Leaders are Just Really Good Followers

It seems to me from reading all these leadership articles that I have a lot to learn in the aspect of leadership itself. I believe everyone has a different approach to leadership, but the hard part is understanding what kind of leadership to portray in certain instances. From reading and personal experience I believe you must be versatile and very flexible in the leadership world, due to the different personality traits of your followers and the environment in which you work. Also I believe you must know how to follow as much as you know how to lead, maybe even more so on the “following” part.

According to the test results I pretty much bombed the test when it comes to the leadership abilities that are specific to the survey. I had to ask myself does that mean I will be a bad leader? Then I think of all the times that it was my job to lead and I think I guess I did alright. Didn’t I? One of the test stated I scored high in the introvert section of the test. I always knew that I was kind of a loner and kept to myself, but I did that when around new people that I didn’t know that well. If I hung around my lifelong friends then I am more open and relaxed when socializing inside my group. I guess this is considered a trait of introvertism. And I can accept that and I will try and put myself in more situations to where I go out and seek a conversation with a stranger or colleague that I don’t know more personally. I must learn to have a better understanding and stronger people skills and these articles helped me realize I have a lot of work to do in order to be a balanced leader and member of a team.

I read a quote once but I can’t remember from where. It stated “To know where your going, you must know where you have come from”. Most of us were not born into leadership, at least I know I wasn’t. We were born into being a follower. If you take into account the whole nature verses nurture concept, you can see leadership and following in the same aspect. We grow up following whatever guardian raised us from a child to the person we are today. Along the way we learned from our environment around us and continue to grow even today from new experiences and mistakes made. I believe this is where the leadership ability evolves from follower to leader.

There was a lot of information in this module so its hard to pick out any one specific part but a couple things caught my eye and stood out to me. In the “Leadership Do’s and Don’ts” article it states “if your motives are pure then your actions surely reflect that”. And this one “Leadership is goal oriented with followers working towards a common goal”. I never really grasped these two phrases in real life scenarios but now that I look back, I see that I had some good leaders that implemented a lot of the techniques in these articles and probably didn’t even know it. So if I take anything from this class it will be that there is more than one way to be a leader and the most important is to be a good follower so that when you do become a leader you know what it means to be on the other side of that leadership.

Ok so I took the Maslow test and it seems I have not climbed very far up the hierarchy of human needs chart. The only thing I can think is that I have a long way to go in order to get to the top. I actually related to Herzberg's Theory of Motivation and Hygiene a lot more than the Maslow test. The Maslow test seems more basic than Herzberg’s detailed explanation of human behavior. I like how Hertzberg explains how money and the like thereof is not a motivator but it is a mover. Now that I have seen motivation in a new light he makes since to say it is not.

Herzberg’s Hygiene Factors hit close to home with me. In the model it reads that the Hygiene Factors should mirror the Motivators on the model. In the “Needs Theory sq” paragraph it reads “Research has also shown that some individuals like to have some influence over the group as well. So we add status or power, to our list of motivators as we look at the way we can best motivate others.” I have discovered that I may be this power hungry motivator that the book reads. I should not be so controlling in some things at work. We all here have collateral duties and they range from hose testing to small hand tool inventories. We are usually paired up with another person in the fire house and we are supposed to work together in getting all the annual collateral duties done. I tend to over compensate my responsibilities and do not allow the other guys to actually have a say in some things that we are responsible for. I guess now that I look at it I want the job done right but really I just want it done my way. I’m often more motivated at doing these duties than others because I am taking the lead on them but not actually being a leader in the way should be. I have decided to allow the guys I’m assigned collateral duties have their own affiliation in on some of the work. This way they feel like they will be more involved in the decision making process and when recognition comes our way they will feel like they actually got to accomplish a task with their own feedback involved in the process.

I actually fall into more than one category. For example; Psychological needs: I am satisfied in almost all that is required except sometimes I believe I don’t get enough sleep. Then take Social Needs: I have never felt the need to be in a group, to me it just always sort of happens. I know the book states that we could be in various stages at one time or the other and not even be aware of us jumping from one need to the other, but I can actually I am perfectly ok and content when alone for long periods of time. I guess what I am asking and need to find more about is whether or not we can be in one or more tiers at once. If there was something mentioned about this question in the literature or the video’s, then I would hope someone could point me in the right direction.