 2010 book LEADERSHIP: A VERY SHORT INTRODUCTION,, the British leadership expert Keith Grint discusses four major types of followership related to commitment and level of independence. The Emperor type relates to leadership in a hierarchy where followers relate to the person above them in the organization. The leader at the top guides the organization, the followers commit to the leader’s vision although the hierarchy shields the leader from those farther down in the organization. The Cat Herder type is a system in anarchy where there is no leader with power to control the cats. The White Elephant type is like a theocracy in which the leader is a spiritual person with God-like characteristics. The fourth type of followership is the Wheelwright in which a leader recognizes personal limits and in which different individuals take on the leadership role as appropriate. This latter type is the one that dominates many of our discussions of collaboration and who is in charge. This latter type can be unstable in that decisions need to be made and decision-making may be difficult in a shared leadership environment.

To be a leader, it is important to live leadership in all domains of life and to work with others to create a positive leadership environment.