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As a speaker and consultant I meet a lot of new people over the course of a year. Every single one of them is different but the start of our conversations is always the same. There are only two questions people ever ask me when we first meet. Unless we are in France, or a French speaking country, the first question is normally how do you pronounce your name? If youre interested its like go be yo. I sometimes wish it was go be you to enable me to play on that theme as part of my leadership development practice, but my forbearers did not anticipate my chosen career so I missed out on the u. The second question normally comes after they have found out what I do for a living. At that stage, what most people really want to know is what do great leaders do? I dont blame them. I have devoted the last 15 years of my life trying to find out the answer. However, in that search, I have also realised that it is the wrong question. There is a question that comes before what do great leaders do and that is whats a leader? The answer is simple; someone who is followed. This being the case, the most important person in the equation is the follower. A great leader is someone who manages to have a great many followers, prepared to give up some of their freedom to act, in search of something greater than they can achieve alone. When looked at it in that way, forget what do great leaders do?; the key question becomes what do great followers want? With that question we can explain why seemingly different people become great leaders. We no longer have to hope we can be like somebody but rather can feel free to explore what we are like when we are at our best. Development stops being about aping someone else and starts becoming about being a better, more skilled version of ourselves in the service of our followers. When we make the switch from the great leaders to the great followers question we no longer need a model of what we ought to be but rather a set of principles that will help us to find out who we truly can be. Having worked to support others in that search for over a decade there are four things I know to be true.
authentic if you dont understand what makes you tick. To be yourself you have to know yourself and what you stand for.
Thanks for reading this and I hope we meet someday. And when we do, dont worry about the go be yo, Emmanuel will do just fine, and if you struggle with that one, blame my parents and just call me E.