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More to Come for Horses and Jockeys!

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Both Books Have Won an Award!

Filed under: Uncategorized — admin @ 9:44 am

What an exciting day! I’ve just been notified that both Be the Horse or the Jockey and Pink Leadership have received Finalists awards in the 2009 Next Generation Indie Book Awards. They were both in the Career category, which I thought might work against their chances of getting an award–competing against myself! Instead, the books took two of the seven awards! I’ve included the press release here–just in case you want to read more about this–like I do!

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Be the Horse or the Jockey and Pink Leadership are 2009 Next Generation Book Award Finalists We are pleased to announce that both of author Jeanne Gulbranson’s books, Be the Horse or the Jockey: 110 Tips and Techniques for Followers…and Leaders (BookSurge) and Pink Leadership: 15 Life Lessons for Female Leaders (BookSurge) are award-winning Finalists in the Career category of the 2009 Next Generation Indie Book Awards^®.

The 2009 Next Generation Indie Book Awards^® was established to recognize and honor the most exceptional independently published books. The awards are presented by Independent Book Publishing Professionals Group (IBPPG), an organization that promotes professional standards in independent book publishing. Members of IBPPG include small and university presses, self-published authors, agents, designers, distributors, printers, and marketing professionals. Be the Horse or the Jockey addresses the often overlooked role of followers and provides both the rationale and inspiration to achieve greatness through the development and refinement of professional followership skills. Using the metaphor of a professional horse race, Gulbranson provides an innovative four-step Followership Process that serves as the framework for the 110 tips and techniques that take the uncertainty out of the next steps for both followers and leaders. Be the Horse or the Jockey has received the attention and endorsement of professionals in the field of leadership and followership development including Ira Chaleff, noted author and leadership expert. Chaleff has written that “…Gulbranson has the eye of an artist. What others see and pass by, she stops and plumbs for meaning until the light bulb flashes and she has extracted new insight to use in her life and to share in entertaining ways with her readers. You will learn much about leaders and followers from this book that you can apply just about anywhere you interact with your fellow human beings. And you will play both roles better from here on out.”

Pink Leadership offers uncommon insight about why more women have not yet assumed more leadership positions and moves swiftly to the practical techniques for overcoming real or perceived barriers to these positions. Both books are written in the personal voice and story-telling style that has become Gulbranson’s trademark. Jeanne Gulbranson has 20 years of international experience in leadership development, business strategy, professional management, and leading transformational change. She is currently a Strategist for CIBER, Inc., an 8,000 employee consulting firm.

Additional information about both of the award-winning books is found on the author’s website: www.jeannegulbranson.com. Both books are available for purchase at www.amazon.com. Contact Jeanne Gulbranson at (702) 283-6235 or jgulbranson3@cox.net for additional information.

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Just “Follow the Leader?”

Filed under: Uncategorized — admin @ 9:13 am

Another comment/question that I received from someone who saw Be the Horse or the Jockey. (I don’t think he had actually read the book when he made the comment, however.)

Yes, I guess people need to know how to follow…but isn’t followership a simple act of following the leader’s directives? Why do we need books on the subject? One line should do it—“Follow the leader.”

My immediate reaction was a (head-shaking) “Wow. That’s really dictatorial—very little respect for the intelligence or contribution of your followers. If this is how you lead, you may not be leading much of anything successfully or for too long. You have an attitude that’s destined for failure!” I’m glad I didn’t actually say that. Instead, I remembered an incident from years ago when I was consulting with corporate executives about the need to manage change acceptance during significant transformational initiatives.

Many years ago (20), the prevailing approach to change management was “Oh, they’re going to change! If they don’t, we’ll line ‘em up against the wall and shoot ‘em. If they want to keep their jobs, they’d better change!” (I’m not making this up—I heard those exact words several times—always delivered publically and emphatically. Each time I heard them, my reaction was less than wonderful. In truth, it was very close to combative.) The long ago event that caused me to re-consider my current not-yet-a-reader’s comment occurred when I had just completed a discussion with a company president and his team of vice-presidents and directors. I had delivered what I thought was a clear message on the need to focus leadership attention on change acceptance and to provide the guidance, environment, education and techniques to overcome resistance to their wide-sweeping changes. Then I heard the “…line ‘em up and shoot ‘em” comment again. (And, once again, I reacted inappropriately.) I barely lived through the rest of the meeting and was preparing to leave the building, when the president (literally) pulled me into a side office, and quietly and hesitantly said, “I really have no idea what you’re talking about. You’re telling me to communicate, to role-model, to counsel for change. I’m a nuts-and-bolts kind of guy, and you’re way up in the thin air with this stuff. What the hell am I supposed to do? Tell me exactly—and I’ll do it.”

That was a significant epiphany for me. My “clear message” spoke to concept and theory and the psychology of change resistance/acceptance. I was fairly eloquent about “why”, but lacking in the “how”. My client was afraid of failing because he hadn’t worked in that “thin air” before. I realized that was the reason I had heard those lines before from other executives, and why I would hear them again—their own fear of failure. I reprimanded myself (silently) for not seeing that before. It was at that point that I began to change my orientation in consulting with executives to include less (personal) frustration and more empathy for their situations, and to provide much more of the “how and what.” (That incident is why Be the Horse or the Jockey has 110 tips and techniques—the how and what.)

Now, here’s my response. Why do we need books/articles/web sites on the subject of followership? Because we (and I include me) have to understand the science and the art of followership much better than we currently do. (If we all really understood and knew how to great followers…there would be many more successful initiatives/teams/companies than there are today.) We have to know why and we have to know what to do. Our understanding and practice will engrain the behaviors in ourselves as followers and leaders that will help develop the others with whom we associate and work, to be great leaders and professional followers. The thin air becomes more breathable when we understand why and how. Jeanne

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I’m a Leader. What’s in This for Me?

Filed under: Uncategorized — admin @ 9:35 am

A question from a reader: I lead over 100 people on a daily basis. Why should I learn about how to be a good follower? What benefit would I get out of studying followership?

What’s in it for you? In a word—success. There are two primary reasons for leaders to learn how to be a good follower. First reason—leaders are also followers some of the time. ALL leaders are also followers some of the time. Reflect on when and how often you are a part of something larger than yourself or your immediate responsibility. How often do you receive your mandates from someone else: a colleague leader, supervisor, board of directors, voters…? (I recommend that you take the Comfort and Value Quiz in Chapter Two of Be the Horse or the Jockey. You may discover some interesting things about yourself.)

If you want to lead well, you must be able to follow well. You don’t want to do just part of your job (the leadership part) well, I assume. Success requires doing it ALL at the highest level of proficiency that you can attain. The subset of this first reason for learning how to follow is that you, as a leader, will want (and need) to role-model the appropriate behavior for your followers. People aren’t born knowing how to be professional followers. Like all other roles in life, achieving success as a follower means knowing what it is and how to do it. Your followership example is a significant part of the education and coaching for your followers.

Second reason—you do not want to be in the marching-toward-failure position of trying to lead people who don’t know how to follow. If you have to depend on a group of people who can’t deliver on the Followership Process (Break Fast, Ride Hard, Make Course Corrections, Stay to the Finish Line), your tenure as a leader could be less-than-wonderful, and short. That’s likely not what you had in mind. It’s a pretty basic premise. Do you want to be a successful Leader and attain your goals? Then build an organization of professional Followers. You worked (and continue to work) hard at being a good leader. It’s to your advantage to focus time and attention to ensure that you have great followers to lead. Jeanne

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Response to Sharon Drury’s Comment

Filed under: Uncategorized — admin @ 12:15 pm

(See the comment from Sharon Drury under Responses to Questions….)

Sharon,

I completely agree that there is currently a challenge in how FOLLOWERS will read and know about what good followership is. I believe that overcoming this significant issue will require time, training and coaching…with an appeal to a normal and natural human tendency to do what is to our advantage. You (and others) charged with educating our leaders need to emphasize the leader/follower duality–as you are obviously doing at Indiana Wesleyan University. The good ones (successful leaders) will “get it”, embrace both roles and model appropriate behavior for their followers. The reinforcement of that education, with training and coaching the leaders on how to be good followers themselves, and how and why to develop others, will likely come from executive consultant/coaches. The successful coaches recognize that to make their clients successful leaders, they need to train and coach them on how to develop good followers. It’s a pretty basic premise. Do you want to be a successful Leader and attain your goals? Then build an organization of professional followers. Poor Leaders = Inadequate Followers = Unsuccessful Leaders = Missing the Desired Outcomes.

How to do this? The way you (and others like Ira Chaleff, and Barbara Kellerman…and me) are doing it by getting the word out that it’s to a leader’s advantage to identify, develop, coach, monitor and encourage professional Followers. And, by supporting the principles of good followership by explaining to Followers why this is good for them, and how to be a great Follower. Jeanne

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Response to 1st Questions about Followers

Filed under: Uncategorized — admin @ 2:17 pm

First in the series of responses to the questions from readers of Be the Horse or the Jockey:

The question(s): · Do you believe that people will really identify themselves as “followers”? Doesn’t everyone aspire to be a leader instead of a follower? Jeanne, why do you think people would say “I want to learn to be a good follower” instead of “I want to be a good leader”?

My response:I don’t believe that most people really (or comfortably) identify themselves as followers. I can count on one hand the number of times I’ve heard “I am (or want to be) a good follower.” The word “follower” is not yet accepted as a designator that conveys a distinctive, valuable or very desirable role. The title of follower still translates to “someone who does what they are told,” or “everyone else who is not leading something,” in the minds of most people. (See Chapter Three: Revel in the Horses and the Jockeys! for a full dissection of why the word “follower” has a less-than-positive appeal.) However, regardless of our instinctive feelings about that term, that’s what we are. That’s what we ALL are, either most of the time or some of the time. We can either deny or ignore the reality of what we are (which is craziness since that means we are denigrating our own value) or we can say “I don’t what to be just Everyone Else. I want to make a significant contribution by being a professional Follower. I want to do it right.” I have great faith in the reasoning power of my fellow human beings and their desire to perform well, and to be successful. As people begin (or continue) to accept the reality that we are all followers, I believe that they will want to be all that they can be—which includes a conscious decision and steady commitment to executing followership well. If people (meaning all of us) don’t identify ourselves as followers, we will not focus on a significant aspect of our lives…and we will likely not be too good at it. It’s time to focus on followership!

My response to the next question in the trilogy. (I’m smiling affectionately and shaking my head with this answer.) No, EVERYONE does not aspire to be a leader instead of…anything. If that were true, there would be millions of very disappointed and defeated people in the world. It is true that MANY people aspire to be leaders. Those that succeed recognize that to be good leaders, they must also be good followers. If they aspire ONLY to leadership, many of them will be sitting on the curb watching the parade of Leader/Followers pass them by. Today’s great leaders are also studying, practicing and developing followership skills. (If I want to win a Tony award for a musical, I’d better learn how to act…and to sing.)

Why would people say “I want to be a good follower”? (I’m leaving the “…instead of…” out of this. The only instead-of that makes sense is “I want to be a good follower instead of not working to succeed at the role I have most of the time.” Who would say that? I hope very few!) What people (well-informed, positioned-for-success people) would/should say is “I want to be a good follower,” or “I want to be a good follower as well as being a good leader.” Success as a leader requires personal success as a follower along with identifying and developing other good followers to lead.

Be sure to check out the Followership Exchange at http://followership2.pbwiki.com; the most robust repository of information for positioned-for-success followers and leaders.

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Questions and Comments from Readers

Filed under: Uncategorized — admin @ 11:49 am

Since Be the Horse or the Jockey was published, I’ve heard from many colleagues, acquaintances, and people who were trolling the Web and found my site or the book on Amazon. The topic of followership seems to elicit “Why?” questions. It appears that many people (primarily leaders) are not yet comfortable with the idea that without professional, high-quality followers, nothing much of any value happens. Some of the questions make me believe there are leaders who may believe that great followers just “come that way”—like Athena who allegedly sprang fully formed from the forehead of Zeus. That would make life easier. However, I’m pretty sure that Athena didn’t just spring forth, and I’m real certain that great followers need to be identified, developed, invigorated, coached and rewarded—just like good leaders. I’ll be responding to the following questions and comments that I’ve received about followership, leadership and Be the Horse or the Jockey in my subsequent postings. Stay tuned!

· Do you believe that people will really identify themselves as “followers”? Doesn’t everyone aspire to be a leader instead of a follower? Jeanne, why do you think people would say “I want to learn to be a good follower” instead of “I want to be a good leader”?

· I lead over 100 people on a daily basis. Why should I learn about how to be a good follower? What benefit would I get out of studying followership?

Yes, I guess people need to know how to follow…but isn’t followership a simple act of following the leader’s directives? Why do we need books on the subject? One line should do it—“Follow the leader.”

· I train and develop leaders—why would my leaders care about this?

· Certainly I agree that to be a good leader, you have to be a good follower. (This ended the very short conversation about followers. My colleague immediately looked away and introduced a different topic.)

· I’m not too sure about your use of the term “Flip-Flopper” (to describe the switch between leading and following). That word has some negative connotations. (Comment from three different leaders/consultants who either live in the Washington DC area or are politically active.)

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Recent Review of Horse or Jockey by Ira Chaleff

Filed under: Uncategorized — admin @ 9:25 am

I just received this review of Be the Horse or the Jockey from Ira Chaleff who is the author of The Courageous Follower (excellent book!), and the President of Executive Coaching & Consulting.

He wrote:

Jeanne Gulbranson has done a marvelous job adding to the small, but steadily growing literature on followership. She takes the reader through a serious and digestible review of the existing literature, and presents her own synthesis that complements and adds value to these pioneering works. Gulbranson has the eye of an artist. What others see and pass by, she stops and plumbs for meaning until the light bulb flashes and she has extracted new insight to use in her life and to share in entertaining ways with her readers. You will learn much about leaders and followers from this book that you can apply just about anywhere you interact with your fellow human beings. And you will play both roles better from here on out.

Ira Chaleff: Author, The Courageous Follower: Standing Up To and For Our Leaders

Co-Editor, The Art of Followership: How Great Followers are Creating Great Leaders and Organizations.

I’m so pleased that he found such value in Horse or Jockey. I’d like to hear from you too!

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Filed under: Uncategorized — admin @ 9:34 am

Wim Post! What a delight it is to hear from you! Yes, I am still “being a leader and…developing others” and now, writing about it. In fact, several of the lessons (for both Leaders and Followers) that you and I experienced and learned together when you were the Director of the Business School in the Netherlands, have found their way into the books! I look forward to renewing our conversations about work, and life, and all other good things. It’s been a long time since we walked the grounds of the Vannenburg Castle together and talked (usually in the rain.) Both Bill and I speak of you often with great affection and respect.

Thank you for letting me know about the link. I’ve found the problem–the url does not include the “www”. I will correct this in another posting.

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Team Members as Professional Followers

Filed under: Uncategorized — admin @ 1:20 pm

What makes the difference between a successful team and a room full of people? Why do many team-building exercises only seem to work well during team training? The team members were able to navigate through the minefields, or climb the ropes, or build a blind square together. Why didn’t those team skills, that the participants identified, agreed-to and worked on, stick in the business environment? I believe the reason is that the team members as INDIVIDUALS do not know the importance and the skill sets required for professional Followers as valued and contributing individuals on that team. If people do not know how to act and respond as professional Followers, then how will they come together, successfully collaborate and follow the team leader to achieve a common purpose and goal? They won’t—at least not readily or easily.

Most of the working world is made up of team members—with many fewer team leaders.Tremendous energy, time and money are spent on developing leaders: that smaller percentage of people who are charged with developing and leading a team to a successful conclusion. To make a team “work”—we need to develop professional Followers: that much larger percentage of people who can, as individuals and as team members, pull together to realize the objectives of their initiative.

What is needed to develop professional Followers…and ensure successful teams? It starts with understanding Followership and “what Followers do.” Besides reading and sharing Be the Horse or the Jockey—(you probably predicted that I’d recommend that!)—there is a new and robust Followership WIKI. The site was started by Ira Chaleff, author of The Courageous Follower, under the auspices of the International Leadership Association. It’s THE site for understanding, developing and supporting Followers! Be sure to check it out! http://followership2.pbwiki.com