Leadership and Followership: A Dance of Equals

My colleague, Ira Chaleff, an expert on the study of followership, has created a great video to illustrate the importance of leader-follower collaboration and the active role of followership. You can find it on YouTube. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cswrnc1dggg

When sending the url, Ira wrote:

A couple of years ago after returning from Buenos Aires, I took beginning Tango lessons. I was surprised and enthralled to find the teacher, Sharna Fabiano, spending time in every lesson to impress upon us the nature and importance of the follower and leader roles. She had us practice each role, regardless of gender, so we developed an appreciation for what our partner needed from us in our role. Sharna used creative exercises to give us a visceral feel for how to lead or follow, well or poorly. Recently, I invited Sharna to demonstrate the different ways in which the follower role can be done and the resulting positive or negative impact on the leader. To my delight, she enthusiastically agreed to participate in this project.

From this collaboration I have produced a video, "Tango: The Dance of the Leader & Follower," that utilizes the wisdom and grace of Sharna, who is the founder of Tango Mercurio and the Tango Mercurio Community Orchestra in Washington, DC and one of America’s most highly regarded Tango instructors. Through her and her partner Isaac Oboka, we gain new insights into how the partner in the follower role can bring out the creativity of the partner in the leader role. In the final sequence, Sharna demonstrates how a strong follower can steady a leader who has lost balance – something leaders in every sphere of life require at one time or another.

Ira’s website, The Courageous Follower, provides a good listing of articles on empowered followership.  Enjoy!