Whatever 2020 may have held for you–whether it was more time for reading & reflection, or less–the year has finally ended. However, our journey toward excellence in our followership and our contributions continues on.
In case you missed something that might be a help to you, here’s the busiest posts and free downloads on our site in the past year. Continue reading “Top Clicks of 2020”
We’ll continue our exploration of various implementations of servant leadership begun in the previous post, where we examined “serve while leading” and “lead while serving.”
Whereas the notion of ‘while’ indicated somewhat parallel notions and activities of service and leadership operating within one’s role, the reality we explored is that more often they meld or mask one another and so lose their respective strengths, and responsibilities.
In this post, we’ll explore the more impactful dynamic of ‘by’ rather than ‘while.’ Continue reading “Servant ~by~ Leadership”
I was recently interviewed by Ken Gosnell of CEO Experience. Ken asked me a number of questions which touch on some of the most frequent points of confusion and exploration when it comes to followership. Continue reading “Author Interview”
In my personal experience, effective evaluation is one of the more challenging elements of organizational dynamics and ethos.
In the particular non-profit that I’ve served within for the last 13+ years, I would say that evaluation is one of our major weaknesses.
When I previously worked in college education, evaluation and review was commonplace, but it was questionable as to whether the right things were being evaluated in the right ways, and whether the evaluations led to any meaningful improvements. Continue reading “New Free Resource: Leader’s Evaluation of Followership”
As we consider the quality of our followership and our experience of pursuing following with excellence, there are two facets that we certainly can’t ignore as part of our relational dynamic: our personal culture, and the culture(s) of those we work alongside—our peers and our superiors. Continue reading “New Free Resource: Culture Combination Considerations”
Just a reminder that we have a number of free downloads available on a range of personal reflection and group discussion topics. These work especially well as supplemental resources to the Discussion Guide for Teams & Small Groups, but the downloads have been indexed to relevant chapters from the original Embracing Followership book as well.
The full selection of free downloads can be found at: https://embracingfollowership.com/the-book/companion-resources/ Continue reading “Popular Free Downloads”
Personal development and self-awareness are two critical aspects of both our leadership and followership. If we don’t know who we are, who we can become, and make some effort to get there, the quality of our contributions, in any role or under any title, will always be something less than what they could be. Continue reading “New Free Resource: Leadership Self-Evaluation”
One of my favorite activities when working with groups to inspire thinking about leadership and followership is to do some simple brainstorming to consider the various qualities, characteristics, responsibilities, and expectations that we attach to these two different people/roles. And to compare and contrast those lists.
In order to facilitate that, we’ve created a simple worksheet that you can use for your own personal reflection and group dialogue. Continue reading “New Free Resource: Leader-Follower Lists”
If you’ve tracked with this blog over the years, or spent time with the Embracing Followership books, you’ll likely have noticed that there are several significant threads which continually arise as we explore following with excellence.
Relationship and Communication are two of these essential themes. If you flip through the Subject Index at the back of the book, and use the number of page references as one indicator of most significant ideas, do you know which topic comes in as next most important? Continue reading “New Free Resource: Surfacing Expectations”
While blog posts are valuable for presenting ideas and helping to create perspective, ultimately one’s journey of excellent followership and personal growth is best served by having concrete opportunities for growing in self-awareness and then making an effort to “self-revelate”—to share with others (your peers & superiors) who you are, what you value, what you have to offer.
Resources for individual reflection and group conversation are one way to facilitate those occasions for self-discovery and self-disclosure. Continue reading “New Free Resource: Enneagram Profile”
Many of us regularly describe the work of personal development and growth as a “journey.” One thing that’s true of any trip is that it begins somewhere. For a GPS app to be able to plot your route to your destination, it has to be able to determine your current location.
Similarly, as we engage in the work of change and transformation, knowing where we are currently is essential for identifying where we’d like to go, the best course of action to take, the appropriate vehicles to use, as well as some of the challenges that might harass us while we’re trying to get there.
Continue reading “New Free Resource: Followership Self-Evaluation”
At the heart of excellent followership is relationship—with one’s leader and with one’s peers. And at the heart of relationship is communication.
If we’re going to follow well, if we’re going to contribute well, we have participate in—and contribute toward—a positive communication environment.
The challenge comes in that each member of a group will tend to have personal preferences that define what it means for them to engage in a positive, satisfying dialogue. Continue reading “New Free Resource: Satisfying Communication”
