Management Leaders Turn Attention to Followers

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The Wall Street Journal's online version has a great section called, Lessons in Leadership. There are some good articles and videos on a variety of leadership related topics. I'd encourage you to check it out.

I was recently scanning the section and ran across an archived article from December, 2007. The article, "Management Leaders Turn Attention to Followers," is especially interesting in light of current events. For example, Iran's government rigs an election and then tightens the censorship screws to prevent the truth from flowing in or out of the country. Innovative citizens AND foreigners smash the controls with a tidal wave of information via several social media outlets!

Here's a great quote from the Journal article:

"...companies should look for passionate employees, keep them informed and give them room to carry out useful projects."

Isn't that great? REAMS of information have been developed on the topic of leadership. From my perspective, we're at the point where very little can be said that hasn't already been said. However, most of the leadership teaching has been aimed exclusively at the people in the top layer of organizational charts. Very little attention has been focused on the rest of our team members. Even the Journal article I reference above calls the rest of the team, "followers." I believe that term has an extremely negative connotation. This approach assumes the top tier of the organizational chart is made up of "leaders" and the rest of the chart is comprised of "followers." The tidal wave in Iran should clearly show by now that EVERYONE has the capacity to lead.

How are you being called to exert greater leadership today?