One of my first gigs as a leader in any kind of form came about ten years ago when I took over a local chapter of a political party. Perhaps took over is a bit of an overstatement as in fact I was the only one out of the 20 or so members who wanted to create some sort of activity. So the regional chapter of the party handed me over the reins, said here you go and crossed their fingers hoping for miracles to happen.
Naturally I first tried calling around to the other members, the so called inactives, yet no one seemed interested in participating in any form of activity. Fast forward three years and the once so inactive local chapter had become full of life, significant participation in both regional and nationwide activities, several members taking part in the party management and a bright future for the now doubled in size local chapter. So what happened in between those seemingly extremes and more importantly what did I learn from it all by the time I stepped down from leading the local chapter? Here are 5 lessons which can hopefully also inspire you in a similar situation or push you to not shying away from creating activity where no one else seemingly wants to do so.
- Sometimes all you really need is just a bit of luck – This is not really a lesson per se, but more to say that as with many things in life luck can sometimes get you out of the most difficult situations. In my case I was lucky that two new members joined, who as myself wanted to create a little activity. Couple that with a friend of mine who showed up to support me and we were live with our first intro meeting.
- Getting off the ground takes hard work – Even though there are a few people who say they will be active you still have to create all the content, the events, handle all the practicalities and make it very easy and interesting for them to be active. Only then you might see that they start getting more involved. I opened my home to the members, I connected with the people inside the party who could make the events attractive and took care of all practicalities.
- You have to be a first mover and lead by example – Much like in this video on leadership lessons from dancing guy you have to be willing to show a little crazy and make some daring moves in order to inspire your followers or just to gain some followers in the first place. Our first national event after we became active (our participation had grown from 1 being myself to 7 the next year) we were going with a Western theme and despite the theme not being truly relevant to the event I still decided to show up in a full sheriff costume with gun and all to show that we were serious about making an impact.
- Start lobbying for your followers at a higher level – In order to really create engagement among your followers you have to be able to create opportunities for them which they wouldn't be able to get a shot at on their own i.e. start lobbying for them with people who have the power to make things happen. After my "performance" as the sheriff I was invited to participate at a higher level in the organization and made sure to create similar opportunities for my members.
- Start building for the future – Last but not least, your tenure in the specific
leadership capacity is usually not forever hence at a certain point you need to start identifying who can take over once you leave. This might not be easy since no matter how excited you managed to make your followers they might just be this excited because you were there to help make it happen. If they suddenly have to take charge of all the things you once did their excitement level might drop and everything sinks back into the swamp of inactiveness. Despite thinking I had built a great pipeline it didn't go exactly as I had hoped however the local chapter still survived and creates results even today.
Leading from scratch whether you are a new or experienced manager is not easy. If you have to create activity or a business in a brownfield market it requires some extra effort from you as the leader and hopefully above lessons will help you on your way.
I invite you to also share your experiences with brownfield leadership or how you managed to turn a difficult situation around using distinct leadership capabilities.