A few weeks back, Marc and I were in Orlando, Florida, at a conference. We did a session and had a book signing in the conference bookstore.
We arrived at the bookstore nice and early, as did Marshall Goldsmith. Marshall has the #1 bestselling business book in America right now and is considered the top coach of CEOs and executives in the world. Although we hadn’t met face to face before, Marshall had been reading our ideasletter for a few years and generously supplied an enthusiastic endorsement for our book. We were excited to connect with him, hang out, and have an opportunity to let him know how much his work has inspired us.
Marshall and I popped off to get a coffee together before the signing and had a lovely chat. As I do executive leadership and followership coaching, I was dying to ask him, “Of all the CEOs you are coaching right now, how many are you coaching for followership rather than leadership?” Marshall looked away for a quick second, then smiled and nodded, “Four!” or about half.
Interestingly, this has been my experience, too. About half the people who come to me for leadership coaching actually need followership coaching, and sometimes quite desperately!
How to Coach for Followership
Coaching for followership is a lot like coaching for leadership, except that people are not as familiar with the ideas and may not have a language for them. Because of this, there are some similarities between the two, but also some differences!
1. Hold up a mirror. Ask good, clarifying, and revealing questions. For example,
- What are you doing to build and nurture the relationship with your leader/leaders? In the case of the CEO, this is typically the board or owner. For entrepreneurs, this includes investors.
- What are all the additional things you could be doing to support your leader?
- How are you sharing accountability for being on your leader’s wavelength? If you aren’t taking the lion’s share of the accountability, think about starting to. The most successful executives don’t leave things to chance; they take the initiative and are intentional in their actions.
2. Encourage your coachee to probe for precise, actionable feedback from their leader. For example,
- Overall, how am I performing in my followership role with you?
- Do you feel fully supported by me?
- Do I take initiative in the right ways?
- Am I on your wavelength, and do I represent you well?
- Do you feel that I am fully engaged?
- Do you count on me to be a true thinking partner?
- What are all the ways I could be even more effective in this role with you?
3. Share best practices. Research into followership has yielded best practices that work. We share lots of these in our new book, Leadership Is Half The Story: A Fresh Look at Followership, Leadership, and Collaboration.
4. Encourage the use of the Platinum Rule: Treat others the way they want to be treated. Have your coachee discuss how they apply the Platinum Rule and ways they might apply it even more effectively. How are they clarifying and confirming how others want to be treated?
5. Use the f-word: followership! Followership and leadership are discrete skills requiring specific language and attention. Your coachee could be doing one well and not the other.
