I've been thinking about leadership lately and what it really means. I tend to break things down to simple core ideas because I usually find the raw, unspun truth there. It's easy to acknowledge that leadership is the act of leading. Duh. To be a leader you have to have followers. Duh again. But think about it... a follower is someone who follows and patterns themselves after their leader. As every parent knows, kids do what you do, not what you say.
Business Leadership
I think most business leaders today do not spend enough time thinking about the act of "followship". Our idea of leadership is more inclined to be similar to dictatorship. We want to tell people what to do and have them do it. We want to have rules for the leadership that are different than the rules for everyone else. Our idea of leadership includes entitlement. We may think a leader's job is to set a course, but we often forget it is also to set an example of behavior. Actually its not even a job because it will happen regardless - it is a core responsibility.
Make no mistake, the rules that apply to a leader will apply to the followers. Followers will find a way of following. Followship happens.
Market Leadership
I see a lot of businesses and brands that seem have a strategy that focuses on refined model of following the market leader in hopes of someday overtaking the leader. As I say - followship happens. It is a bizarre concept to think you can follow your way to becoming the market leader. Following just re enforces the activities of the leader in the consumers' eyes - thus galvanizing your position as #2 or #3. No one has followed their way into market leadership.
There is only one way to the goal of market leadership and that is through disruption. True disruption doesn't mean an improvement on the current category attributes, it means innovation to such an extent that a new category ( or sub category) is created thus making you...voila...the leader.
Followship happens. Leadership...well that's up to you.
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