Why Do People Follow?- The Survey Results
Now it is official! The survey results are in. Why do you follow a leader? What makes a leader great? 630 responses to two questions we posted across multiple social media forums and other venues gave us the answer.
Before I tell you the answer. I am going to tell you what it is not. People do not follow someone because they have the best education, are the smartest or are the most qualified. The skills and compentencies that we get MBA’s for and spend millions of training dollars on only got 13% of the vote.
Two weeks ago through social media, I asked people to answer these two questions:
- Who is your leadership hero?
- What three traits do you admire most about them?
After dividing the answers into two categories, competence and character, the trend was overwhelming. 87% of the responses described specific character traits and 13% described compentence or a skill based trait.
The top three answers were:
- Integrity
- Honest
- Humility
What does this mean?
It means people follow you because of WHO YOU ARE not because of what you can do.
When we look at the leadership problems in our culture, whether it is in business, politics or in homes, our focus is on the wrong things. We continue to train competencies, while character is what determines a leader’s impact!
We can’t keep throwing more management skills training at the problems we see and wonder why our leadership issues are not improving. That is the same as giving cough medicine to a pneumonia patient. We are treating the symptoms and not treating the disease.
Many people reading this may not be surprised by the results. I have written about standing on stage and asking the same questions on another occasion.
Leadership: 700 People Can’t Be Wrong
But if we are not surprised, why do we keep focusing on the same things in our leadership development reading and training? Why do we think an MBA or a certificate of completion makes someone a better leader?
Maybe it is because many books and many seminar courses will say a leader needs to have character or integrity or some thing similar. The problem is those people rarely tell us how we develop those traits!
The Bottom Line:
People will follow you because of who you are at your core – not because of the things you can do. Your character will determine whether you lead a group of compliant rule followers or a committed and engaged team.
I wanted to let you know we have nailed down a title for our book with our publishers Morgan James Publishing:
Becoming a Leader of Character
6 Habits that Make or Break a Leader at Work and at Home.
My father, General James L. Anderson and I wrote this book to fill the void we see in leadership books and training. We believe we are not doing enough to help leaders develop the character they need to attract committed followers.
This book is our answer. It will be available on Amazon and Barnes and Noble etc later in 2016. Preorders will be available soon.
You may be saying, “Great! I know I need character. I need Courage, Humility and Integrity etc, but how do I develop them?” To help you with that question before the book is out click on the blog title below to read more on how we can develop our character:
The #1 Priority for Leadership Development
Question:
What are you doing to develop your character? Are you focused on what really matters?
As a leader I always tried to be competant at my job whereas to be able to know whioh direction my crew needed to be lead. But I also tried to get to know my crew as for then ability and what may be their driving force.
I say this to say a leader does need to be competent but they also need a bond with the people that they lead for best results. People working together for a common gold.
The willingness of a leader to be selfless and focus on the members of his/her team is a reflection of character. That is why people follow us. Character. Competency is important, but does not create committed followers.
Thanks to the shared article. A few days ago I participated in a training for trainers. I have little experience as a coach and want to improve their skills. But at one point I thought that if I came to this point and I’m with these people probably got something else. In a book I had read about the ethics of nature, which includes: perseverance, patience, integrity, humility, etc. In my life things have happened in reverse order-first I watched my child in a foreign city and then finished formal education. That was the premise may not be able to get a job in finance. Now conduct training in financial literacy and I think that my life experience is much more valuable than what they have learned at university.
Life experience is where we get wisdom from. Universities just provide us with knowledge. Wisdom comes from knowledge applied and then learning from those success and failures.