2.28.21 | Participative Leadership

As we saw in the wonderfully simple example from Derek Siver’s video First Follower: Leadership Lessons from Dancing Guy, leaders cannot exist without followers - as Sivers puts it - "The first follower transforms a lone nut into a leader". The truth of this statement becomes more evident when looking at the most extreme examples, whether that leadership is for positive or negative causes - on one end of the spectrum, innovators, disrupters, and idealists who have a vision to do something never done before, or something never thought possible. On the other end, dictators, cult leaders, and mafia bosses, who gain followers through charismatic but insincere behavior, intimidation, and actions that benefit the few. Truly none of these leaders could gain the level of authority they have without dedicated followers to enable them to succeed. 

Looking at participative leaders in particular, being a democratic process, the most common example I think of is our American political system. While different leaders and sectors of the system may be more democratic/participative than others, at least in theory, there are examples of each type of participative leadership throughout our system of government. We see consensus employed in the legal system, where juries must agree unanimously. Collective happens with things like ballot measures. Democratic occurs where constituents voice their opinions to their representatives, which in turn gets voiced to the rest of congress up to the president. Autocratic occurs with things like executive orders, which, depending on the particular president, may have varying degrees of influence and input from others down the chain. 

But none of these things could occur without key followers throughout the hierarchy that enable such decisions to be made. Even when some of the more autocratic leaders and decisions are widely unpopular, it’s still followers in strategic positions that can enable them to proceed. There were many such decisions during the Trump presidency, where moves that were decidedly unpopular with the majority of Americans were able to be executed due to enough supporters in strategic positions. The biggest example that comes to mind was the travel ban initiated in early 2017, shortly after Trump took office. Not only was it unpopular among the majority of Americans, but it was also poorly planned (if planned at all), leading to chaos at airports and border crossings throughout the country after it was implemented practically overnight, with seemingly no process or clear communication cascaded on how the new order would be enacted. This is just one of many Trump-era examples of something that never could have been executed without dedicated followers up and down the chain of command. Even lawmakers alone could not enact such a policy without law enforcement and immigration officials further down the line, who had to be willing to implement such an extreme policy in spite of the chaos it created within their areas of jurisdiction. Implementation also heavily relies on loyal judges in strategic locations, who we have seen interpret the law in ways they see fit that may align with a party agenda. The responsibility falls onto citizens as well, who, through either actively voting for certain people and policies, complacency, or lack of engagement altogether, allow such policies to gain strength. At all levels from the top down we can find examples of followers from “sheep” to “yes people” to “pragmatics” that enabled such power structures to remain in spite of unprecedented turbulence. Even “alienated” followers, such as Trump himself prior to his election, show how movements can be built by cultivating a legion of other alienated followers. 

The importance of followers is evident across the political spectrum and throughout organized systems. However, one lesson that can be gleaned from the Trump era is just how fragile systems can be when stress tested to the extreme, and how important followers are in enabling a leader. Structures are only stable to the point that the majority agrees to acknowledge them. Regardless of one’s political leanings, it can be agreed that the lack of cohesion in acknowledging those democratic structures resulted in one of our most turbulent eras as a country.