Leadership: How to be a good follower

She hasn't always agreed with her boss,

but she still helps him lead.

We did it. We did it, Joe.

You're going to be the next president of the United States.

He helps run a union

and has many leaders to please.

All leaders have followers.

We will show you what it takes to be a good follower

and why it isn't so different to being a leader.

Kamala Harris – Vice President of the United States:

she has strongly criticised the man she now works for,

President Joe Biden.

She questioned him about racial issues and his past policies.

So, why would he choose her as a deputy?

Why would she follow him?

We did it. We did it, Joe.

You're going be the next president of the United States.

She's very different to the vice president before her.

Mike Pence got a reputation for being a reliable,

quiet supporter of his president.

Was he too quiet?

Kamala Harris is obviously not from the same background as her boss,

but that works for President Biden.

America's race divide was a big issue in 2020,

the year he got elected.

Having Kamala Harris on his team

made him more appealing to ethnic and minority people.

But following him gives her more power, so they both win.

What can we learn from this?

If you think about Kamala Harris' experience –

she's had a lot of experience,

both as a political leader and as a political follower,

and a legal leader and follower –

and if you compare that to somebody like Pence,

it becomes relatively clear, quite quickly,

that her relationship to the President – to Biden –

is different in the sense that she is prepared to support him,

but also to be critical of him, or to make him more cautious,

which is something which Pence has never really done with Trump.

As an experienced politician,

  Kamala Harris is able to be both critical and supportive of Biden.

Why is this important for a president?

Trump really didn't have anybody who followed him

in the sense of being what we might call

some kind of constructive dissenter –

i.e. somebody who was willing to follow,

but at the same time was aware of where the leader was trying to go.

So, I don't think... I think Kamala Harris has got that notion

of being constructive, being a constructive dissenter,

and perhaps Pence is the opposite:

Pence might be regarded as a destructive consenter.

So, he will allow things... he allowed things

to go ahead without dissenting from them,

knowing probably that they were going in the wrong direction.

Kamala Harris is a constructive dissenter:

she is someone who wants to help – be constructive –

but is not afraid to challenge – be a dissenter.

Mike Pence was perhaps the opposite. Was this wrong?

You have some kind of responsibility to ensure –

if you accept the leader's authority as legitimate –

to ensure that that… that the direction travelled is the right direction,

as opposed to – you're going in that direction

because the leader has told you it's the right direction,

because it might not be.

So, followers do have a responsibility to challenge their leaders

if they think they are making a mistake.

Does this make them the best kind of follower?

I think it's probably somebody, who's willing and able

to dissent under certain circumstances,

but under other circumstances is willing to comply.

I mean, you don't want people to dissent all the time,

otherwise we'd never get anything done,

but you need to have some level of dissent,

or some level of resistance, if necessary.

And I think that the difficulty with...

for leaders is trying to accept

that the people that are trying to lead

might not necessarily agree with them.

So leaders, if you want good followers,

you need to listen to them and accept criticism.

How easy is that to do?

I think a lot of this is about trust:

you have to be able to build up the relationship of trust,

so that when followers criticise you,

you're willing to accept it as a useful and truthful criticism,

which is beneficial for the organisation

and not necessarily a personal thing,

or something to do with this poor relationship.

Trust between leaders and followers is key.

If you trust the other person,

whether they are your boss or your employee,

constructive criticism is easier to take.

Andrew Pakes knows about pressuring those in power.

He is deputy secretary general of the Prospect Union in the UK.

Prospect works to improve living and working conditions for its members.

It represents workers from many different professions.

Many lost vital income during the pandemic.

Others found work coming home with them.

Andrew must be alert to his members' concerns

and also work to influence those in power.

Leadership's a really important concept for us as a union.

We're a membership organisation: we describe ourselves as member-led

and so the most important question for us

around leadership starts with members themselves –

and that's their relationship to the work they do.

So, on joining, our members

usually form together with other coworkers

and have what we would call a branch,

which is the local level of organisation.

Andrew Pakes might be one of the union's leaders,

but he follows the concerns of his members.

They have the power.

One of the challenges for us, as a union

that is based on grassroots volunteers and activists,

is how do you aggregate individual local views

alongside 150,000 other members?

And I think that's always a dynamic challenge for us.

We have some traditional mechanisms for doing that, through democracy:

that members form in a branch and they can then debate issues,

pass motions, and those motions can then go up to our conferences,

where branches and members from across the country,

or across industries, come together.

And that's a really important part of our governance.

With so many members, the challenge for Andrew's team

is to ensure everybody is heard.

There are traditional and modern ways of doing that.

So, how does he interact with government?

I think there's a real push and pull with government

about making sure that they are showing the leadership

that our members want them to.

Sometimes we know government is planning for a big issue;

other times, it comes from us listening

and working with our members, you know.

So, we're always – week in, week out –

writing letters to ministers, speaking to officials

and representing the views of our members at those issues.

You know, often power happens when most people don't see it:

it's in day-to-day work.

Andrew and his team are constantly talking with

and putting pressure on government,

and this is often done in ways that are not obvious,

but there are successes.

One of the big things we've learnt from lobbying government

is the job isn't done when ministers make their announcement.

We know from experience

that ministers making an announcement

and delivery of those projects – there's often a big gap.

And our job is to really stay on top of the issue

and make sure we follow through.

Keeping up pressure on government never ends.

Even if they agree to change, Andrew keeps checking in with members

to ensure that those promises are kept.

So, followers have a vital role to play in leadership.

The best followers are those willing

to continuously challenge their leader

and the best leaders are those willing to listen.