Followership video series

To be a great leader you need to have strong followers. What do followers need from you to be strong and courageous? According to research gathered by Gallup and written about by Tom Rath and Barry Conchie, followers need four things from their leaders.

Resources

• Learn about the four needs of followers in the book Strengths based leadership by Tom Rath and Barry Conchie.
• For a shorter read, try this article for an interview with Rath and Conchie: What followers want from leaders.
• Watch this vide on What can the Tango teach us about leadership and followership?
• For more, explore the works of these followership authors: Barbara Kellerman, Ira Chaleff, Robert E. Kelley, Ronald E. Riggio, Paul Hurwitz and Joseph C. Rost.

[Lori] Hello and welcome to Two for You. This month we're actually bringing to you a series on followership. Because we decided that during this time of crazy uncertainty that it's good to go back to some of the basics. And in this series we're actually going to highlight not only some of the research that Gallup has found on the followers' needs, but specifically the positive psychology research behind those four needs of followers.

[Denise] So the first need of followers is trust. And you have to remember that trust isn't a one and done. You can't have one great meeting with someone or one wonderful interaction and think that the trust is built. Trust can go away awfully quickly. So remember you need to continually build trust

[Lori] So the second one that Gallup mentions is compassion. Right? So compassion especially now there's so much going on. So it's really letting people know that you can you're connecting with them as a human and take the time to connect with them one-on-one can make such a such a difference in connecting and be able to feel or so a follower feels like, "yeah i want to follow you that's someone who gets me." Right.

[Denise] So the third one is stability. It is that sense that the follower needs to feel secure in investing their time and energy and relationship into a direction that's going to move them forward. So it's really key in stability to have open and constant communication. Really being transparent.

[Lori] And the fourth one, and you mentioned this kind of moving forward piece, is really hope. So number four is hope. And it's really about this knowing that you know this is an opportunity to innovate and to grow during all this uncertain time. And just provide that time and space in order to really foster that as a leader.

[Denise] So moving forward, think of your leadership in terms of these four needs of followers: trust, compassion, stability, and hope. And put them to work in your leadership as you live and lead with intention.

Building trust is a constant effort and one that is worth the time and energy. This video shares the benefits of strengthening trust and the situations in which you can build it.

Resources

• Check out Extension's article on building trust in communities.
• Watch Frances Frei’s TED Talk: How to build (and rebuild) trust.

[Lori] Hello and welcome to Two for You. So think about your last week. You probably had some everyday interactions that you don't even really remember that much. And maybe some regrettable moments that you maybe remember too much. And maybe even some conflict interactions. Did you know that all three of those are actually opportunities to build trust? So Denise, why is trust even important for us as leaders and for our followers?

[Denise] Well there's lots of benefits of course in building trust. But the four that we're going to focus on today are are these. So first there's an increased sense of belonging. So people when they feel trust from their leaders, they feel that they're willing to invest and be involved in their community more. The second one is they feel greater community cohesion. And basically that's saying they have deeper relationships and they're willing to take that risk of crossing cultural divides in our community.

[Lori] Yeah that's so important right now, right?

[Denise] Oh man.

[Lori] Exactly.

[Denise] And the third is around resource and information sharing. It's that people feel more willing to share their resources and they also are more transparent and they communicate more. And then finally the fourth benefit of feeling that trust is that people report a better sense of well-being. They feel better about their place in the community, they feel more secure in themselves and they report feeling happier

[Lori] All right so there you go. As you live and lead with intention in your community, remember that those regrettable moments, those conflict interactions and even our everyday interactions are really opportunities for us to be intentional about building trust.

Having awareness of what others are feeling and exhibiting compassion has been shown to improve team goal achievement and productivity, and lower limit adverse physical symptoms of stress. This video highlights how you can meet the needs of your followers by bringing compassion into your leadership.

Resources

• Why compassion? Read about the importance of compassion in this article by Seppala, Rossomando and James (2013) that describes social connection as an underlying drive of human behavior: Social connection and compassion: Important predictors of health and well-being
• Read this article on the importance of compassion for leaders during a community crisis: Tuning in, turning outward: Cultivating compassionate leadership in a crisis

[Lori] Hello and welcome to Two for You. Sometimes as leaders we think we shouldn't show our emotions or maybe we should be a little bit more stoic and strong. However research actually shows otherwise. And that compassion is one of the most important things. Showing compassion is one of the most important things for our followers. In fact, research has found that compassion is one of the biggest predictors of pro-social behavior.

[Denise] So compassion. It's not just enough to feel it for another person but you need to actually be able to express it or show it for them to feel the compassion from you. So the importance of that is that we need the compassion to create strong social connections. And research from Emma Seppala and others shows that those strong social connections, they actually are the underlying drivers of human behaviors. So we want positive behaviors within our communities, organizations, and even in our neighborhoods, we need to be able to show compassion to those around us.

[Lori] Yeah so how do you do that? How do you show compassion? How do you build compassion? And one way is perspective taking. Right? But that is not just the ability to express concern and care for others. But it's also the ability to identify with them and think about that as we're going through this time of working from home, school transition, really this a great awakening around race circumstances, the ability to identify with others, what other people are going through is what can help us to really build compassion.

[Denise] So this month as you work to strengthen your leadership, don't forget compassion. Build those social connections so you can have a hand in those positive behaviors as you live and lead with intention.

In this episode, we’ll uncover ways you can build stability with your followers. Spoiler alert: It has everything to do with transparency.

Resources

• Transparency builds stability. Read about the role of stability during a crisis: Transparency and trust during the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic
• Improve your communication to increase stability. Read Gallup’s article: How to communicate to create stability despite uncertainty.

[Denise] Hello and welcome to Two for You. The word "stability", kind of a clunky word. It's not the first word you think of when you think of leadership. But it's an integral part of being a good leader. Whether you're a leader in your community, organization or even your neighborhood, if you provide stability to the people who are following you you are allowing them to feel secure in knowledge of moving forward with you.

[Lori] Right. Research has found that nothing builds stability as much as transparency. Right?

[Denise] Right.

[Lori] Especially now in this time of change because there's so much stress and fear happening. And we all do it. We build up these worst case, doom and gloom, scenarios. And transparency can really help to reduce that "doom and gloom" feeling. So some of the things we can do to build transparency or lead with transparency is really to set up a way to have two-way communication with people in our organizations in our community

[Denise] So even if you don't have the answers in that communication it's still important to keep those communication channels open and share what you do know and the directions and the steps that are being taken.

[Lori] Absolutely. So maybe the thing that you do know is that you're going to meet every Monday or the way you're going to communicate. You might not know the what, but being transparent even around the not knowing can really help build some of the stability in your organization or with your followers as well.

[Denise] So this month think of stability equals transparency and transparency equals stability. Keep that communication flowing, as you live and lead with intention.

In this episode we explore hope. Did you know that goals have been called the anchors of hope as they provide pathways toward the future? Find out more about the role of hope in leadership.

Resources

• Take the Hope Scale assessment.
• Read Brigette Hyacinth’s article Hope: The cornerstone of leadership.

[Denise] Hello and welcome to Two for You. Today we get to talk about hope. I mean who doesn't like talking about hope? Right? But as leaders, what's our role with that term of hope? I recently read that hope derives from an old English word that actually means "to leap forward with expectations." I think that's kind of a great picture when we're thinking about hope. But what can we do to help that leap?

[Lori] Yeah so positive psychology researchers have found that key aspects of hope are goal setting, right? So having this goal. So setting a goal to go forward. Understanding the pathway to get there. So your thoughts on what are your skills, how to get there, that agency. As well as the motivation, right? You have to want to kind of achieve that, right? Through there.

And then really one of the biggest parts is this idea of barriers that get in the way. Because they happen all of the time, right? For all of us. People with high hope are able to remove those barriers and reset the goal and find a new way. Also interestingly around that like people with high hope versus low hope piece is that when we have high hopes of people with high hope actually have lower rates of depression, higher achievement. Maybe no surprise there. And people with lower hope have lower well-being.

[Denise] So Brigette Hyacinth I think kind of sums us up well. And she talks about the fact that hope is seeing the future. And it's working to attain it by adapting and adjusting. You know you're talking about high low and what we're doing and that a leader's responsibility in there is to have that hopeful outlook that can help people see beyond the challenges and actually get to tomorrow's answers.

So you know what we're going to ask you to do. Put some hope in your leadership. Help people move forward, take that leap, so that they can see a better tomorrow as you live and lead with intention.