What is this Subject we call Followership?

July 21, 2019

What’s this subject we call followership really about? For me it’s about how we work collectively while retaining individual accountability. Yes, followership is about the relationship between the leader and follower. But it is s also the relationship between the individual and the group.

This is the opening to the keynote address I will give on Friday, July 27, to the Global Followership Conference in Ontario, Canada.

For those familiar with The Courageous Follower, its inspiration came from an example of M. Scott Peck’s People of the Lie

I was reading Peck’s account of the infamous My Lai massacre in Vietnam. He asked a question. How could several hundred US soldiers participate in the cold-blooded killing of old men, women and children and in its coverup?

He answered that question with an observation: When in the follower role, individuals can displace their own moral accountability onto the leader. This tendency gets compounded by the pressure for group conformity. When I read that, I wrote in the margin that a book on a different way of following was needed.

Service	Duration
KEYNOTE SPEECH	45 MINUTES – 1.5 HOURS
PANEL PARTICIPATION	1.5 HOURS
SEMINAR OR WEBINAR	1 – 2.5 HOURS
HALF DAY WORKSHOP	3 – 3.5 HOURS
FULL DAY WORKSHOP	6.5 – 7.5 HOURS
TWO DAY WORKSHOP	6.5 – 7.5 HOURS PER DAY
CUSTOMIZED PROGRAMS	MIX AND MATCH MANAGERS AND STAFF 1.5 – 2 DAYS
TRAIN THE TRAINER	3 DAYS + SUPPORT
EXECUTIVE COACHING	3 – 6 MONTHS