"Follow Me" Leadership

There was a series of essays done on military leadership. The series was made into a book called “Follow Me” - it is also the way I have heard several people sum up several elite unit’s and army’s leadership “school”.


What a wonderful point. Leadership is about inspiring action in others toward a goal. A huge part of that is behavioral. What better way to think about this, teach this and inspire this than model that behavior and turn to those who are looking to you and say … follow me.


We all want to feel like we are a part of a goal and destination. We all want to know that we are heading somewhere. And we all want to know that we have people in it with us that we can count on and be inspired by their actions.


So whether it is picking up things from the ground, smiling and greeting customers or finding ways to improve your own work we all have ideas and items we know are crucial to our success.


Take a moment and think about what some of these behaviors may be.


Put some time in your day when you are with you people and make sure you show them this behavior – and be proud of it.


Because what you are saying is this:


“What makes us work here isn’t just dependent on you, it isn’t just dependent on me. We are all in this together and I am willing to ‘walk the walk’ with you to make sure we do what we need to do to make our goals a reality. I am not just going to tell you, I will show you. I will do it with you. Here is what we need to do to get better every day. Follow me”


And they will.