Lead & Follow

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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!
Dan received his doctorate in Curriculum & Instruction with an emphasis in Higher Education Administration from the University of South Florida. He is co-author of The Role of Leadership Educators: Transforming Learning and has published more than 40 articles and book chapters on leadership education. As an award-winning international speaker and facilitator, Dan has engaged thousands of leadership educators, students, and professionals on topics such as leadership pedagogy, followership, and curriculum and course design. Additionally, Dan is a co-founder of the International Leadership Association’s Leadership Education Academy, Vice-Chair of the Collegiate Leadership Competition, Associate Editor of the Journal of Leadership Studies, and co-host of "The Leadership Educator Podcast".
“All the research that we have that points to what makes an effective team comes back to trust and communication.”

“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
www.followershipconference.com

The Leadership Educator Podcast
theleadershipeducator.podbean.com

Collegiate Leadership Competition
www.collegiateleader.org

New Directions in Student Leadership, Volume 2020, Issue 167
Special Issue: Followership Education

Leadership is Half the Story by Marc Hurwitz and Samantha Hurwitz

Kolb’s Experiential Learning Model
The Role of Leadership Educators: Transforming Learning

Leadership and Followership Tango Video

The Courageous Follower by Ira Chaleff

ILA Leadership Education Academy

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Connect with your host Sharna Fabiano
https://www.sharnafabiano.com
Order the book: Lead & Followhttps://www.amazon.com/Lead-Follow-Dance-Inspired-Teamwork/dp/1646632796/

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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!

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Connect with your host Sharna Fabiano
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Order the book: Lead & Followhttps://www.amazon.com/Lead-Follow-Dance-Inspired-Teamwork/dp/1646632796/

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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!

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Connect with your host Sharna Fabiano
https://www.sharnafabiano.com
Order the book: Lead & Followhttps://www.amazon.com/Lead-Follow-Dance-Inspired-Teamwork/dp/1646632796/

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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.
Dr. Sanders is an Ohio native, co-founder of Traction, an organizational change consulting company, and of the Faith and Fellowship Book Festival. She is also the author of six novels, and her hometown of Sandusky, Ohio attracts millions of visitors each year because of the Cedar Point amusement park!
Upon graduating from high school, Yolonda moved to Columbus, Ohio to attend Capital University where she earned a Bachelor of Arts in Criminology and another in Political Science. She continued her education at The Ohio State University, receiving a Master of Arts in Sociology. Yolonda used her education and relational skills to write, publish, teach in higher education, and serve in various leadership capacities, including that of CEO, board member, and program director. Most recently, she received a Doctor of Philosophy degree in Organizational Leadership from Indiana Wesleyan University. She enjoys spending time with loved ones and engaging in endeavors that enhance her personal and spiritual growth and that of others.
This episode is Part 3 of a 3-part series on Indiana Wesleyan, so please do go back and listen to Parts 1 and 2.
“If you look at the characteristics of ideal followers, they have characteristics of people with high emotional intelligence.”

"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."

Episode References

Robert Kelley, Power of Followership

Ira Chaleff, The Courageous Follower

Daniel Goleman, Emotional Intelligence

Barbara Kellerman, Followership

Connect with Dr. Yolonda Tonette Sanders

Traction, an organizational change consulting company
Research Gate Scholarship Page

Amazon a

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Connect with your host Sharna Fabiano
https://www.sharnafabiano.com
Order the book: Lead & Followhttps://www.amazon.com/Lead-Follow-Dance-Inspired-Teamwork/dp/1646632796/

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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.
"When you’re dancing you’re practicing everything you need to be in the now."
“The relationship between lead and follow is out of balance in our world today.”
“How can we get our act together as a global civilization?”
“I think we tend to forget how much intention there is in our followership decision, and how much power we have by choosing to follow and reflecting on who is it that we want to follow.”

“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

Connect with Pedro Portela

Podcast: It Takes Two to Tango

Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/pedro-portela-9a40423/

Medium: https://medium.com/@pportela

Support the show

*
Connect with your host Sharna Fabiano
https://www.sharnafabiano.com
Order the book: Lead & Followhttps://www.amazon.com/Lead-Follow-Dance-Inspired-Teamwork/dp/1646632796/

Support the Show!
https://www.buzzsprout.com/1735834/support