"THE VISION TO SEE PLAYERS FOR WHO THEY CAN BE IN LIGHT OF WHO THEY ARE"
WSA WAY FOLLOWERSHIP
"Do you wish to rise? Begin by descending. Want to build a tower to pierce the clouds? Lay first the foundation of humility." -- Saint Augustine
THE FIRST PRECEPT TO FOLLOWERSHIP FUNDAMENTALS: HUMILITY
- Submitting to this fact - you know very little, and the universe is full of information you have yet to understand.
- This simple concept, is a precept to every Followership Fundamental.
- Yet for those operating in the space that requires supreme confidence, pride, and decidedness, this simple concept is not always easy to behold in times of embattlement.
- Those who will achieve the most for the team, will preside with humility.
FOLLOWERSHIP FUNDAMENTALS, THE WSA TEAMMATE
1. Understand: Works hard to understand the larger picture, the common and shared vision.
2. Recognize: Recognizes by becoming aware to the needs of the larger group
3. Role Fulfillment: Exists to excel inside the provided and needed role.
4. Listens Intently: Attentive and focused with an intensity to learn the plan.
5. Participates in the Plan: Participates in the plan personally and advocates for success of others inside the plan.
6. Believes in the Best: Willing to see the best in the teammates aiming for the same mission.
7. Is Trust Willing: The other side of trust worthy, this is the willingness AND confidence to be vulnerable to trust others.
8. Exercises Empathy for the Leader: Can "step into the shoes" to understand leadership challenges. Gracious follower.
9. Complies without Complicity: Abides and retains the assertion to impact change by challenging when needed.
10. Nurtures the Clan: Advocates and empowers others towards their best, sacrificing own self when needed.
11. Courage to Strengthen the Community: The requirements to defend, protect, and honor the team.
1. Understand: Works hard to understand the larger picture, the common and shared vision.
2. Recognize: Recognizes by becoming aware to the needs of the larger group
3. Role Fulfillment: Exists to excel inside the provided and needed role.
4. Listens Intently: Attentive and focused with an intensity to learn the plan.
5. Participates in the Plan: Participates in the plan personally and advocates for success of others inside the plan.
6. Believes in the Best: Willing to see the best in the teammates aiming for the same mission.
7. Is Trust Willing: The other side of trust worthy, this is the willingness AND confidence to be vulnerable to trust others.
8. Exercises Empathy for the Leader: Can "step into the shoes" to understand leadership challenges. Gracious follower.
9. Complies without Complicity: Abides and retains the assertion to impact change by challenging when needed.
10. Nurtures the Clan: Advocates and empowers others towards their best, sacrificing own self when needed.
11. Courage to Strengthen the Community: The requirements to defend, protect, and honor the team.
“Like a sheep before the slaughter… a lamb silent before the shearers...” The greatest leader we have or will ever know. He was described as such.
FOLLOWERSHIP INFLUENCE ON THE TEAM
Great teams, organizations, and communities are most often built on the strength of the synergy of the multitude. When the group collaborates for a common mission the group's capacity grows exponentially. This requires supreme and sometimes extreme followership.
Strong Followers are the fabric, the key to strong teams, communities, and organizations. Followers influence team dynamics in several ways:
1. Cast aside distractions of individual needs so that focus can be sustained on common goal.
2. Shed light on others, while working in shadows, to advance other's success on behalf of the mission.
3. Rally support of others for the vision cast, to catalyze energy and momentum toward the vision.
4. Fulfill roles of key importance, irrespective of individual desires, to carry out the agreed to calling.
5. Loyally persist to seek the victory, and ultimately carry out the bequest to conquer.
6. Occupy minimal resources, to maximize the resources available and necessary to carry out the cause.
7. Stand by; beside for support, behind to push, in front to shield or pull, their teammates to the destination.
8. Trust fervently the plan laid out, in spite of any agreement or disagreement, to focus on capturing the victory.
Strong Followers are the fabric, the key to strong teams, communities, and organizations. Followers influence team dynamics in several ways:
1. Cast aside distractions of individual needs so that focus can be sustained on common goal.
2. Shed light on others, while working in shadows, to advance other's success on behalf of the mission.
3. Rally support of others for the vision cast, to catalyze energy and momentum toward the vision.
4. Fulfill roles of key importance, irrespective of individual desires, to carry out the agreed to calling.
5. Loyally persist to seek the victory, and ultimately carry out the bequest to conquer.
6. Occupy minimal resources, to maximize the resources available and necessary to carry out the cause.
7. Stand by; beside for support, behind to push, in front to shield or pull, their teammates to the destination.
8. Trust fervently the plan laid out, in spite of any agreement or disagreement, to focus on capturing the victory.
Scholars attribute the success of insects to their eusocial behaviors. Insects such as ants, wasps, and bees coordinate within colonies, to create a social structure which demonstrates the pinnacle of "followership". Their "division of labor" and high level of cooperation and coordination has created amongst the most resilient of the entire Animal Kingdom.
"Now this is the Law of the Jungle -- as old and as true as the sky; And the Wolf that shall keep it may prosper, but the Wolf that shall break it must die. For the strength of the Pack is the Wolf, and the strength of the Wolf is the Pack."
FOLLOWERSHIP INFLUENCE on LEADERSHIP
She who can follow will lead more richly.
He who can lead because he can follow will lead more completely.
She who can follow will bring forth the best in other’s leadership, which serves the common good.
Following, serving, and submitting are skills that spring forth from a man’s humility, and thus bring forth the best parts of the strengths of man. It is then that he can conquer. It is then that if required he can lead, or if required follow. It is the capacity to do both that renders the greatest possibilities for humankind.
He who can lead because he can follow will lead more completely.
She who can follow will bring forth the best in other’s leadership, which serves the common good.
Following, serving, and submitting are skills that spring forth from a man’s humility, and thus bring forth the best parts of the strengths of man. It is then that he can conquer. It is then that if required he can lead, or if required follow. It is the capacity to do both that renders the greatest possibilities for humankind.
“As they were walking along the road, a man said to Jesus, “I will follow you wherever you go.”
Luke 9:57
Luke 9:57
WSA FOLLOWERSHIP CONVICTION: Where we go one... we go all.
At a WSA Team Building Camp circa 2007, the WSA '93 and '89 girls elected to embrace one of the camps slogans as a club mantra: WHERE WE GO ONE...
WE GO ALL. Stolen from the 1996 movie "White Squall", the ladies designed a decorative door sign for their cabin at the team building camp. And, thus began a tradition within their space as club builders. This rally call and battle cry resided in corridors of the girls program for years, and soon came to represent the Club's history, and fabric, of WHO WE ARE and WHO WE ARE ALWAYS BECOMING. "WHERE WE GO ONE... WE GO ALL." is a bold proclamation of Followership and Abidance to the TEAM'S COLLECTIVE VISION, and the COMMUNITY. |