Lead & Follow (Sharna Fabiano)
Explorez tous les épisodes de Lead & Follow
| Date | Titre | Durée | |
|---|---|---|---|
| 15 Feb 2022 | Leading & Following in Creative Collaborations - Glover Gill | 00:43:34 | |
This episode is a reflective conversation on the creative process with an artist I have long admired, composer and multi-instrumentalist Glover Gill. Glover and I take a trip down memory lane as we chat about our collaboration on the making of a dance theater piece called Uno back in 2008. Glover also shares insights about leading and following in his collaborations with other musicians and with filmmaker Richard Linklater, emphasizing how great collaboration depends on mutual trust, respect, and relationships built over time. “On a couple of movements of our piece, the writing took control of me and I just had to follow the direction that it was going.” “I almost feel like the best thing I can do in a collaboration is try to do just enough leading to get myself into the follower role as much as possible.” “While I’m looking at little tiny details, he’s looking at the big picture. It’s a symbiosis.” “Part of good leadership is identifying the right structure for the outcome that we want and for the people that we’re working with.” “I think there may be very few things more frustrating than a leader without clarity.”
Find Glover Gill’s Music: Siggs Lagoon, Houston Waterloo Records, Austin
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| 27 Feb 2022 | Listening as a Core Followership Skill - Eran Magen | 00:40:51 | |
Dr. Eran Magen shares his insights around listening as a core followership skill and how the right balance of leading and following helps us form connected, supportive relationships. Dr. Magen is the founder of Early Alert, which works with universities, hospitals, public schools and first responder agencies to prevent suicide and promote wellness among students and employees. His work has been published in top-tier scientific journals including Psychological Science, Emotion, and Academic Pediatrics, and has been cited in popular media ranging from Allure Magazine to Psychology Today. He is a member of the Jed Foundation's advisory board, and the founder of Parenting For Humans, a relationship-first, trauma-informed approach to parenting that helps parents build stronger, more joyful relationships with their children and with themselves. “For me listening is very much a form of meditation.” “The core of the how is to spend a lot of time following. Setup, following, and leading.” “To help someone be less upset, we follow. And when they’re done being upset, we check if it’s ok to lead.” "People don’t always talk about the thing that really bothers them. Sometimes they don’t even know. And if we listen to them well they can find out.” * | |||
| 13 Mar 2022 | Lead by Following in Contact Improvisation and the Feldenkrais Method - Daniel Burkholder | 00:37:57 | |
Dancer/Choreographer Daniel Burkholder shares his experience with leading and especially following through the improvisational forms of Contact Improvisation and Feldenkrais Method. Daniel choreographs, improvises, performs, teaches dance and the Feldenkrais Method, and practices mindfulness. His choreographic/improvisational work spans theatrical performances, site-specific events, immersive media, and screendance, and has been presented at numerous venues throughout North America and internationally. His current work includes: “On-Site”, a series of embodied screendance experiments; “Embodied Truth: finding ways to move together”, a collaboration with Kimani Fowlin examining race and gender through the lens of parenting; and, “act/re/act”, a podcast exploring improvisation through conversations with remarkable artists. His work has been commissioned by The John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, James Madison University, and Goucher College, among others. Daniel is currently an Associate Professor of Dance at University of Wisconsin Milwaukee and the director of the MFA in Dance program. “In the act of following there’s a generosity that evolves, and so much is possible.” “There is a sense of leading, but it’s through following the cues that I’m getting from the person I’m working with.” “If I just come through with a hard laid-out plan I miss an opportunity to really see what’s happening in the moment and the possibilities within that moment.” “The trust is that I’m going to enter this relationship where we’re going to be engaging one other with a goal that is supportive, that helps both of us flourish, that opens of new possibilities for ourselves.” Listen to Daniel’s act | re | act podcast Example of Contact Improvisation Information on Feldenkrais Method * | |||
| 20 Mar 2022 | Creating New Definitions for Leadership/Followership Roles - Sharna Fabiano | 00:50:00 | |
In this episode, I switch roles with one of my previous guests, Eran Magen, who guest-hosts this week and takes us on a provocative and philosophical journey into the nature of human relationship. We cover a lot of terrain starting from my very first social dance steps to the larger implications of rewriting the conventional script of leading and following roles at work and in society. “We tend to think leading is primary, but perhaps following is primary. We’re always responding to something.” “Rewrite the script and normalize following as something everyone is doing all the time.” “It’s really noble work to reset these roles because they ripple through every facet of our existence together."
Episode References: Marc and Samantha Hurwitz * | |||
| 03 Apr 2022 | The Necessity of Followership in Peace Building - Pedro Portela | 00:43:52 | |
I talk with Pedro Portela, a complex systems thinking coach and a self-described network enthusiast living in Portugal. An engineer by training, Pedro is now a freelance consultant for peace building and conflict transformation. We explore how followership skills play a vital role in peace building initiatives as well as how understanding healthy leading and following dynamics can help us let go of the command-control paradigm so that we can move forward together in a world of complexity and uncertainty. “We tend to be blocked in this idea that everyone needs to lead, when really everyone needs to be more in touch with what it is that they want to follow.”
Episode References John Paul Lederach, The Moral Imagination: The Art and Soul of Building Peace
Podcast: It Takes Two to Tango Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/pedro-portela-9a40423/ Medium: https://medium.com/@pportela Flip University40% off the world's first online Followership course with code LEADFOLLOW40. Disclaimer: This post contains affiliate links. If you make a purchase, I may receive a commission at no extra cost to you. * | |||
| 19 Dec 2022 | Developing a Followership Course (CNU Part 1) - Lori Throupe & Lacey Grey Hunter | 00:38:53 | |
Lori Throupe and Lacey Grey Hunter, who are faculty and staff, respectively, at Christopher Newport University, share how they have integrated followership into a pre-existing campus-wide leadership program, work that has culminated into a full followership course. This episode is Part 1 of a 3-part series. In Parts 2 and 3, you'll hear from alumni and current students at Christopher Newport who have taken the followership course and participated in the leadership program. “Once we started to really broaden the aperture of leadership to focus on more than only the leader, I believe that all of our students began to identify themselves as individuals who had a place within the phenomenon of leadership.” “Once our students are made aware of the fact that being a follower means that you possess power and influence, it changes how they see themselves in the relationship of leadership. I have seen it increase their ability to advocate for their point of view. I have seen students build closer relationships with a leader because they have taken the responsibility off the shoulders of only the leader.” “We see students almost turn completely around because they recognize that the proportion of time that they spend in followership roles is incredibly greater than the proportion of time that they currently spend in leadership roles.” The Power of Followership, Robert Kelley Followership, Barbara Kellerman The Courageous Follower, Ira Chaleff Leadership is Half the Story, Marc Hurwitz and Samantha Hurwitz
Other References Radical Candor Global Followership Conference, March 24-26, 2023 * | |||
| 18 Apr 2022 | Lead & Follow Lessons from Multi-Person Puppetry - Kelsey Kato | 00:35:30 | |
Puppeteer and educator Kelsey Kato shares his observations and insights of leadership and followership in puppetry through his work with Rogue Artists Ensemble, a Los Angeles theater company, and as a performer and guide at Noah’s Ark, an ongoing children’s exhibition at the Skirball Cultural Center. “I like to be in a position where I’m creating a foundation for other people to give offers to do something interesting. I find that really fun and I find myself freed by that.” “Having the choice to follow in the way that makes sense to you is really powerful.”
Resources Rogue Artists Ensemble * | |||
| 26 Dec 2022 | Followership Skills in Your First Job at Disneyland (CNU Part 2) - Lawson Herold | 00:33:32 | |
Lawson Herold is a recent alumni of Christopher Newport University’s unique President's Leadership program which now includes a whole course on Followership. He shares leadership and followership insights from his work as a crew member aboard the Star Wars Galactic Starcruiser at the Disney World Resort in Orlando. This episode is Part 2 of a 3-part series, exploring the learning of followership as an integrated part of the CNU leadership program. If you haven't already, I encourage you to go back to listen to Part I: Developing a Followership Course. “Leadership can make change intentional, but followership can make change effective.” “What I loved about my time especially in my followership course was learning about the moments of empathy, of compassion, of moral courage, where the choices you make as a follower have impact. I see that aboard the Starcruiser.” “Storytelling is inherently a vulnerable act. As a leader it’s understanding the audience and as a follower it’s understanding who you are in that space.” Leadership is Half the Story Star Wars: Galactic Starcruiser * | |||
| 27 Dec 2022 | Followership Skills in University Clubs and Creative Projects (CNU Part 3) - Henry Sergent | 00:30:06 | |
Henry Sergent is a third year student at Christopher Newport University and a participant in its unique President’s Leadership program, which now includes a whole course on Followership. He shares his experiences putting both leadership and followership into practice organizing the student golf club, in a late-night fraternity meeting, and on a clothing brand photo shoot! This episode is Part 3 of a 3-part series, exploring the learning of followership as an integrated part of the CNU leadership program. If you haven't already, I encourage you to go back to listen to Part I: Developing a Followership Course. “Leaders can’t do everything by themselves even if they want to.” “I always think the group dynamic is better when the leader sets the frame and gives it kind of a thesis and then the content is a production of the creativity of the followers and the leader together.” “You need to be very self-aware of your abilities and strengths when you enter a group process.” “There’s so much fulfillment that can come from being a good follower and enabling a group to go on.”
Henry Sergent's Hand-Painted Vintage Clothing * | |||
| 30 Jan 2023 | Awareness and Intentionality in Leadership/Followership Education (JCU Part 1) - Scott Allen | 00:37:39 | |
I talk with Scott Allen, PhD, professor of management at John Carroll University, on integrating followership into leadership education and training, especially through the Collegiate Leadership Competition, which he co-founded. Scott is also an author and the host of the podcast Phronesis: Practical Wisdom for Leaders, and he regularly leads workshops across industries. “We are building awareness that there are two sides of the coin. This is a system at play.” “What we’re really trying to do is bring students to a place of intentionality." Connect with Scott Allen Dr. Ron Riggio - Leadership: Here's What We Know Sharna Fabiano – Lead & Follow Dr. John Ross - Team Unity: A Leader's Guide to Unlocking Extraordinary Potential
Kansas Leadership Center, “Intervene skillfully” Youtube Video Clip, Apollo 13 - A New Mission Mike Linville and Mark Rennaker, Essentials of Followership Anthony E. Middlebrooks, Scott J. Allen, Mindy S. (Sue) McNutt, James L. Morrison, Discovering Leadership, second edition * | |||
| 13 Feb 2023 | Teaching Purpose with a New Textbook: Essentials of Followership (IWU Part 1) - Michael Linville and Mark Rennaker | 00:46:14 | |
I speak with Michael Linville and Mark Rennaker about their new textbook, Essentials of Followership: Rethinking the Leadership Paradigm with Purpose, and about the Division of Leadership and Followership Studies at Indiana Wesleyan University. The textbook is an absolute game-changer and every leadership education program in the country needs it!
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| 27 Feb 2023 | Creating Great Teams by Following as a Leader (IWU Part 2) - Chad Bennett | 00:34:57 | |
I speak with Chad Bennett, Director of Technology for Sturgis Public Schools in Michigan and Tech/Production Director for Radiant Life Church. Chad will complete his Bachelor of Science degree in Organizational Leadership from Indiana Wesleyan University in April 2023, and in this episode, he shares his experience in the program learning leadership and followership together, and how that double lens is guiding his current work. This episode is Part II of the Indiana Wesleyan University series, so be sure to go back and listen to Part I, featuring Professor Michael Linville and Division Chair Mark Rennaker speaking about their new textbook, Essentials of Followership.
References John 13: Jesus Washes His Disciples Feet Ira Chaleff, The Courageous Follower * | |||
| 13 Mar 2023 | Reciprocal Leadership and Followership Keeps us Human (JCU Part 2) - Grace Wright | 00:27:13 | |
I speak with Grace Wright, board president of the Euclid Hunger Center and community resource manager at University Settlement, a social service agency serving the Slavic Village neighborhood of Cleveland, Ohio. She has worked in hunger relief services for the last 12 years, managing hunger centers in the Greater Cleveland area. She has an undergraduate degree in social work and nonprofit management and in August of 2022 she completed the John Carroll University MBA program. In her free time, she is an avid music lover and enjoys spending time with friends and family. This episode is Part II of the John Carroll University series, so if you missed Part I, where I talk with Dr. Scott Allen about teaching leadership and followership, please do go back and listen! Grace shares her experience in the John Carroll program and how her understanding of followership is influencing how she leads.
Euclid Hunger Center * | |||
| 27 Mar 2023 | Leadership, Followership and Emotional Intelligence (IWU Part 3) - Yolonda Tonette Sanders | 00:36:19 | |
I speak with Dr. Yolonda Tonette Sanders, who shares her recent dissertation research on connections between followers' emotional intelligence and their followership styles, and what this means for leaders in organizations of all kinds. "Organizations should do more to build followership and teach that it’s ok to speak up and ask questions." "I do try to cultivate environments where people are not afraid to challenge me because I am not always right." "We as leaders have to realize that sometimes other people have better ideas. We don’t have all the answers."
Robert Kelley, Power of Followership Ira Chaleff, The Courageous Follower Daniel Goleman, Emotional Intelligence Barbara Kellerman, Followership
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| 17 Apr 2023 | Quick Tips: Dress Comfortably | 00:04:46 | |
Your lead & follow coaching tip for today is Dress Comfortably This tip comes straight from my training as a social dancer, which includes a big focus on subtle non-verbal communication. To understand why this might be important in a professional context, think about communication in a very broad sense, not only as the words you speak or write, but also as the non-verbal tones and qualities you transmit to another person through your whole presence, through your body language, through your expression, your emotional state. And this is true by the way even if you’re writing an email, if you’re on video conference, if you’re talking on the phone. The way you feel in your body when you’re communicating, directly influences what you actually communicate, no matter what the delivery format may be. * | |||
| 24 Apr 2023 | Quick Tips: Stretch Before Meetings | 00:04:42 | |
Your lead & follow coaching tip for today is Stretch Before Meetings One the reasons the quick stretch works is that when you sit still for long periods of time, whole sections of your nervous system kind of go to sleep. Without your physical senses active, you’re actually less aware of your own body and your own emotional state, and having your body half asleep can make it harder to think. * | |||
| 17 Apr 2023 | Integrating Followership into Leadership Education Programs (USM Part 1)- Dan Jenkins | 00:40:06 | |
I speak with Dan Jenkins, Professor of Leadership & Organizational Studies at the University of Southern Maine about his collaborative work integrating specific methods for training followership into leadership programs, and tracking the impressive results! “What we’ve learned is that students, since they’ve been in both the leader and the follower role, they have a totally different context for what their leader needs when they’re NOT in the leader role, and vice versa.” “We’ve noticed that follower identification has increased their skill capacity as a team member.”
Episode References Global Followership Conference The Leadership Educator Podcast Collegiate Leadership Competition New Directions in Student Leadership, Volume 2020, Issue 167 Leadership is Half the Story by Marc Hurwitz and Samantha Hurwitz Kolb’s Experiential Learning Model Leadership and Followership Tango Video The Courageous Follower by Ira Chaleff ILA Leadership Education Academy * | |||
| 01 May 2023 | Leadership and Followership at an Architectural Design Firm (JCU Part 3) - Michael Christoff | 00:33:47 | |
Michael Christoff, Senior Associate and Practice Leader for Architecture at Vocon, shares his insights about leadership and followership roles in the flow of organizational work and on design projects specifically. This episode is Part 3 of the John Carroll University series, so if you missed Parts 1 and 2, please do go back and listen to those as well. “At all the points in your career you’re going to need to understand when you need to play each role.” “Being a good follower as a designer is really listening to what the client needs, understanding how their business works, because you’re about to design a building that they’re going to have to function in.” * | |||
| 08 May 2023 | Quick Tips: Style Your Language | 00:05:00 | |
If you’re a strongly narrative thinker, you may respond to any kind of question by telling a story. That usually starts by providing considerable background information and then describing what happened in chronological order. Stories are definitely a crucial part of how we learn, but they can also be time-consuming and therefore sometimes distracting. Abstract thinkers like me fall on the opposite end of the spectrum. If this is you, you probably tend to zero in on one specific detail that you feel is important, or provide the verbal equivalent of a bulleted list. If someone asks you how your day was, you might just give a quick one-word assessment or list a few key events that took place. Both abstract and narrative thinking are useful in the right context. The question is: Which one will help you the most with the conversation or interaction you are having right now? A good rule of thumb is to use stories for presentations, proposals, and establishing common ground. Use concepts for troubleshooting, project updates, or brainstorming. * | |||
| 22 May 2023 | Learning games for better leadership and smarter followership - Fran Kick | 00:38:37 | |
Fran Kick is an author, educational consultant, and professional speaker who works with corporate and educational organizations that want to develop better leadership and smarter followership for faster long-term results. As a company owner, entrepreneur, and consultant, Fran combines his master’s degree and clinical background in Educational Psychology with over 30 years in the K-20 education and business worlds. He has been inspiring people to KICK IT IN and TAKE THE LEAD since 1986 with convention and conference keynotes, breakouts, in-services, orientations, workshops, programs, retreats, consulting, and publishing. In 1999, Fran earned the National Speakers Association’s most prestigious earned designation—the CSP or Certified Speaking Professional He has given over 3,000 presentations in all 50 U.S. states plus 6 Canadian Provinces in front of audiences of 40 to 10,000 participants. And in nearly all of those, Fran has presented leadership development and followership development together whether he is working with fifth grade students or Fortune 500 companies.
Connect with Fran Kick
Episode references:
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| 05 Jun 2023 | Leading and Following in 4-H Youth Programs (USM Part 2) - Maddie Gray | 00:37:31 | |
This week on the podcast, I speak with Maddie Gray, a Leadership & Organizational Studies major at the University of Southern Maine and a member of this year’s USM Collegiate Leadership Competition team. She has been involved with 4-H for fifteen years, competing in public speaking competitions and building her leadership and followership skills. Maddie speaks eloquently and candidly about supporting others, having difficult team conversations, and her experience leading and following as a member of the 4-H youth development program. This episode also has great examples of the twin concepts of situational leadership and situational followership, plus lots of subtle yet powerful tips for anyone working in teams, especially for those who are frequently sharing or rotating the leadership role. “People aren’t afraid knowing they’re going to have a follower.” This episode is part 2 of the USM series, so if you haven't already, please also go back and listen to Part 1 with Professor Dan Jenkins. Ira Chaleff, The Courageous Follower 4-H Youth Development Organization Dancing Guy – First Follower Video * | |||
| 29 May 2023 | Quick Tips: Great Meeting Agendas | 00:07:48 | |
Your lead and follow coaching tip for today is make meeting agendas and make them great. One reason we tend to complain about meetings is that they feel like a waste of time. I know that when I don’t have any meaningful way to participate, or the topic isn’t relevant to me, I can’t get out of the room fast enough, and if I’m required to be in the meeting, I start feeling resentful pretty fast, because my time is limited and I have things to do. I imagine you may feel the same way. The good news is that if you are leading a meeting, you have a lot of influence over how that time is spent. Making a great agenda is one way you can make really good use of time. I know the term agenda may sound boring, but it doesn’t have to be. I actually really love agendas because to me a well-crafted meeting agenda is like a well-crafted choreography or set of stage directions. Basically, it’s a way of organizing time so that the meeting flows in a logical, useful, and maybe even interesting and fun. * | |||
| 12 Jun 2023 | Quick Tips: Tune In | 00:03:14 | |
Your lead and follow coaching tip for today is Tune in. You’ve probably heard many times that active listening is an important skill for just about anything, including leadership and followership. Tuning in does include listening with your ears, but it’s much more than that. It’s more like listening with your whole body, directing your attention with all of your senses open toward one person or one group of people. Think of the phrase reading the room. To do that well we need to do more than listen to what people say. We need to tune in on a nonverbal level, or become attuned to the person or people we’re interacting with. Think of adjusting an old analog radio dial or radio antenna to clear the static and hear the signal more clearly. So start noticing subtle things like emotional tone, speech volume, energy level, facial expression and body posture. Does the person seem upbeat? Tired? Concerned? Enthusiastic? Distracted? It could be a lot of things, and to be clear, you will never know exactly what another person is feeling or experiencing, unless they tell you. We misread each other all the time, because we think that like professional actors, we’re transparent, that what we express in our facial expression what we’re feeling on the inside. But most people are actually NOT transparent. Tuning in is not mind-reading. Still, observing the other person’s nonverbal signals does a couple of very useful things. One: like a mindfulness practice, it brings you into the present moment, making it less likely that you’ll get distracted by your own thoughts. And two: it makes the other person feel a little bit more seen by you, as a human being, and that one of the most reliable ways to create connection, even with a stranger, and set the stage for a more honest, more productive conversation. Try this out, experiment, and let me know how it goes! * | |||
| 19 Jun 2023 | Followership Training in Healthcare Teams - Erin Barry | 00:33:28 | |
My guest Erin Barry is currently working on her PhD in Health Professions Education focusing on leadership and followership within healthcare teams. She shares her observations of how meaningful and flexible followership impacts the quality of care delivered to patients, as well as the necessity of regular peer feedback and personal reflection. “Healthcare is a team sport” “We get [students] to think about what their dominant style of followership is so that they can see that it’s probably going to shift depending on the situation.” “We talk a lot about how even as a follower you have a lot more influence than you might assume.” “Our different roles really do need to change depending on what’s needed by the team.”
Previous episode: Leadership, Followership and Emotional Intelligence (IWU Part 3) - Yolonda Tonette Sanders * | |||
| 10 Jul 2023 | Simultaneous Leading and Following in Complex Organizations - Chris Fuzie | 00:37:33 | |
Dr. Chris Fuzie, owner of CMF Leadership Consulting, talks through the development and delivery of his Effective Followership training program and how it works in combination with leadership training. We also discuss how most employees in large complex organizations are actually leading and following at the same time, whether they realize it or not! And how focusing more on consistent, desired behaviors can often be more impactful than focusing solely on leadership vs followership role awareness.
Connect with Chris Fuzie https://www.cmfleadership.com/effectivefollowership * | |||
| 07 Aug 2023 | Training Everyone in Both Leadership and Followership – Samantha Hurwitz | 00:32:12 | |
Together with her partner in all things, Marc Hurwitz, my guest Samantha Hurwitz is co-author of the game-changing book Leadership is Half the Story and co-founder of the innovative training and development company FliP University, based in Waterloo, Ontario, Canada. Samantha and Marc are also co-founders of the Global Followership Conference, which is where she and I first met in 2019. She describes herself as a recovered corporate executive, and as Chief Encouragement Officer of Flip University, she and Marc are setting the gold standard for "pracademic" leadership and followership training in organizations of all sizes. “When it comes to leadership development, the strongest return on investment is actually closer to the front lines than your senior executives.”
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| 21 Aug 2023 | HR Perspective on Followership and Leadership Training - Julie Newman | 00:30:29 | |
Julie Newman, a Certified Human Resources Leader in Ontario, Canada, shares her experience coordinating a recent implementation of leadership and followership training for a nonprofit client. "How better can you tell your people that they mean something to you than to say all of you are leaders and all of you are followers. " "It sends such a strong message to your people that you value them in their development but also in what they have to say. " "Diving into followership opens this whole amazing great world and a different view and once you go there you can’t go back." "You need to be a leader in the HR specialty but also the follower to really apply those pieces in the best possible way for the organization that you are supporting." Email: willowhallhr@gmail.com Website: www.willowhallhr.com * | |||
| 10 Sep 2023 | Celebrating Followers in Spiritual Life, Business, and Governance - Nixon Jallo | 00:43:47 | |
Nixon Jallo is Husband, Father, Chief Executive of FOLDEVIN Consults Ltd., Bishop of Supernatural Love Ministries, Rector of Agape Bible College, Writer and Researcher based in Jalingo, Taraba State, Northeast Nigeria. He speaks about teaching followership in both faith communities and business communities, how followership differs at each level of an organization, and why recognizing the value of followers and followership is critical to success in organizations of all kinds. Jallo completed a Master’s degree in Theology and is now completing another one in Organizational Leadership, and is the author of several books on followership including Principles of Followership, Understanding Followership and Leadership Fusion, and My Ideal Leader: The Heart Cry of Followers.
“There are people who are vision writers and those who are vision runners. And those people who run with the vision are the followers.” “Every organization succeeds because the followers are given the room to show their ability and their skill.”
Principles of Followership, by Nixon Jallo https://www.amazon.com/PRINCIPLES-FOLLOWERSHIP-NIXON-JALLO/dp/B08SRFBW4B/ Nixon Jallo on LinkedIn * | |||
| 14 Aug 2023 | Quick Tips: Deepen Your Breath | 00:04:06 | |
Your lead and follow coaching tip for today is Deepen your breath. Many of us are in the habit of shallow breathing, sometimes called chest breathing, where the collarbones and sometimes shoulders move up and down with each inhale and exhale. Because of tension in the muscles, or sometimes just because of the general speed of working life, our bodies can get used to a shallow, fast rhythm of breathing, using only a small amount of our lung capacity and giving us only a small amount of oxygen. Shallow breathing can also increase heart rate and blood pressure, making you feel anxious, or it can prevent CO2 from exiting the body, making you feel sleepy. There are lots of great breathing techniques out there to try, but my suggestion today is a very simple one. It’s to focus on the location of your inhale and exhale. More specifically, I’d like you to think about the location of the sensations of inhaling and exhaling. This is not a clinical anatomical question, and there’s no right answer. Rather it’s an imaginative exercise. First notice where you are most aware of the feeling of your inhale and exhale. It might be your chest or belly, but it may be somewhere else, your nose for example. If the location is high, in your face or upper chest, try to gently shift the location down a few inches, imagining that the air was entering the filling your body lower down. Keep going down a few inches at a time until you reach your lower belly. Don’t overthink this exercise, just imagine air filling your body. If you’re already feeling your breath in your belly, you might imagine it expanding upward instead, filling also your middle abdomen and chest. Don’t force anything, just imagine opening more space for the air to flow in and out. Not only does deep, full breathing reduce all kinds of anxiety and stress, research shows that it improves concentration and mental clarity as well. It will likely make you appear more relaxed and approachable to other people as well. Try this breath location exercise a few times throughout the day, maybe before and after meetings, or anytime you want to feel more calm, more centered, or more focused. Try this out, experiment, and let me know how it goes! * | |||
| 28 Aug 2023 | Quick Tips: Inner Orientation | 00:03:10 | |
Your lead and follow coaching tip for today is Choose an inner orientation. This technique is also called choosing a mindset or an intention. I’m calling it an inner orientation because I want you to use it as a deliberate and methodical way to orient to people and situations you are in. Most of the time, our inner state is reactive, and we’re not really choosing it. You like some people and dislike others. You feel comfortable or uncomfortable, inspired or bored, and you attribute those inner states to external circumstances. That’s a normal process AND at the same time, we have the ability as humans to choose a specific way of orienting from the inside. For example, if you’re thinking about how you want to orient in an upcoming meeting, you might choose a quality like receptivity, openness, curiosity, or any other quality that will help you participate in a positive and productive way. Different situations may call for different orientations, especially if you are switching back and forth between leadership and followership functions throughout your day, as many of us do. When you choose your inner orientation, make sure you take a moment to feel it in your body, and to notice what it feels like, so you can track yourself, and remind yourself to return to being receptive or curious or open when you find yourself becoming distracted. Practice sitting, standing, and walking in a way that you can feel this quality in your body and recognize it. This tip may sound super simple, but I assure you, it is one of the most powerful techniques I teach. When you embody positive inner states on a regular basis, you’ll feel more comfortable in your own skin, communication will become clearer, and relationships with the people around you will begin to improve. Try this out, experiment, and let me know how it goes! * | |||
| 24 Sep 2023 | Followership and Strategic Process - David Leitner | 00:39:24 | |
Dr. David Leitner has spent the last 15 years as a followership, leadership, and strategy educator. In this episode, he shares his passion and perspective on followership and leadership not only interpersonally but also as a way of analyzing relationships between states, communities, or companies.
Robert Kelley, "In Praise of Followers," HBR 1998 Barbara Kellerman, "What Every Leader Needs to Know about Followers," HBR 2007 S1 E20 - Listening as a Core Followership Skill - Eran Magen
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/davidleitner/ Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/david.a.leitner * | |||
| 09 Oct 2023 | Followership in the Engineering Leadership Programs at Cornell University - Erica Dawson | 00:41:26 | |
I speak with Erica Dawson, Professor of Practice and Nancy and Bob Selander Executive Director of the Engineering Leadership Programs at Cornell University. Erica’s Montana upbringing instilled in her a deep sense of connection to the mountains and outdoors. But her thirst for adventure was too big even for the Big Sky State, so eventually she made the leap to New York to pursue a PhD in Social Psychology at Cornell University. She went on to become a professor at the Yale School of Management, where her intellectual interests expanded from judgement and decision-making to themes of developing human potential. As a Faculty Fellow of the Dalai Lama Center for Ethics and Transformative Values at MIT, she has traveled the world teaching ethical leadership to audiences as diverse as Tibetan monks, European women pharmaceutical scientists, and Colombian judges.
“Some people have never identified that if I’m showing up and I’m just disengaged, I’m costing the group something. There’s a responsibility to either become engaged or exit myself, because it’s a cost.”
“For some…understanding that followership is a very active role, where you own your own ability to both support and challenge, that’s pretty novel.”
“When we teach followership we are teaching the fundamental skills of being able to have influence from any position in a team or an organization, and that’s actually what people want.”
Episode References
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| 22 Oct 2023 | Followership for Social Good - Fatema Haque and Dorine Lawrence-Hughes | 00:37:18 | |
This episode is a conversation about integrated leadership-followership education, featuring both Fatema Haque, Academic Program Manager & LEO Adjunct Lecturer at the Barger Leadership Institute at the University of Michigan, and also Dorine Lawrence-Hughes, Assistant Dean of Undergraduate Education at the University of Michigan. They are both involved in the introduction of followership to the Barger Leadership Institute curriculum and I’m excited to have them on the show together to talk about that process and how it’s preparing students for both professional and community work. “Giving students agency to pick what they want to work has been really essential.” “Talking about what it means to be a good follower, what it means to be ethical, what it means to hold our leaders accountable, is good and necessary work that we need to be doing now.” “This topic blows students away.”
Episode Resources Barger Leadership Institute, University of Michigan Barbara Kellerman, Bad Leadership Ira Chaleff, The Courageous Follower Basil Read, Read & Read Leadership and Management Consultants, LLC Marc and Samantha Hurwitz, Leadership is Half the Story Brazen Communication * | |||
| 05 Nov 2023 | Natural Followership - Christian Monö | 00:42:12 | |
Christian Monö is a Speaker, Author and Sweden’s first and only followership expert.
“We like to follow people who can help us get where we already want to go.” “As soon as you create an environment in which people feel they are not free, they will start reacting to it.” “In natural followership the group sets the vision not a leader.” “When it comes to changing the world it’s not the leaders who do it; it’s the followers.” Valve Software Buurtzorg Björn Lundén Information Connect with Chris Monö Website - https://www.followership.se/ * | |||
| 19 Nov 2023 | Smart Followership for Talent Development - David Elser | 00:27:04 | |
David Elser, author of Doing the Chores, shares his concept of smart followership through personal stories of growing up on a small family farm in northwest Ohio. David is a learning and development professional based in Coldwater Lake, Michigan who has over 30 years of experience in the transportation industry. He works with employees at all levels, from essential front-line workers to executive leaders. David has a master's degree in organizational management and is a Certified Professional Coach. “[Smart followership] is having the willingness and ability to enthusiastically and effectively provide support.” “What if we brought into the organization smart followership skills training, what would that mean?” "Sometimes its best to step back and let others come up with the solution." Episode References Trust, Followership, and Leadership in Non-Profit Change Processes - Tom Klaus HR Perspective on Followership and Leadership Training - Julie Newman
Connect with David Elser Doing the Chores Book (adults) Doing the Chores Book (kids) Facebook LinkedIn * | |||
| 12 Nov 2023 | Followership-Centric Organizations - David Scott | 00:37:43 | |
David Scott is a PhD Researcher at the University of Strathclyde in Glasgow, Scotland. He is exploring Followership Salience as a factor of Leadership in Organisations, and is also a Visiting Lecturer in Business at Leeds Trinity University.
“It’s impossible to be a role model without being a leader.” “By me thinking of myself first and foremost as a followership practitioner. It removes the fear when someone else wants to lead me, even as a chief executive of a large organization.” “Taking this followership-centric approach enabled so many more team players to come into the mix…to ensure that we as an organization stayed true to our purpose.”
Jimmy Collins, Creative Followership Philip Meilinger, “The 10 Rules of Good Followership” Ira Chaleff, The Courageous Follower: Standing up To and For our Leaders Edmonstone, J. (2003), "Learning and development in action learning: the energy investment model", Industrial and Commercial Training, Vol. 35 No. 1, pp. 26-28. Mango, E. (2018) 'Rethinking Leadership Theories'. Open Journal of Leadership, 7 (01), pp. 57-88. Barbara Kellerman Julian B. Rotter, Locus of Control * | |||
| 26 Nov 2023 | Leadership & Followership in the British Army – Langley Sharp | 00:42:32 | |
Langley Sharp is the former head of the Centre for Army Leadership, responsible for championing leadership excellence across the British Army. After graduating from Sandhurst two decades ago, his career in the Parachute Regiment, which included operational command at every rank, saw him deployed to Northern Ireland, Macedonia, Afghanistan and Iraq. Among his many varied roles, he led a counter-insurgency Task Force operation, commanded a Parachute Regiment Battalion and delivered the Ministry of Defence’s training programme for the London 2012 Olympics venue security. He is the author of the British Army’s official account of leadership, The Habit of Excellence, distilling over three centuries of the Army's experience in the art, science and practice of leadership. And he is Founder and Director of the consultancy firm Frontier Leadership. In this episode, Langley shares how and why followership is now becoming more explicit in the Army’s official documentation of itself, and how that articulation will in turn refine the way service members are trained in the future. "Warfare is not a place for individuals." > Langley Sharp, The Habit of Excellence > British Army Doctrine Note on Followership > Centre for Army Leadership Conference 2023 - Creating Effective Followership Chaleff, I. (1995). The courageous follower: Standing up to and for our leaders. San Francisco: Berrett-Koehler Publishers. "For the strength of the Pack is the Wolf, and the strength of the Wolf is the Pack.”
Connect with Langley Sharp https://frontierleadership.co.uk/ https://www.linkedin.com/in/langley-sharp/ * | |||
| 03 Dec 2023 | Toxic Followership and Definitions of Power - Wendy M. Edmonds | 00:41:07 | |
Dr. Wendy M. Edmonds is Interim Chair of the Management, Marketing, and Public Administration Department in the College of Business at a Historically Black University, and Co-Chair of the Global Followership Conference 2024. Her research focus is on toxic followership (people following bad people). She is an author, and internationally recognized toxic followership expert with a passion for positive change. Dr. Edmonds describes herself as a Workplace Toxicologist whose mission is to dismantle toxic followership and foster healthier, more productive environments. Wendy shares the characteristics of this important - if darker - aspect of followership and how it influences how powerful or powerless we may feel in our every day lives as employees, as members of a community, or as citizens. We also discuss how to use popular media and physical role plays in the classroom to inspire rich conversations about different kinds of followership and leadership choices. “Toxic followership is consistent destructive behavior over and over again.”
Episode References CNN: Escape From Jonestown
Self-made TV series – inspired by the life of Madame CJ Walker | |||
| 11 Dec 2023 | Three Compelling Ideas for 2024 - Sharna Fabiano | 00:16:22 | |
In this short, end-of year episode, host Sharna Fabiano reflects on season 2 and shares three compelling lead and follow ideas to try out in your own life and work in 2024. Please send feedback on Season 2 along with suggestions for Season 3 directly to Sharna at sharna@sharnafabiano.com. S1 E 23: The Necessity of Followership in Peace Building – Pedro Portela S1 E12: Followership Skills as Part of Professional Development - Brian Rook S1 E8: Courageous Followers can Stop Destructive Leadership - Alain de Sales Letters to Leaders * | |||
| 24 Feb 2024 | Season 3 Preview - Sharna Fabiano | 00:08:04 | |
Hi Everyone, this is Sharna. I’ve spent the beginning of the year in a resting phase with the podcast, letting the new season slowly take shape in my mind. New episodes are coming soon, in early March, and I’m hoping this little preview will give you a sense of how I’m thinking about season 3 as a collection of conversations. * | |||
| 03 Mar 2024 | Followers Navigating Ethical Dilemmas - Kyle Payne | 00:39:39 | |
Dr. Kyle Payne, a strategic talent development leader based in Chicago, describes his recent study exploring how professional engineers navigate ethical dilemmas. Kyle has fifteen years of experience driving process improvement and behavior change through training, coaching, and consulting. In his research, he focuses on unethical behavior at work and examines the behaviors of “ethical followers” who resist unethical behavior and call into question unethical thinking.
Research References
Other References
Website: http://www.kylepaynephd.com * | |||
| 24 Mar 2024 | Power & Influence of Global Followership - Yulia Tolstikov-Mast | 00:34:17 | |
Yulia Tolstikov-Mast, Ph.D. shares the concept of a global follower and especially of global followership as a force of power that can and does influence the far-reaching decisions of global leaders. Yulia is a global leadership and followership expert, an award-winning international leadership scholar, and an educator. Her scholarship and training focus on the internalization of leadership and followership education, non-Western approaches to leadership and followership, global followership and citizenship behaviors, and leader-follower role switching. Her most significant contribution is the Handbook of International and Cross-Cultural Leadership Research Processes. The publication is a guide on conducting international research grounded in local epistemologies. Yulia was also Co-Investigator in Russia for the GLOBE 2020 Research Project.
Tolstikov-Mast, Y. (2016). Global followership: The launch of the scholarly journey. In J. S. Osland, M. Li, & Y. Want (Eds.), Advances in Global Leadership (Vol. 9, pp. 109-150). Bingley, UK: Emerald. Tolstikov-Mast, Y., & Aghajanian, C. (2023). Intersectional approach to combating human trafficking: Applying an Interdisciplinary Global Leader-Follower Collaboration Paradigm. In: Dhiman, S.K., Marques, J., Schmieder-Ramirez, J., Malakyan, P.G. (eds) Handbook of Global Leadership and Followership. Springer. "What is Global Leadership?" "10 socially-conscious players who showed footballers don’t need to 'stick to sport'" Title IX Company Mighty Be Our Powers: How Sisterhood, Prayer, and Sex Changed a Nation at War, by Leymah Gbowee National Whistleblower Center Global Followership Conference * | |||
| 13 Apr 2024 | Connected Social Conversations – Dan Istrate | 00:39:53 | |
Actor/Director Dan Istrate shares his thoughts on presence, connection, and social leading and following. Dan grew up in Romania and has lived for the past 25 years in the United States. He’s had thousands of both painful and hilarious experiences of language and culture translation and mis-translation, working on both stage and screen in a wide variety of creative collaborations. Socially, his way of being seems to invite other people to be more open, more brave, more playful, more free. It’s something that’s hard to describe in words but it’s an area of leading and following that we nevertheless experience every single day. It just might transform how you see simple conversations all around you, with friends, at home, with strangers, and even maybe especially on dates. If you’re someone who feels at all anxious about talking to people, or like me feels that they are still recovering from the pandemic, this episode might be especially helpful.
Website: www.danistrate.com IG: @DanIstrateDC FB: Dan.Istrate.796 * | |||
| 14 May 2024 | Quick Tips: Take Turns | 00:04:05 | |
Your lead and follow coaching tip for today is Take turns. One summer I attended a large afternoon bbq, and a person I’d just met walked over and asked me about my work. Perfectly normal, right? But then he interrupted me before I could finish, and asked me another question. So, I started answering the new question, and then he interrupted again. Another question. Finally, I had to not answer at all and instead ask him a question just to break the pattern. You might be able to imagine how irritating this rapid fire question asking can be, especially at a relaxing afternoon party, and also how little interest you would probably have in spending more time with that person in the future. One reason interrupting is irritating is that it makes us feel that the other person isn’t listening. To feel connected, we need to be heard, whether we’re at a bbq or in a work meeting. When someone doesn’t feel heard, they instinctively pull away. They don’t want to talk or share or help or collaborate. Repeated interruption is basically a disconnection device. Now, once in a while, if it’s really important and if it’s done calmly and for a good reason, interrupting someone is actually fine. It’s when we do it a lot and without clear purpose that it can be damaging to relationships. So, as a proactive measure, the habit of taking turns can improve your relationships by preventing interruptions and increasing the chances that people around you feel heard and are therefore more comfortable and willing to connect with you. Taking turns means that when someone else is speaking, wait until they are completely finished before responding or before asking another question. If for some reason you need to interrupt, acknowledge that you are interrupting by saying something simple like, “Forgive me for interrupting but the wedding cake is being served right now, let’s go have some.” Or even, “I’m sorry to interrupt but I have another meeting at the top of the hour. Thank you so much for your time.” This will preserve the connection you have with that person. If you aren’t sure if the person is finished, you can ask, “Are you finished?” The urgent fast-paced flow of many workplaces can sometimes make it tempting to interrupt, assume you know what’s going to be said, or discount the response entirely. That’s a connection killer, and if you do this too much, you may have to start all over again building your connection with that person. The need to be heard is so strong that even if you think you DO already know what the person is going to say, it’s still important that you hear them say it.
Try this out, experiment, and let me know how it goes! * | |||
| 21 May 2024 | Quick Tips: Visual Focus | 00:03:34 | |
Your lead and follow coaching tip for today is Visual focus. In most Western contexts, eye contact signals to the other person that you are paying attention to them. A lack of eye contact can signal the opposite: disconnection, dismissal, or disinterest. Just think about the last time you tried to share information or ask a question of someone who was looking at their screen, at their phone, or out the window. You may have had to repeat yourself because they literally didn’t hear you. On stage, the quickest way to move the audience’s focus from one place to another is for the performers to deliberately look in the new direction. The exception to this guideline of course is when you’re both looking at the same thing and talking about that thing, a power point slide, a white board, or maybe a beautiful sunset. In a physical sense, our thoughts tend to follow our visual gaze. That doesn’t mean you can’t look at someone and be thinking about the laundry or some urgent deadline, but it’s harder. In general, wherever you look, that’s what you’ll be thinking about. This is part of how the scrolling feature on your phone traps your thoughts – by trapping your eyes. So the tip this week is to look at the person you are speaking to or listening to. It sounds simple, but it can feel uncomfortable if you are not used to it, or if you have a challenging history with the other person, or if you’re just feeling distracted or rushed. One way to help yourself focus visually is to remove distractions. Put your phone away, put down anything you’re carrying, and if you can, sit down in a chair facing the person. If you can’t do that, angle your body toward them as much as you can. Sitting actually lowers your heart rate and it’s a quick way to narrow your field of vision. You can also tidy up your own space or your desk or your Zoom background so that it’s easier for other people to look at you. Here’s another Zoom tip that completely changed my life. Turn off self-view box, so that you cannot see yourself. Likewise, in shared physical spaces, remove any mirrors. Seeing yourself is incredibly distracting. If you still have trouble maintaining visual focus, ask yourself, what are you feeling or thinking that’s making it hard? Are you self-conscious about your appearance? Do you need to clear the air with this particular person? Address any internal discomfort over visual focus at a separate time, in a way that feels appropriate and meaningful to you. If you’re not sure how to do that, start with some private journaling. Try this out, experiment, and let me know how it goes! * | |||
| 27 May 2024 | Leading, Following, and Polarity Thinking - Lindsay Burr | 00:38:34 | |
Lindsay Burr shares the tools of Polarity ThinkingTM as a way to understand, identify, and refine leadership and followership dynamics in any group or organization. Lindsay is CEO of the Yarbrough Group and based in Washington, DC. Her career has focused on helping people clearly see and then navigate the systems that they're in. She has worked in international political spaces and in US policy and elections, and in all of her work over the last 15 years she has used Polarity Theory, a tool developed by Barry Johnson and expanded by multiple authors. Lindsay uses her knowledge of polarity thinking to help individuals, groups, and organizations achieve goals that are tied to meaningful work. “When we think of leadership and followership as two positives that work together, you get so much more richness.” “There are times when a leader will hold one pole, and the followers will hold another pole.” “As soon as it’s a “but” or an “either/or,” then it sets up a conflict. As long as everyone knows it’s both/and, then you can figure out how much you need of each one for success.” “If you have something you’ve overdone, when you find the other side of the pole, then you know how to right yourself.” * 4-Day Training with Lindsay at the CPSI Conference June 23-27, 2024 Polarity Map Download (scroll down to the bottom of the page) S2 E 14 - Simultaneous Leading and Following in Complex Organizations - Chris Fuzie Yarbrough Group - https://www.yarbgroup.com/ LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/lindsayyburr/ * | |||
| 16 Jun 2024 | Followership at the Strategic Level – Paul McGachey | 00:40:34 | |
Paul McGachey shares his theoretical research on Ira Chaleff's Courageous Follower model plus lots of terrific examples from his own professional work demonstrating what it takes to follow courageously at the higher levels of an organization, whether that's in the US military or in the business sector. Paul is a scholar-practitioner with 18 years of experience in the United States military and is currently pursuing a PhD in Education and Human Resources at Colorado State University. His primary research interests are followership and scenario planning, a tool that uses multiple future scenarios to drive strategic action and decision-making. “The follower has to see themselves as an active participant in the organization.” “If you’re in a relationship with a leader who does not want your feedback, you need to resist the urge to take a passive role, just because that’s how the leader or the organization sees you.” “You need to build that leader-follower relationship and that’s going to be built on trust and results over time.” “As you build a follower role orientation within yourself and within your organization, you’re going to gain more influence over your leader.” “Scenario planning has been very successful at changing mental models.” “Regardless of whether you have input in the vision, you have direct action in the implementation and culture of the organization.”
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| 03 Jun 2024 | Quick Tips: Focus Your Email | 00:04:12 | |
Your lead and follow coaching tip for today is Focus your email. I recently received an auto-responder email message from a colleague that read, and I’m not kidding about this, QUOTE “I’m out of the office this week, and your message will be deleted. If you’d like a response, please re-send your message after next Monday when I return.” UNQUOTE Your message will be deleted. This is probably the most extreme example I’ve seen of email management, but I share it to illustrate the point. We are all drowning in an excessive flood of email. You probably receive hundreds of messages a week, maybe hundreds a day, and there’s no way you can read them all. In fact, in addition to the latest spam blockers and content filters, there is still a certain amount of time and effort required to figure out what email you need to read, before you actually read any of it. So, knowing this situation, you can make it easier for your coworkers to read and respond to your messages with a couple of guidelines. These won’t work in all situations, but they will cover you for the majority of everyday work exchanges. First, whenever possible, follow the rule of one topic per message. This makes it easy for people to organize your message by category and especially by time sensitivity. If you ask someone for two pieces of information, one of which you need today and the other of which you need next week, that makes your message harder to organize and you’ll probably get either one or neither of your questions answered. If you send them separately, not only is each one shorter, which is almost always better, but the person will have an easier time mentally dropping them into the appropriate buckets, and responding to them in the appropriate time-frame. Second, if you do have several related questions pertaining to the same project or the same deadline, use a numbered list so that your reader can more quickly and easily take in what you are asking. You’ll often get an itemized response in return, following your original list, which also makes it easier for you. Third, whenever possible, keep your messages to five sentences or less, stating your purpose, your request, and any time constraints. If you have additional relevant reference material, attach them or list them below your main message, separated by an asterisk or some other obvious character. Too much text is overwhelming, and people will. not. read it, especially if it’s not necessary. There is definitely a skill to writing concisely, and it’s most definitely a valuable one that you want to have no matter what your work environment. I promise that once you start restricting yourself to five sentences, it will get easier and easier. And finally, fourth, being crisp and focused does not mean being rude. It’s still important to be polite and positive even while you avoid unnecessary explanations or “filler” language. Remember to use the person’s name at the top of your message, and include a thank you at the end. Here’s a quick tip within a tip: include Thank you, or Thanks in your automatic signature. Try this out, experiment, and let me know how it goes! * | |||
| 07 Jul 2024 | The 4 Tiers of Followership - Eric McDermott | 00:41:46 | |
Eric McDermott shares a framework he developed through his decades of professional experience called the 4 Tiers of Followership (or the 4 Tiers of Help).
Episode References
Connect with Eric McDermott Nextpectations * | |||
| 28 Jul 2024 | Leading & Following in Improvised Music – Jane Bentley | 00:32:06 | |
Dr. Jane Bentley is a percussionist and drum circle facilitator based in Glasgow, Scotland, specializing in rhythm, improvisation, group dynamics and communication skills. She completed a Ph.D on drum circle improvisation and facilitation, highlighting the effects of group music making on human wellbeing, and revealing its fascinating leadership and followership dynamics. Jane’s work as a facilitator has broken new ground in the field of health and wellbeing, through her long-term collaborations with mental health occupational therapy staff in the UK National Health Service. She has worked with children in hospitals; in mental health care settings; in prisons, and with people with dementia. In this episode, she shares what she has discovered over the years about the power of fluid leading and following in improvised music.
Jane’s TEDx Talk
Connect with Jane Bentley https://www.linkedin.com/in/jane-bentley-a2550631/
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| 18 Aug 2024 | Leading & Following in Community Settings - Eric Kaufman | 00:35:44 | |
Leadership Educator and Scholar Eric Kaufman shares his observations of leading and following dynamics in a variety of community and volunteer settings, from civic organizations like Kiwanis Clubs to parent-teacher organizations to church governance bodies.
Episode References https://www.linkedin.com/in/erickkaufman/ * | |||
| 07 Oct 2024 | Destructive Leadership in the 2024 US Election - Alain de Sales | 00:45:58 | |
Dr. Alain de Sales currently teaches at the Queensland University of Technology’s Graduate School of Business (GSB) in Brisbane, Australia. In this episode, he describes a recent educational project he coordinated for a group of MBA alumni, analyzing patterns of destructive leadership in the 2024 US presidential election cycle. Back in Season 1 of the podcast, I interviewed Alain on his then and still groundbreaking PhD research on how courageous followership actions can interrupt and prevent the worst outcomes of destructive leadership actions – that episode is called Courageous Followers can Stop Destructive leadership. If you haven’t already, I suggest listening to that one first, before this one. It’s a detailed discussion of Alain’s theoretical work that will make this episode's real-time case study make more sense. GSB is among 1% of business schools worldwide to have triple accreditation for excellence from the world's leading accrediting bodies. At GSB Alain teaches leadership (and followership) nationally in the Executive MBA, MBA, and Public Service Management programs along with other executive education programs.
Episode References Join or Die - documentary film * | |||
| 21 Oct 2024 | Followership: Past, Present & Future – Ron Riggio | 00:39:30 | |
Dr. Ron Riggio has a uniquely broad and deep perspective on the evolution of followership research over the past two decades. He is the Henry R. Kravis Professor of Leadership and Organizational Psychology and former Director of the Kravis Leadership Institute at Claremont McKenna College, where the very first followership conference took place back in 2006. In this episode, Ron shares his thoughts on where the followership community has been and where it is going, as well as his own current work to expand the research on followership and its relationship to leadership. Learn about his current work and collaborations including the anatomy of followership, implicit peer theory, storytelling methodologies, and more.
Claremont McKenna College Art of Followership, by Ronald E. Riggio, Ira Chaleff, & Jean Lipman-Blumen (Eds.) Global Followership Conference Liu, Z., Riggio, R.E., Reichard, R.J., & Walker, D.O. (2022). Everyday leadership: The construct, its validation, and developmental antecedents. International Leadership Journal, 14(1), 3-35. Beenen, G., Todorova, G., Pichler, S. & Riggio, R.E. (2022). Reconceptualizing multilevel leader-follower shared outcomes. Journal of Leadership and Organizational Studies, 29(2), 289-305. https://doi.org/10.1177/15480518221094481 Riggio, R.E., Lowe, K.B., & Levy, L. (2023). Why are followers neglected in leadership research.Organization Development Review, 55(3), 44-48. Riggio, R.E. (2014). Followership research: Looking back and looking forward. Journal of Leadership Education, 13, DOI: 10.12806/V13/I4/C4
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| 27 Apr 2021 | Teaching Leadership and Followership in Tango Dance - Valeria Solomonoff | 00:36:56 | |
Valeria Solomonoff shares her experience of leading and following as a professional tango dancer and within her teaching relationships with her tango students in New York City. This is a passionate and personal interview of shared stories and provocative questions around the powerful polarities of masculinity/femininity and leading/following.
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| 17 May 2021 | Leading and Following in Life Partnerships - Laurie Ann Greenberg & Blaise Barshaw | 00:31:01 | |
Artists Laurie Ann Greenberg and Blaise Barshaw in Spokane, Washington talk about about how they go back and forth when they collaborate on projects together, especially on their current project, the Camp Taps Beer Trailer, and about how getting an initial "no" might be just one of many steps in the co-creative dance. They also share charming and practical insights about co-creating their life together as a couple, and how to lead and follow yourself.
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| 10 May 2021 | Switching Between Leading & Following in Opera Stage Management - Tilla Foljanty | 00:30:10 | |
Tilla Foljanty, a stage manager in Bonn, Germany, shares her observations about role-switching between leading and following in the context of professional opera productions. She offers keen observations about when and how to embody each role, and shares her love of the following role in particular. “A leader needs a follower and a manager needs an assistant to achieve whatever they want.”
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| 24 May 2021 | Influence of Followership Behaviors on Organizational Success - Ruth Sims | 00:35:35 | |
Ruth Sims is a long-time higher education administrator who is now conducting her own PhD research on the topic of followership at the University of South Australia Business School. She brings her experiences on the organizational side of academia to life in a way that makes it clear how influential good followership is and how much it matters to our collective success. She also helps us to look more closely at how we identify and perceive leadership or followership behaviors as they flow within a team of people.
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| 14 Jun 2021 | Followership/Leadership Lessons from Martial Arts Training - Jonathan Han | 00:31:56 | |
Jonathan shares insights from the world of martial arts that help us navigate non-physical conflict. Our conversation explores the receiving position in fighting techniques, and how that position corresponds in some ways to the follower role in life and work. We also challenge the assumption that the follower role is "weak," and propose an unexpected definition of effective and respectful leadership. * | |||
| 07 Jun 2021 | A Model of Equitable Leading and Following in the Coaching Relationship - Amy Lombardo | 00:39:44 | |
Amy Lombardo is a coach and a teacher of coaches who specializes in the area of human potential. Amy is the author of the book Brilliance and the founder of the Brilliance Academy for Personal Transformation and Social Change in Los Angeles. She shares how the coaching relationship itself teaches us about equitable leading and following and opens an emergent field of possibility. Plus, important insights around leading and following ourselves and relating authentically with others. “Whether I’m leading or following, the commonality is that I’m always in service.” “We’re all agreeing to be stewards of the field of emergent possibility, and I think what that allows is a safe container for every person to access within themselves their own leader AND follower.”
Amy’s book Brilliance The Brilliance Academy for Personal Transformation and Social Change * | |||
| 28 Jun 2021 | Followership in Engineering, Social Justice Work, and Road Trips - Ryan Moody | 00:33:57 | |
My neighbor, chemical engineer Ryan Moody, shares her insights on followership in the course of her work building and maintaining hydrogen fuel cell stations for electric vehicles in southern California. We also chat about how powerful it can be to choose to listen and take the follower position in social justice work and even on vacation with your significant other! “If it’s going to be in any way sustainable, there really needs to be consent by the person who is following.” “My experiences following have allowed me to be more present and soak things in more.” “Tweeting at somebody is not true accountability. It requires more of a conversation than you might imagine.” * | |||
| 12 Jul 2021 | Courageous Followers can Stop Destructive Leadership - Alain de Sales | 00:46:38 | |
Dr. Alain de Sales shares his research on how courageous followers can collapse patterns of destructive leadership. He surfaces destructive episodes using the toxic triangle framework made up of leaders, susceptible followers and context. Through compelling stories and examples, he shows how specific, methodical, and sequential acts of courageous followership can interrupt harm and topple abusive power structures at any scale and in any domain, including business, politics, and social movements. “Leadership and followership are dichotomous roles that we both play all the time.” “We nearly always have agency to resist destructive leadership”. “Every opportunity is an opportunity to practice courage.” Connect with Alain on LinkedIn: Mary Parker Follett was a management theorist who introduced the concept of followers as distinct from leaders in the 1920s. Daniel Ellsberg leaked the Pentagon papers revealing the atrocities of the Vietnam war. The courageous actions of several people during the Watergate scandal ultimately contributed to President Richard Nixon’s resignation just before he could be impeached. * | |||
| 26 Jul 2021 | Leader Power is Limited by Follower Response - Lew Steinhoff | 00:36:23 | |
I talk with Dr. Lewis Steinhoff, the Director of the Nuclear Weapon Acquisition Professional (NWAP) Certification Program at the U.S. Department of Energy’s National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA). We explore how a leader's power and influence are not entirely guaranteed based on title or position, but rather that leaders are to a large extent constrained by what followers are willing to accept. It's an important clarification of what power is, and of what makes us effective when we lead, whether in an office environment or at the level of international government negotiations. Ira Chaleff, The Courageous Follower Gaski, John, "'Volume of Power: A New Conceptualization of the Power Construct", Sociological Spectrum, 15, 1995 Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, In the First Circle (1968) Steinhoff, R.L. (2021), "Assessing leaders’ power limits over followers", Industrial and Commercial Training, Vol. 53 No. 2, pp. 107-116. * | |||
| 09 Aug 2021 | The Power of Giving & Receiving Effective Feedback - Janice Shack-Marquez | 00:37:57 | |
I talk with coach and educator Janice Shack-Marquez about communication skills, Fierce Conversations, and what she learned over her 30-year career at the Federal Reserve, helping new managers in particular learn how to both lead and follow in all directions: up, down, sideways and diagonally! Our conversation includes some great insights about the power of giving and receiving effective feedback from both leading and following positions. Since retiring from the Fed in 2015, Janice has taught and coached at George Washington University, the University of Maryland and for several federal agencies. "As you move up in an organization the opportunity to get feedback on your performance grows smaller and smaller." "We can help each other be better at what we do if we look at it as a way of supporting each other not fixing each other." "We need to be able to work in places where we can talk about the things that are important."
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| 30 Aug 2021 | Leading and Following in our Relationship with Nature - Tara Laidlaw | 00:43:58 | |
Tara Laidlaw has worked at the intersection of formal and informal education for nearly 15 years, serving as a program manager, instructional designer, frontline facilitator, and teacher trainer for organizations from coast to coast. Her specialty is place-based education, and she has used farms, forests, meadows, and mountains as classrooms for learners of all ages. We explore the intrinsic dance of leading and following in the learning process as well as in the human relationship with land and nature. "The natural world provides an opportunity for both teachers and learners to practice the lead and follow relationship in real time." "There’s a place to be a leader as a student, but that depends a lot on your teacher being willing to step into the follower role." "Taking your cues from the landscape that has been here for millions of years is perhaps the smart thing to do." Connect with Tara on LinkedIn: * | |||
| 07 Sep 2021 | Followership Skills as Part of Professional Development - Brian Rook | 00:48:06 | |
Brian Rook shares some compelling examples of professional development programs he's developed that focus specifically on followership, and that have achieved wild success in multiple industries. As Assistant VP of Training at Lincoln Financial Group in Fort Wayne, Brian is responsible for the continuous development of professionals in advisor and securities operations. He is also an active researcher and publisher in leadership and followership and has spoken at multiple international conferences. Prior to joining Lincoln, he worked in leadership positions in the healthcare sector. "Most of the time alienated followers have been exemplary followers. Something has happened that has compromised the trust." "A lot of times we think, ‘we’ve played this game before,’ but we won’t take the time to listen and learn before we engage, and it's important to illustrate the risks of that." "I openly talk about leading and following with my team." References in this Episode Learn more about Brian's leadership work * | |||
| 09 Oct 2021 | Trust, Followership, and Leadership in Non-Profit Change Processes - Tom Klaus | 00:49:40 | |
Reflecting on his long career working with with non-profits, Dr. Tom Klaus shares the important difference between “buy-in” and true ownership, how content experts and context experts must lead and follow one another, and what 7th graders taught him about relational trust. We explore his approach to collective change leadership, examine why leaders must occasionally (or often) step deliberately into the follower role, and consider what the term “collective followership” might mean! “The paradigm shift is from buy-in to ownership, which invites people to participate and have a voice and a say in how the change effects them.” “The degree to which you establish a relationship based on integrity and honesty is the degree to which you will grow trust.” “It cannot be one-way. I cannot just, as a leader, be trusting followers. Followers need to be trusting me as well.” “You only build trust and respect through a very conscious and intentional decision to act with integrity toward [another] person. And to let integrity really be the bell weather of your relationship.”
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| 24 Oct 2021 | Followership and Power Dynamics for Sustainability - Sara Murdock | 00:50:45 | |
Dr. Sara Murdock is a specialist on the people and culture side of organizational sustainability, and a diversity, equity, inclusion, and belonging consultant. She’s worked with solo-preneurs and giant multi-nationals, executives and front-line staff, and everything in between. She shares her keen observations of how people and companies are navigating power and leadership at this time of immense upheaval, how to design for productive failure, and how the role of followership might influence our future understanding and practice of global and relational sustainability. “I think there’s a human desire to transcend mere survival and create organizational structures that we feel excited about and that are enlivening to us.” “The future is owned by people who can truly shift their own mentalities quickly, effectively, efficiently.” "Having genuine discourse about what’s best for everybody, what’s best for the team, what’s best for the project; that invites everyone to step up into their best self.” Connect with Dr. Sara Murdock LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/saraevamurdock/ IG: @drsaramurdock Podcast: Road to Sustainability Podcast * | |||
| 27 Nov 2021 | Lead/Follow Relationships in Live Theater Performance - Dan Istrate | 00:43:15 | |
Actor/Director Dan Istrate is originally from Romania and graduated from the University of Theatre and Film in Bucharest. He performed at several theaters in Romania and played the lead role in the Romanian feature film, Double Ecstasy, before moving to the US in 2001. Dan describes the organic flow between leading and following as the essence of great performance, and gives inspiring examples of how he has experienced this flow with audiences, directors, and fellow actors. We also explore how anyone can cultivate the fundamental follower state of being open to the unknown. “You don’t even know what you can create in relationship with a follower/leader.” “You cannot play the king. By the way the other actors behave, they make you the king.” "Lead and follow must switch from scene to scene, sometimes from line to line." * | |||
| 05 Dec 2021 | Leading & Following in Dungeons & Dragons Games - Martin Heuschober | 00:40:51 | |
My guest on the podcast this week is Martin Heuschober, a software programmer, blues dancer, and player of table top role-play games, the most famous of which is Dungeons and Dragons. These games are highly improvisational and rely on - you guessed it - highly dynamic leading and following. Martin describes how game master and players engage in collaborative storytelling through continuous exchange of leading and following. I even get to play a short scene as a private investigator, complete with dramatic dice-roll! “A creative follower is something very precious and very delightful” “Following is necessary in both roles.” “When I’m leading I’m creating an opportunity for my follow to show their talent or their creativity and express themselves.” “The essence of role playing is that your actions need to have an impact.”
Critical role: Probably the most prominent (actual play) show right now - these are professional voice actors, so they know how to make their characters be very recognizable. Dimension 20: Series of fun D&D shows by UCB alumni LA by Night: Series in the setting of Vampire: the Masquerade, a horror-themed game Red Moon Role-Playing: Radio audio drama style of games, mostly horror genre
Gehenna Gaming Consent Form: A good tool when running/playing horror games to make sure you are aware of your own and your players boundaries RPG Safety Toolkit by Kienna Shaw: More tools to keep the players comfortable and the characters frightened
Adventuring Academy: A podcast about role playing
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| 09 Jan 2022 | Communication Dynamics on Volleyball Teams - Carri Dominick | 00:30:46 | |
Dr. Carri Dominick is a physical therapist and lifelong athlete. We talk through the dynamics of collaboration on her volleyball team, and how the players lead and follow one another during actual, moment-to-moment game play. Even though players do have formal roles on a competitive team, their actual leading and following actions are fluid based on who has the ball and where it's going next. Strategic verbal communication is a key followership skill that athletes train in from the beginning, and get better and better at over time. “Like any other skill, over time you build more and better communication.” “Your team mates are checking out the surroundings and helping support you.” “The key to success is everyone supporting whoever has the ball.” Connect with Dr. Carri Dominick * | |||
| 23 Jan 2022 | Playfulness in the Followership Role - Tova Moreno | 00:35:49 | |
Tova Moreno is a theatrical tailor in NYC. She shares her observations of leading and following in her work with her mentor, Artur Allakhverdyan, at Artur & Tailors, Ltd. in New York City. We explore the role of play and lightness in sustaining healthy working relationships over time, and how she expresses these qualities through both followership and leadership. “Trust is what enables play to happen, and for me, play is what enables work satisfaction to happen.” Episode References: Artur & Tailors Bias Bespoke * | |||