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Research: To Be a Good Leader, Start By Being a Good Follower

12 August, 2018 by James Lawther Leave a Comment

Harvard Business Review

Kim Peters and Alex Haslam

Who does the best job of finding good leaders?

  1. Assessors: managers, recruiters and trainers.  People whose job it is to find and promote talent.
  2. Leaders: the person themselves. Individuals who are convinced that they have what it takes.
  3. Followers: the team who have to work for the leader.

The answer is obvious when you ask.

Peters and Haslam show why the way we look for and promote leaders is dead wrong.

This elevation of those who seek to distance themselves from their group may actually be a recipe for failure, not success. It encourages leaders to fall in love with their own image and to place themselves above and apart from followers. And that is the best way to get followers to fall out of love with the leader. Not only will this then undermine the leader’s capacity to lead but, more importantly, it will also stifle followers’ willingness to follow. And that can only ever be a path to organizational mediocrity […]

Click here to view original the web page at hbr.org

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Filed Under: Best of the Web, Blog Tagged With: beliefs, human nature, leadership, teamwork

About the Author

James Lawther
James Lawther

James Lawther is a middle-aged, middle manager.

To reach this highly elevated position he has worked in numerous industries, from supermarket retailing to tax collecting.  He has had several operational roles, including running the night shift in a frozen pea packing factory and carrying out operational research for a credit card company.

As you can see from his C.V. he has either a wealth of experience or is incapable of holding down a job.  If the latter is true this post isn’t worth a minute of your attention.

Unfortunately, the only way to find out is to read it and decide for yourself.

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