the leadership skill no one talks about
A conversation with our Founder, Sean Connolly, on followership, humility, and organisational sustainability
This article is written by Alec Brazier, Manager at Egremont, and explores a leadership insight shared during our recent 25‑year anniversary event. In a moment of reflection, our Founder, Sean Connolly, made an off‑hand comment that captured the essence of a powerful but often overlooked idea: “The hidden power of an inspiring leader is followership.”
Intrigued by the concept, Alec sat down with Sean to discuss it in greater depth. Their conversation below has been edited for brevity.
What interests you about followership?
Well, one thing I’m particularly fascinated by is how the concept of followership exists – like followership itself – sort of in the shadows. It’s subtle, but incredibly powerful. And it takes real skill to do it well. We all know that leader who thrives on their position above others; the ego-driven bully. We all know what that looks like, right? But what we see modelled less frequently is a leader being a follower.
For me, this Taoist quote has been a guiding force behind followership:
“The best leader is one whose existence is barely known by the people. When his work is done, his task completed, he people will all say, ‘We did it ourselves.’” — Tao Te Ching, attributed to Lao-Tzu
Followership is often treated as a lesser state; something passive. But if you think about it, leadership doesn’t actually exist without it. A leader without followers is simply someone on their own.
When you think back to when you founded Egremont twenty-five years ago, how did you understand leadership then?
What I'm going to say is going to sound massively simplistic and too generalised... But at the time, leadership felt closely tied to having a clear vision, and the authority to carry it forward. It was about charisma and decisiveness; the leader as the person who sees the mountain, points at it, and inspires their followers to climb. The leader decided; others executed.
That model reflected the world as it was then. Markets moved more slowly and organisations could afford to plan in long cycles. If you were perceptive and experienced, you could plausibly believe you had a good grasp of what lay ahead.
What happened as the world sped up?
Over time, that belief became harder to sustain. Change accelerated; complexity increased. The idea that one person - or even one group - could reliably see far into the future became less realistic. Leadership began to feel less like an act of foresight and more like an ongoing relationship with uncertainty.
And lately uncertainty has acquired an extra edge. Organisations are under pressure to do more with fewer people. Middle layers get thinned in the name of speed and profitability. Technology amplifies this shift by accelerating coordination through automation, analytics, generative AI, robotics, and new trust architectures. The result is faster decision-making with fewer checks, where movement is constant and progress is harder to judge.
So now, leaders need to be able to listen, and then to pivot quickly based on new information.
How important would you say followership is, to good leadership?
Incredibly important. It’s a leadership principle, and it’s becoming even more important as organisations become more dynamic.
The part that leaders tend to miss is that followership includes the leader’s willingness to relinquish directive power when someone else should carry the baton. If you want people to genuinely follow you, you have to show them you’re capable of following them.
And when the workforce is leaner, there’s less slack in the system; fewer people means fewer buffers. Decisions travel faster, but so do mistakes. In that environment, you can’t afford a leadership model that depends on one voice being right most of the time. Leadership in an organisation is many voices rather than just one.
Leaders fail not because they can’t command; they fail because they can’t be followed well. Supporting this, meta-analyses show that the personality traits and behaviours that make someone a strong follower – including emotional stability, curiosity, sociability, and integrity – are nearly identical to those that predict leadership success, underscoring that followership capabilities are not peripheral but central to effective leadership. (HBR)
What does leadership look like in that kind of organisation?
Listening matters - being curious about other people, about the world around us. But the social part is also structural.
The thing is, leaders need proximity to reality: to what’s happening outside the organisation and to what people inside it are actually experiencing. And that connection can’t be maintained through reports; it depends on trust, and relationships. The leader should become less of a performer and more of a custodian; someone responsible for the conditions in which good judgement can be exercised, by many people, in many directions.
Which conditions matter most?
If you want a practical answer, it’s climate. Leaders often focus on culture when they want to change behaviour. But culture is slow-moving; it reflects deeply held values shaped over a long time. It can take years to shift. Climate is closer to weather: it shows up in everyday organisational choices. Who is invited into meetings, for example. What is discussed, who speaks, who gets promoted or sidelined, which policies are adopted – or not.
Followership grows in a climate of trust. People trust that their ideas will be listened to, even if they’re not always acted upon. And when it’s safe to speak, people will tell you what you need to know before it becomes what you wish you’d known.
Why do organisations still struggle to operate that way?
Power has a distorting effect. Over time, seniority can create distance. Leaders may receive less challenge and less honest feedback. This can develop into hubris; sometimes subtle, sometimes more obvious. And when people feel unable to question those at the top, agreement becomes performative.
That’s how organisations end up surrounded by affirmation rather than insight. It’s also how they end up “knee-jerking”: appointing people into new roles, restructuring the org chart, launching the next initiative, without the disciplined followership that would force everyone to ask: is this actually making us better?
So what’s the “how-to guide” for leaders who want to inspire followership rather than compliance?
I’d start with the question at the heart of it: What is it like to follow me?
If you want a field guide, there are a few practices I’ve seen work across sectors, especially in organisations trying to deliver significant change with fewer layers of management.
a field guide to inspiring followership
Build trust slowly
Trust grows through consistency over time. Leaders build it by doing what they say they will do, acknowledging the limits of their knowledge, and standing behind people who raise uncomfortable truths.Practise transparency
Effective transparency focuses attention on what matters most. It involves sharing information early enough to inform decisions, explaining how choices are made, clarifying which trade-offs are being accepted, and being clear about what evidence might prompt a change of course.Use humility as a working discipline
Humility begins with accurate self-awareness. It allows a leader to acknowledge uncertainty or fallibility while continuing to provide direction and stability.Act with authenticity, especially when it is difficult
Authentic leadership requires emotional range. It calls for empathy alongside resolve, for listening carefully, and for making decisions that may disappoint some people when delay or avoidance would cause greater harm.Listen with intention
Listening improves when it is designed into the organisation. Leaders can create forums where disagreement is actively welcomed, rotate facilitation roles, and establish norms that encourage junior voices to contribute early.Ask questions that keep ego in check
Two questions are particularly valuable. One asks whether someone else might be better placed to lead a given situation; the other how a leader can encourage others to take ownership and follow with intent. They reinforce the idea that authority is shared and conditional – and encourage responsibility throughout the team rather than dependence on permission from above.Replace fear with responsibility
Responsibility flourishes when people feel safe to think and trusted to act. Fear may accelerate action for a moment, but it narrows judgement. Followership strengthens organisations by widening it.
How do advanced technologies change the followership picture?
Technology makes communication easier, but it doesn’t make connection easier. In high-tech work – where teams are distributed, tools are automated, and decisions are mediated through dashboards – trust becomes even more important.
Advanced tech also compresses hierarchies. If automation absorbs routine coordination, organisations can be tempted to run with fewer leaders. That’s not necessarily wrong, but it raises the bar. Fewer leaders means each leader must be better: clearer in judgement, more inspirational in behaviour, more capable of surrendering authority to expertise.
Where does this land for high-performing teams?
High-performing teams are well-interlocked. They share context quickly, they challenge one another, and crucially: they can shift leadership depending on the task.
As organisations cut layers, that interlocking becomes a survival skill. The question is no longer “How do we manage people?” but “How do we help fewer people work better together?” Followership is that hinge. It is what allows a team to move fast without pretending that speed is the same as alignment.
You mentioned “the next twenty-five years.” What do you think the enduring need will be?
The need will be sustainability: not only environmental sustainability, but organisational sustainability. The ability to keep learning, keep adapting, and keep people engaged without burning them out.
Followership supports that kind of sustainability because it spreads cognition across the system. Many minds are better than one.
Any final thoughts?
Just – followership reflects not what people are told to do, but what the organisation makes possible through those who lead it. And people decide whether to follow based on experience rather than instruction. They pay attention to how decisions are made, how disagreement is handled, whether they feel heard, and whether respect is consistent.
Followership grows where people feel able to bring judgement, insight, and full attention to the work. So the question many leaders should ask themselves is simple: What is it like to follow me?