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Lead, follow, or get out of the way may be popular bumper sticker management but it's a formula for failure today; it leaves out the vital middle relationship-team up!
Everything, including teamwork, is easier to study-and it is easier for us to believe we understand it-if we look at it in isolation and, too often, out of context. Free of considerations about the impact the object of our study has on other things, people, or concepts or that others have on it, our analysis can have a neat beginning, a defined middle, and an orderly ending.
But that's not how the world works. Not in real life, and surely not in a situation in which we are trying to get something done along with other people. Cries of "Who's in charge?" "Who's going to actually do the work?" and "If we could just all work together" quickly fill the air as people jostle into, or for positionand then re-jostle. The point is that leading, following, and working as a team are interrelated concepts. It is especially important with teamwork to understand the range and interplay of the combination of relationships if you are to fully understand any one.
Before we get to teamwork and how it relates to leadership and followership, we need to lay some groundwork. Picture a continuum, just a long horizontal line to start. Think of leadership as extending over the right half of the line and followership as extending over the left half of the line.
Put four marks along the lineat the left end, at the 1/3 mark, at the 2/3 mark, and at the right end. Label the far left mark, passive followership; the 1/3 mark, active followership; the 2/3 mark, small-l leadership, and the far right mark, capital-L Leadership.
The Leadership-TeamshipFollowership (LTF) Continuum
Passive followership is the form of followership practiced by a potato when on the end of a string being pulled by a child. Active followership-the desired form of followership-occurs when a follower interacts with his or her leader to insure understanding and success.
Small-l leadership is the form most often practiced. It is the personal form of leadership whereby the leader deals with his or her followers on a one-on-one or one-on-few basis. Capital-L...