Leading Up

Blue Canary: For Cops By a Cop

Leading Up

General William T. Sherman once said "We have good corporals and good sergeants and some good lieutenants and captains, and those are far more important than good generals."

Sherman recognized the importance of leading up.

What is leading up? It’s providing leadership in an organization from a position of lower authority. It’s understanding the role played by various members of an organization and how to properly and effective work within that organization.

This is more commonly referred to as Followership.

Followership at its core is the individual’s willingness to go along with a leader. There willingness to follow. But it is much more than that.

We put tremendous emphasis on leadership. Hell, my entire season 5 is focusing on leadership, but we often forget the importance of the follower. Without followers there are no leaders.

It is said that all leaders are followers, but not all followers are leaders. And that is an interesting thought. The concept behind this is that to be a successful leader, you must know how to follow. Taking that a step further you must realize that every leader has a boss. For example, in the public safety realm, every sergeant must report to a lieutenant. Every lieutenant reports to a captain. Every Chief of Police Reports to a Mayor or City Council and every Sheriff reports to the electorate.

Everybody has a boss.

Being a good follower will provide you with the skills necessary to help you be a good leader.

Now let’s look at the second part of that saying…not all followers are leaders.

Another true statement. Some people are simply not cut out for leadership. They are not wired that way. They can be good followers, but refuse to accept some of the basic principles of leadership. Most people don’t start out as leaders, they start out as followers but as they learn to be good followers they start learning the skills necessary to be leaders and grow.

There are several essential qualities to an exemplary follower and we should always be looking to improve in these areas. Lets take a quick look at those essential qualities.