British business spends a lot of time, energy, focus, and yes, money "developing leaders". Progression opportunities are secured by "demonstrating leadership skills." Constant calls are made that business, education, government, society at large, "needs more/stronger/better leaders."
We need more women in leadership.
No, actually, we need a different kind of masculinity in leadership.
Ah, actually, maybe we went too far, and it's time for "traditional masculinity" to be brought back to leadership.
What about minority leaders?
Maybe we should look at how neurodivergent folks and marginalised communities express leadership differently.
The conversations, books, podcasts, and seminars around leadership are endless - and often contradictory. We spend so many resources trying to give one definitive, always-true answer to the question "What makes a good leader?"
The answer is simple:
"What makes a good leader is competent, capable, calm-ego-state followers."
Without committed, genuine, non-resentful, non-envious, supportive, disciplined followers, it doesn't matter what your strengths or skillset are, it doesn't matter how good your ideas are, how much money you can throw at things - you will never be a leader.
Donald Trump is very clearly a dysfunctional, disorganised person, who is unable to even look at the very real issues people want him to address. He is someone who allows personal grievances to inform every interaction he has - including with world leaders on a global stage.
But he understands just how central to successful leadership committed followers are. That's why he's succeeded in being elected to the position of President of the United States of America twice, despite being a convicted felon, a provenly awful human being, and someone with no grasp of even the rudiments of government. It's why he is still celebrated as "an exceptional businessman", even though all of his businesses ended in bankruptcy - he knows how to speak to the kinds of people who will be good, capable, competent followers. People who can act without ego, who have no ambitions towards leadership themselves.
That is partly where Kamala Harris went wrong; her loudest supporters were people with an online presence that was all ego, all their own ambitions towards leadership, either in business or community. That doesn't make those people bad people - but it makes them fatally flawed followers, and bad followers will bring down even the best leader.
That's what happened to Trump in his first Presidency; his followers that time proved themselves to be an ill-disciplined rabble, with agendas and ambitions of their own. He adjusted his messaging just enough this time to skew towards people who might be better followers - people whose only ambition is the stability of their own lives. People who don't want anything except a "status quo" which can't exist any longer in a fundamentally altered world. This time, his undoing is most likely to be his Vice-President; JD Vance very much has ambitions and ego; he is the wrong choice for a follower, especially for a leader who can only lead from a position of strong personal passion, and who lacks the ability to give decisive, clear leadership on issues that don't matter to him personally.
In order to create and bring forward good leaders, we need to invest in raising good followers.
So: What creates good followers?
Followership is fundamentally about connection, and the ability to be motivated by things outside yourself.
I am not a natural follower - I have a lot of ambition, a strong drive for autonomy, and I won't tolerate flawed leaders. However, I recognise that I will often be in positions of followership, because I don't really have an instinct for how to communicate in a way that creates my own followers. I am very aware that followers predominantly respond by appeals to emotion, but I don't really know how to communicate to emotion. I communicate from a position of intense logic, and I communicate to others' sense of logic. It makes me good in a genuine crisis, or when progress is actually blocked by a significant problem (or several problems), when people are typically in such a heightened state of emotional flux that they become aware their emotions aren't going to get them anywhere good. In everyday situations, however, my logic-focus alienates me from others. I'm not seen as someone others can engage with, which means I'm not seen as a leader. Which means I've had to develop my capability as a good follower.
That process has involved:
. Identifying the kinds of people I can never be comfortable following
I don't connect with, or follow, highly emotive leaders.
I won't follow disorganised leaders, or those who ignore major systemic challenges.
I won't follow people who present "me as my personality and identity" as the primary reason they're the "right person to lead."
. Identifying elements in the leadership of "my kind of leaders" that appeal to my own ambitions, and build skills and experience in those areas, without providing the opportunity for me to manifest those ambitions.
I don't have to get everything I want, but my followership needs to serve me whilst I'm serving a leader's own journey.
. Learning the 'trick' of presenting my ideas and solutions in such a way that, weeks or months down the line, a leader picks them up, perceiving them as their own, and presents them as a radical shift in approach.
What matters to me is that problems are solved, progress is being made. If I'm not leading on that, I don't need solutions or progress to be visibly provided by me - they just need to be provided. This involves a lot of work to let go of ego, which has been especially challenging for me; my personal background means I struggle to perceive my worth outside of "what I can do", which means I can be exceptionally sensitive to the "things I did" being claimed by others; however, framing followership itself as "something I can do", and genuinely coming to appreciate it as a skill, helps smooth the rough edges of my personality in this regard.
Reciprocal Mentoring can be a really effective way to shape, identify, and empower good followers.
Reciprocal mentoring addresses the main complaint in dysfunctional organisations, teams, societies, and families: "They just don't appreciate how hard everything is for us!"
Reciprocal mentorship teaches leaders how to be followers, and empowers followers to lead in a designated space and time.
Reciprocal mentorship comes into an "us and them" situation, calmly sits down, and softly but firmly says: "There is no 'us' and 'them'; you're all part of the same team here. You're all working towards the same ambitions, the same goals. You come together, you work together. You have enough problems; don't start inventing new ones."
The world needs good, capable, adaptable leaders, it's true.
But those leaders need followers before they are able to lead. Which means that what the world needs most is good, capable, adaptable followers.
If you feel The Productive Pessimist Ltd could help your organisation create the kind of followers the world needs, reach out - theproductivepessimist@yahoo.com
We need more women in leadership.
No, actually, we need a different kind of masculinity in leadership.
Ah, actually, maybe we went too far, and it's time for "traditional masculinity" to be brought back to leadership.
What about minority leaders?
Maybe we should look at how neurodivergent folks and marginalised communities express leadership differently.
The conversations, books, podcasts, and seminars around leadership are endless - and often contradictory. We spend so many resources trying to give one definitive, always-true answer to the question "What makes a good leader?"
The answer is simple:
"What makes a good leader is competent, capable, calm-ego-state followers."
Without committed, genuine, non-resentful, non-envious, supportive, disciplined followers, it doesn't matter what your strengths or skillset are, it doesn't matter how good your ideas are, how much money you can throw at things - you will never be a leader.
Donald Trump is very clearly a dysfunctional, disorganised person, who is unable to even look at the very real issues people want him to address. He is someone who allows personal grievances to inform every interaction he has - including with world leaders on a global stage.
But he understands just how central to successful leadership committed followers are. That's why he's succeeded in being elected to the position of President of the United States of America twice, despite being a convicted felon, a provenly awful human being, and someone with no grasp of even the rudiments of government. It's why he is still celebrated as "an exceptional businessman", even though all of his businesses ended in bankruptcy - he knows how to speak to the kinds of people who will be good, capable, competent followers. People who can act without ego, who have no ambitions towards leadership themselves.
That is partly where Kamala Harris went wrong; her loudest supporters were people with an online presence that was all ego, all their own ambitions towards leadership, either in business or community. That doesn't make those people bad people - but it makes them fatally flawed followers, and bad followers will bring down even the best leader.
That's what happened to Trump in his first Presidency; his followers that time proved themselves to be an ill-disciplined rabble, with agendas and ambitions of their own. He adjusted his messaging just enough this time to skew towards people who might be better followers - people whose only ambition is the stability of their own lives. People who don't want anything except a "status quo" which can't exist any longer in a fundamentally altered world. This time, his undoing is most likely to be his Vice-President; JD Vance very much has ambitions and ego; he is the wrong choice for a follower, especially for a leader who can only lead from a position of strong personal passion, and who lacks the ability to give decisive, clear leadership on issues that don't matter to him personally.
In order to create and bring forward good leaders, we need to invest in raising good followers.
So: What creates good followers?
Followership is fundamentally about connection, and the ability to be motivated by things outside yourself.
I am not a natural follower - I have a lot of ambition, a strong drive for autonomy, and I won't tolerate flawed leaders. However, I recognise that I will often be in positions of followership, because I don't really have an instinct for how to communicate in a way that creates my own followers. I am very aware that followers predominantly respond by appeals to emotion, but I don't really know how to communicate to emotion. I communicate from a position of intense logic, and I communicate to others' sense of logic. It makes me good in a genuine crisis, or when progress is actually blocked by a significant problem (or several problems), when people are typically in such a heightened state of emotional flux that they become aware their emotions aren't going to get them anywhere good. In everyday situations, however, my logic-focus alienates me from others. I'm not seen as someone others can engage with, which means I'm not seen as a leader. Which means I've had to develop my capability as a good follower.
That process has involved:
. Identifying the kinds of people I can never be comfortable following
I don't connect with, or follow, highly emotive leaders.
I won't follow disorganised leaders, or those who ignore major systemic challenges.
I won't follow people who present "me as my personality and identity" as the primary reason they're the "right person to lead."
. Identifying elements in the leadership of "my kind of leaders" that appeal to my own ambitions, and build skills and experience in those areas, without providing the opportunity for me to manifest those ambitions.
I don't have to get everything I want, but my followership needs to serve me whilst I'm serving a leader's own journey.
. Learning the 'trick' of presenting my ideas and solutions in such a way that, weeks or months down the line, a leader picks them up, perceiving them as their own, and presents them as a radical shift in approach.
What matters to me is that problems are solved, progress is being made. If I'm not leading on that, I don't need solutions or progress to be visibly provided by me - they just need to be provided. This involves a lot of work to let go of ego, which has been especially challenging for me; my personal background means I struggle to perceive my worth outside of "what I can do", which means I can be exceptionally sensitive to the "things I did" being claimed by others; however, framing followership itself as "something I can do", and genuinely coming to appreciate it as a skill, helps smooth the rough edges of my personality in this regard.
Reciprocal Mentoring can be a really effective way to shape, identify, and empower good followers.
Reciprocal mentoring addresses the main complaint in dysfunctional organisations, teams, societies, and families: "They just don't appreciate how hard everything is for us!"
Reciprocal mentorship teaches leaders how to be followers, and empowers followers to lead in a designated space and time.
Reciprocal mentorship comes into an "us and them" situation, calmly sits down, and softly but firmly says: "There is no 'us' and 'them'; you're all part of the same team here. You're all working towards the same ambitions, the same goals. You come together, you work together. You have enough problems; don't start inventing new ones."
The world needs good, capable, adaptable leaders, it's true.
But those leaders need followers before they are able to lead. Which means that what the world needs most is good, capable, adaptable followers.
If you feel The Productive Pessimist Ltd could help your organisation create the kind of followers the world needs, reach out - theproductivepessimist@yahoo.com
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