Leadership and Followership

“You cannot be a leader, and ask other people to follow you, unless you know how to follow, too.”
–Sam Rayburn

I coach a U15 club volleyball team; our first Power League tournament was this past weekend. In preparation for the event, I reminded the girls that one of the toughest challenges in leadership is often the ability to step back and play a support role when required. It takes a strong leader to be able to stay focused and fully engaged even when not being called upon to participate in a way that uses her best skills. There are 12 girls on my team, and 6 spots on the court. Because it is a competitive but young (freshman,) club team, my commitment to the girls and their parents during tournaments is to somehow find the balance between winning matches and giving each girl enough time on the court to feel a sense of participation and be able to test her skills. This means bench time at some point even for some of our strongest players.

As I thought through all of this, I remembered one of the toughest support roles I played when I was about that age. I was in my high school drama club, cast as Margot Frank (Anne’s older sister) in The Diary of Anne Frank. (Remember Margot? That’s what I thought.) The biggest challenge was that the speaking role for this part was very small, but I had to be on stage the entire play, paying attention to the others, staying in character, and ready for my lines when they happened. My drama coach (who was also my volleyball coach) knew it was hard for me to stay in character without the spotlight and action. (Melodrama and geeky stuff are my specialties, remember?) I still remember him acknowledging that he knew it was hard for me to have such a quiet role, encouraging me to stay with it, and convincing me that this role was more difficult and challenging because of its silence. Looking back, I don’t know that I played my role especially well, but I do know that the entire cast was in tears at the end of the play when the Gestapo came to get them, and Anne’s father said, “For years we have lived in fear, now we can live in hope.” I will always remember the feeling of receiving a standing ovation from the crowd, even though my role was minor.

In my leadership and team building sessions with intact teams we often ask the team leader to step back and allow his / her team to determine the course of action for each experiential leadership initiative. Most leaders --no matter whether they are the VP or the line supervisor-- tell us this is an extremely challenging task. Yet the best way a leader can grow his / her team is to allow them to make decisions, steer the course, support them, and allow them to learn from their inevitable mistakes. “A man’s errors are his portals of discovery.” –James Joyce.

I do not claim to be an expert leader; I definitely make mistakes. But I hope that my coaching, support, and willingness to learn from my own mistakes continue to create in me the leader that I hope to become.