The Courageous Follower - Standing Up to for Our Leaders, Second Edition

IRA CHALEFF

SECOND EDITION

Copyright 1995, 2003 by Ira Chaleff

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical reviews and certain other noncommercial uses permitted by copyright law. For permission requests, write to the publisher, addressed “Attention: Permissions Coordinator,” at the address below.

Berrett-Koehler Publishers, Inc.

235 Montgomery Street, Suite 650

San Francisco, CA 94104-2916

Tel: [phone] Fax: [phone] www.bkconnection.com

ORDERING INFORMATION

Quantity sales. Special discounts are available on quantity purchases by corporations, associations, and others. For details, contact the “Special Sales Department” at the Berrett-Koehler address above.

Individual sales. Berrett-Koehler publications are available through most bookstores. They can also be ordered direct from Berrett-Koehler: Tel: [phone]; Fax: [phone]; www.bkconnection.com

Orders for college textbook/course adoption use. Please contact Berrett-Koehler: Tel: [phone]; Fax: [phone].

Orders by U.S. trade bookstores and wholesalers. Please contact Publishers Group West, _1700 Fourth Street, Berkeley, CA 94710. Tel: [phone]; Fax [phone].

Berrett-Koehler and the BK logo are registered trademarks of Berrett-Koehler Publishers, Inc.

Production Management: Michael Bass & Associates

Printed in the United States of America

Berrett-Koehler books are printed on long-lasting acid-free paper. When it is available, we choose paper that has been manufactured by environmentally responsible processes. These may include using trees grown in sustainable forests, incorporating recycled paper, minimizing chlorine in bleaching, or recycling the energy produced at the paper mill.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Chaleff, Ira.
The courageous follower: standing up to and for our leaders / Ira Chaleff.—2nd ed.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 1-57675-247-X (alk. paper)
1. Organizational sociology. 2. Organizational behavior. 3. Leadership. 4. Power _ (Social sciences) I. Title.
HM786.C43 2003
302.3’5—dc21
2002034523_CIP

Second Edition

08 07 06 05 04 03 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

Dedication

This book is dedicated to all those who have found themselves formally in the role of a follower and who acted on the courage of their convictions despite strong external pressure and cultural inhibitions against doing so. Most of these acts go unnoticed and unsung. An exception was a pair of courageous acts that occurred during a contemporary military engagement.

The first act was by a United States Army field commander who refused to follow his superior’s repeated orders to fire because he believed the position was occupied by other elements of his own army. He was right, and by refusing to comply saved his fellow soldiers’ lives from “friendly fire.” The second act was by the army officers reviewing the incident. They recognized the commander’s refusal to obey orders as an act of courage, not insubordination, and rewarded it with a medal.

I think that the aim of the perfect courtier is so to win for himself the favor and mind of the prince whom he serves that he may be able to tell him, and always will tell him, the truth about everything he needs to know, without fear or risk of displeasing him; and that when he sees the mind of his prince inclined to a wrong action, he may dare to oppose him and in a gentle manner avail himself of the favor acquired by his good accomplishments, so as to dissuade him of every evil intent and bring him to the path of virtue.

The Book of the Courtier, 1516
Baldesar Castiglione
Contemporary of Niccolo Machiavelli

Acknowledgments

I showed the first thin draft of this book to my friend Steven Bosacker, an astute management thinker and, at the time, a chief of staff to a member of the U.S. Congress. His early encouragement of the work was crucial to my continuing the project. Other early readers who gave both encouragement and desperately needed criticism include Dr. Janet Poley, U.S. Representative Tim Penny, Dr. Jeff Fishel, Dr. Susan Hammond, Frank Gregorsky, Diane Thompson, Sara King, Kirk Stromberg, and my friend and fellow author, Olivia Mellan.

Readers of later drafts provided equally crucial encouragement and feedback: Duncan Campbell, Bill Schmidt, Dr. Jack J. Phillips, Jim Liebig, Major Don Zacherl, Laura Scott, Helen Foster, Frank Basler, Gordon MacKenzie, Prudence Goforth, General Walter Ulmer, and my friend who has seen me through good times and bad times as a leader and follower, Ron Hopkins. I am particularly thankful to Jim Liebig for challenging a key weakness in the manuscript so I could correct it, and to Bill Schmidt for urging me to emphasize “the common purpose” as the center of the leader-follower relationship.

Primary thanks for timely and substantive help on the second edition goes to Gene Dixon who, as of this writing, is completing his dissertation on followership at the University of Alabama. I am particularly indebted to Gene for suggesting that my original model of courageous followership would be enhanced by expanding “The Courage to Leave” into “The Courage to Take Moral Action,” as I have now done. I also relied heavily on Gene’s detailed feedback on the new chapter, “The Courage to Listen to Followers.” I also wish to thank others who provided peer review of this chapter, including Ralph Bates, Brent Uken, and, once again, Steven Bosacker.

I will reiterate in this edition my thanks for the years of support and encouragement I have received in a variety of ways from my colleagues at The Institute for Business Technology and the Congressional Management Foundation. I am pleased to now add to this list my colleagues at Executive Coaching & Consulting Associates who display so many of the attributes of courageous followership. And completing my immediate professional circle, I wish to acknowledge Georgetown University’s Leadership Development Program and Center for Professional Development for embracing the importance of courageous followership.

I am especially grateful to the good people at Berrett-Koehler who have partnered with me on this journey. Two Berrett-Koehler principals deserve special acknowledgment. Pat Andersen has been a tireless champion of this project from the moment she encountered it, and her enthusiasm has kept wind beneath my wings. Steven Piersanti recognized the importance of this work in its rough, early stages and guided me in bringing out its full potential in both editions. It was my belief, and remains so, that he collaborates with the angels to do his work.

About the Author

I came to Washington, D.C., in 1982, another in the never-ending chain of those who see this city as a vehicle for making a difference, large or small. I joined the staff of the Congressional Management Foundation (cmfweb.org), a nonprofit group that studies management in the U.S. Congress and offers training and consulting to improve existing practices, and subsequently became its executive director. While the public view of Congress is not generally high, there are many dedicated individuals in the institution who are trying to get the work of Congress done. I learned a lot about leader-follower relations from this experience and continue to serve as chairman of the foundation’s board of directors. Occasionally, I get to apply this experience in helping legislators from other countries who are interested in strengthening the legislative branch of government in emerging democracies.

In 1987, I teamed up with Kerry Gleeson, the founder of the Institute for Business Technology (ww.ibt-pep.com), to open the U.S. branch of this international training and consulting organization. The company has a special niche—improving white-collar productivity at the level of the individual and small work group within the organization. We have a simple but powerful methodology that uses a personalized, on-the-job coaching approach to help participants gain better control of their daunting workloads. This gives me the opportunity to work closely with hundreds of leaders and followers as they struggle with the practical elements of getting their jobs done in complex organizational settings.

The majority of my work currently is conducted through a consortium I founded in 1998 called Executive Coaching & Consulting Associates (www.exe-coach.com). This hand-picked group of diverse, highly talented men and women are a wonderful team of colleagues who continually learn from each other. We provide executive coaching and organization development services singly, in pairs, or in teams, matching our complementary talents to specific client needs. Many of the issues explored in this book come to life in coaching individual executives and management teams.

Since the publication of the first edition of The Courageous Follower, there has been a steady request for workshops on the topic. In response, I have developed half-day, full-day, and multiple-day formats. I am now contemplating teaming with other authors, educators, and trainers to form an interest group to advance the awareness and practice of exemplary followership.

For those who prefer a do-it-yourself approach to improving the quality of followership in your organizations, I recommend the video and trainer’s guide Courageous Followers, Courageous Leaders: New Relationships for Changing Times by CRM films (www.crmlearning.com). This award-winning video is based on the Courageous Follower model and can be used as a catalyst for team dialogue on leader-follower relations in many settings.

If you wish to contact me in any of these roles, please do so through the relevant Website or through Berrett-Koehler publications (www.bkconnection.com).