Why people don't follow you 🙅‍♂️

leadership Sep 01, 2021

It's simple: if no one follows you, you don't qualify as a leader. And vice versa: the more people follow you, the stronger your influence as a leader.

We've known about the phenomenon of "influencers" not just since social media. Influential leaders have always had a sizable number of "followers." 

Here, however, is something very simple that is relevant to anyone who wants to influence others in any way: it's about influencing others in such a way that they willingly and freely follow you.

If you can do that, you can move the proverbial mountains. 

By the way, this has absolutely nothing to do with obedient following." On the contrary, the more your people critically question and challenge you, the greater your influence - provided you are willing to accept the challenges and deal with the criticism.

Leaders come to me time and again with the question of why people don't follow them enough: "Why aren't they doing what we agreed? Why aren't they implementing things the way I told them to?"

Here are the top three reasons, from my experience, why people don't follow you:
  1. You spread uncertainty. I have covered this in detail elsewhere: Many leaders spread uncertainty to others by being unclear. Clarity in communication is often drastically overestimated. What appears to be clear to you may be completely unclear to others. No one wants to follow someone they don't understand.
  2. Trust is too low. Of course you know this: if you are to follow someone, you must trust the person to some degree. The more trust, the easier the leadership. But what is often ignored: In order to trust yourself fully, you should know yourself as well as possible and be able to assess yourself. This requires actions that are outside the normal work processes.
  3. There is no need. This may come as a bit of a surprise, but if you don't see a good reason to follow another person, you won't. So, if others don't understand the need for your leadership, it will be difficult for you. The good news is that you can consciously create that need.
So, if you reverse these three points, you have a very good chance that other people will be very happy to follow you, which will, in turn, increase your influence. 

Bonus insight: The three levers mentioned above apply just as much in sales if you want to turn as many customers as possible into your fans.

➡️ If you want to specifically increase your influence as a leader and thus your success, contact me or schedule a 15min conversation ➔ right here.

 

 

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