“The lack of awareness and understanding of followership skills results in many capable people losing their jobs or getting pushed aside.” –Marc Hurwitz
Building leadership skills and developing as a leader is a key focus of individuals seeking improvement and furthering their careers. It’s the focus of many workshops, seminars, and continuing education courses and if you perform a search for books on “leadership” in any search engine, you’ll receive thousands of options. While there is no doubt leadership is a vital trait in a professional, it is very easy to overlook an equally valuable attribute: followership. In simple terms, think of a football team comprised entirely of quarterbacks. Each one is a leader. However, even if everyone is pro-material they’ll still fail on the field of play. A team without strong followers is doomed to failure.
Followership, however, doesn’t mean that you abdicate your authority, responsibility, or power. In fact, the role of follower is linked to improvements of 17% to 43% on many key performance metrics. Survey’s of CEOs across diverse industries reveal that 98.6% say effective followership improves work unit performance and 99% attribute followership to work output quality. Add to these statistics the fact that by 2010 over 80% of work is accomplished in teams. As engineers, that number is likely higher given the fact that we do not work in a vacuum on projects…ever. Teamwork requires a leader and it requires followers. But it also requires members who are able to shift back-and-forth between the role of leader and follower.
In this month’s webinar Chris is going to unpack followership. By the end of the webinar you will be able to:
Define followership and identify the key skills to be an effective follower
Comprehend what the Generative Partnership Model is and how it can help to frame followership and leadership
Summarize day-to-day actions you can take to not only get along with your boss, but build a thriving “co-flow” relationship
Describe actions you can take to work with a bad boss, survive and even thrive
Chris will draw on his own experiences leading and following throughout his 21 year military career as a civil engineer officer and commander, as well as introduce you to the works of Marc & Samantha Hurwitz, John Hoover, and others.
Presenter: Christian Knutson, P.E., PMP is a leader, engineer, coach, and author. He has extensive experience in leadership, project and program management, and engineering earned from a 20-plus year career as a civil engineer field grade officer in the U.S. Air Force. Knutson understood early in his career the importance core skills like communications, relationship development, networking, leadership, followership and goal setting play in creating an effective and fulfilling career and life.
Knutson is co-founder of Engineering Management Institute, which has a goal of inspiring 1,000,000 engineers to design and execute extraordinary careers for professional and personal fulfillment in work and life.
Time: Wednesday, September 16, 2015 at 8:00 pm EDT, 7:00 pm CDT, 6:00 pm MDT, 5:00 pm PDT, 4:00 pm AKDT, 2:00 am CEST
*This webinar is offered for free to ECC members. For information on joining ECC, click here.
