Leadership and Followership

 In this term, we mainly focused on leadership. We learned so much about what qualities leaders need, from Ken, guest lecturers, and also Shackleton. I, however, think leadership is not all about teams. Not only leaders require special skills or abilities and not only leaders would determine what kind of teams they will have, but followers are also important. Leaders tend to be praised in the team, but active followers are the one who enables the leader to start movements, which are going to praised in the future. This idea of mine came from one TED video, and this is one of my favorites. I hope you enjoy!

- "How to Start a Movement" by Derek Sivers

It demonstrates how the first follower is important. Since I had never been thinking about the influence of the first follower until I watched this video, I was very convinced by what he says. Leaders, indeed, need followers to be leaders, and the first follower is the one who gives opportunities for them to be leaders. In many cases in Japan and also all the other countries, it is almost impossible to be a leader of an organization from the beginning. I mean, many people starts from new employees, or lower positions and as they get promoted, they will be able to be leaders at last. That also means, everyone starts from followers, and what they need at the time, may be what is implied in this video, qualities of followership.

Bye!