The Lost Art of Followership: How to consistently produce excellent results that add greater value to all those who helped you produce those results - especially your boss.

By Edward J. Murphy

This book is about Followership.

Followership is your ability to consistently produce excellent results that add greater value to all those who helped
you produce those results - especially your boss.

It’s also one of these ten core competencies of your effectiveness and success in business:

Followership, Delegating, Planning, Organizing, Communicating, Problem-Solving, Awareness, Training, Motivating, and Character-Building.

This book will give you a far better understanding of Followership, its definition, importance, and how to enhance it.
It’s your ability to take direction well, get behind a goal, be part of a team, and deliver what’s expected.

What you may not realize is that of all the core competencies, Followership is the most important competency of your effectiveness and success in business.

If you fail to add value to your boss, follow his instructions, or meet his expectations, you’ll be looking for the door.

As an executive coach for over 20 years, I know what your boss and customers expect.

By learning, using, and sharing these best practices, you’ll be well on your way to becoming the one person who adds the greatest value to the team - making you essential.

Here, you’ll learn how to use the most actionable tactics, techniques, and tools needed to master the Art of Followership.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Edward J. Murphy
• Release date: Jan 29, 2014
• ISBN: 9781311331946

Edward J. Murphy

Ed Murphy considers himself lucky. From age 7, he knew what he wanted to be when he grew up. He wanted to be a Soldier. In 1964, four days after graduating from High School, he joined the US Army and found himself in Basic Training and Advanced Infantry Training at Fort Dix, New Jersey.A year later, Ed became a Cadet at the United States Military Academy at West Point. In 1970, he graduated as a 2d Lieutenant headed to Airborne and Ranger School, then off to Viet Nam for a year.In 1978, Ed returned to West Point to teach Military Science and earned a Master’s Degree from Long Island University in night school. His greatest achievement during his time in the military was helping 1400 soldiers begin their college education during his last two years in West Germany as a Battalion Commander. He wanted to give his soldiers something of real value - something that no one could ever take away. After 23 years as a US Army Officer, from Viet Nam to Desert Storm, he retired in 1993.Ed then decided, with a little help from Anthony Robbins, that his second career would be as an Executive Coach. For the next 21 years, he worked for four of the largest consulting, outplacement and e-cruiting companies in America from Seattle, San Diego, to Kansas City.In 2012, Ed retired a second time and decided to document everything he learned from those he admired and willingly followed over his 50+ years in both the US Military as an Army Officer and Corporate America as an Executive Coach.Since many of them aren’t alive today to tell their stories, he wanted to pay tribute to them before their lessons were lost forever. Thanks to them, he’s collected thousands of small and simple things (tactics, techniques, and tools) that have helped and will continue to help future generations to maximize their true career potential by becoming more effective at work and in life.In 2014, Ed created TheCAREERMaker.com, a site dedicated to providing the best-in-class wisdom, knowledge, and advice on how to maximize your true career potential by teaching three simple things; how to become absolutely essential and irreplaceable to any leader, how to become more effective tomorrow than you are today, and how to find and build the career you were meant to have. His greatest joy comes from helping others avoid or overcome the problems he’s faced during his lifetime.In 2016, with the help of two partners and co-authors Lee O. Lacy and Jason Bowne, he finally completed The Effectiveness Guide, which teaches how to become more effective tomorrow than you are today by consistently producing excellent results; treating others with dignity, respect, and kindness; and helping others to do the same.Today, Ed considers himself fortunate to get to live in Phoenix, AZ, where he enjoys writing, eating sushi, genealogy, and watching movies with family, friends, and his best friend and wife, Diana.

Book preview

INTRODUCTION

"Followership is a discipline of supporting leaders

and helping them to lead well."

- Reverend Paul Beedle

This book is about FOLLOWERSHIP, which you’ll learn about in the next chapter.

However, before continuing, it’s important to understand that this book is just one of a ten volume set of books that constitute a revolutionary new program called LEADERSHIP MADE SIMPLE.

It’s a real-world, Leader Training Program designed to help you achieve the effectiveness and success you deserve by mastering these ten core competencies:

Followership, Delegating, Planning, Organizing, Communicating,

Problem-Solving, Awareness, Training, Motivating,

and Character-Building.

I’m Ed Murphy, the founder of The Effectiveness Institute and the creator of LEADERSHIP MADE SIMPLE. 

This training is for you regardless of your occupation,

position, or level of authority.

My goal is to help you rise above the crowd, to be the best at what you do, and to stand out, rather than just fit in.

For my first career, after graduating from West Point, I served 24 years as a US Army Officer, during two wars, Vietnam, and Desert Storm, traveling all over the world. 

After the military, I spent the next 20+ years as an Executive Coach in Corporate America working with hundreds of business executives, small business owners, and teams, in Seattle, San Diego, Kansas City, and Phoenix.

During my career, I was always searching for why some people are more effective and successful than others. 

As a result, I discovered that the most effective people were able to achieve extraordinary success by:

Consistently producing excellent results.

Adding greater value to all those who helped them produce their results- especially their boss.

Treating all those with whom they worked with respect and kindness, regardless of how they were treated.

Currently, I’m the author of over 30 books and create online video training courses on each of the ten core competencies.

I created this special program from all the best practices I’ve learned from the best and brightest people with whom I served over my 77 years on the planet.

What makes LEADERSHIP MADE SIMPLE so unique is that it provides these three things you won’t find anywhere in academia or corporate America:

First, it gives you the most actionable best practices needed to consistently produce excellent results. 

Second, it teaches the most critical success skills used by the most effective people in their field, which you were never taught in school.

Third, it provides step-by-step instructions for each core competency explaining what should be done, and how to do it, and provides the tools needed to make it happen.

These are all things you can easily learn today and use tomorrow.

I know that as you learn, use, and share what you’ll learn here, you’ll be adding greater value to your boss and team - making you irreplaceable.

Remember, we’re all a work in progress. So, no matter how good you think you are, you can always be better.

Join us and discover why our readers come away saying, "I wish I knew this stuff years ago."

This program is my legacy: to make a difference in some meaningful way to those I must leave behind.

Enjoy the book!

Also, if you feel this information could help someone else, please let them know. If it turns out to make a difference in their life, they’ll be forever grateful to you, as will I.

To your SUCCESS!

Sig 2

Founder of The Effectiveness Institute.

The LEADERSHIP MADE SIMPLE Series of books is available only from Smashwords.com.

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Stop wishing you were better and do something about it today.

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1

THE ART OF

FOLLOWERSHIP

Followership, like leadership, is a role and not a destination.

- Michael McKinney

This book is about Followership.

Followership is your ability to consistently produce

excellent results that add greater value to all those who helped

you produce those results - especially your boss.

It’s also one of these ten core competencies of your effectiveness and success in business:

Followership, Delegating, Planning, Organizing, Communicating, Problem-

Solving, Awareness, Training, Motivating, and Character-Building.

This book will give you a far better understanding of Followership, its definition, importance, and how to enhance it.

It’s your ability to take direction well, get behind a goal, be part of a team, and deliver what’s expected.

What you may not realize is that of all the core competencies, Followership is the most important competency of your effectiveness and success in business.

If you fail to add value to your boss, follow his instructions, or meet his expectations, you’ll be looking for the door.

As an executive coach for over 20 years, I know what your boss and customers expect.

By learning, using, and sharing these best practices, you’ll be well on your way to becoming the one person who adds the greatest value to the team - making you essential.

Here, you’ll learn how to use the most actionable tactics, techniques, and tools needed to master the Art of Followership.

Important Notes:

To make this book more useful for, and actionable by, everyone in the workforce, it’s important to point out that I’ll be using the term boss, throughout this book, instead of leader, manager, or employer. 

I do this because,

We all work for a boss, whoever pays us for our work. 

Even if you’re self-employed, or a small business owner, your boss is your customer, client, guest, or patient; whoever pays you for your services. 

I’ll also be using the terms member or team member instead of worker, employee, or associate to reinforce the power of teamwork.

So, let’s get to work!

Which is more important Leadership or Followership?

Leadership and Followership have always been inextricably linked because one cannot exist without the other.

You can’t be a leader without simultaneously being a follower of someone.

The history of America is replete with examples of people who were wise enough, smart enough, and driven enough to realize their shortcomings. 

This is why they hired the best and the brightest followers they could find to help them become more successful, and rich.

However, in my view, Followership is far more

important than leadership, and here’s why.

Most people don’t want to be or will never be selected as a boss. They’re quite happy working on staff somewhere.

You don’t get to choose your position, title, or level of authority. Your boss does that. Instead, focus your time and energy on becoming the best follower you can be because that’s what your boss expects and pays you to do.

Everyone can be an informal leader exerting considerable influence behind the scenes. And you don’t need power or authority to consistently produce excellent results.

Finally, you’ll never be selected as a leader if you’re a bad follower. And, if you’re ever selected as a leader, you’ll always be a follower of the person who selected you or someone else.

What does it take to become a more effective follower?

To become more effective as a follower, you need to:

Understand your boss's roles, stresses, and responsibilities.

Be thinking one or two steps ahead of your boss to anticipate and see around corners.

Smell out mistakes before they become problems, and catch problems before they become a crisis.

Internalize your boss’s vision, and turn that vision into reality.

Overcome problems and getting things done the right way the first time.

Achieve goals by consistently producing excellent results.

Add greater value to all those who helped you produce those results - especially your boss.

Treat all those with whom you work with respect and kindness, regardless of how they treat you.

That's what gives followers their value - their credibility. 

And this is why it’s always in your best interest to master the Art of Followership.

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2

BY MAKING A

GREATER CONTRIBUTION

It is the men behind who make the man ahead.

- Merle Crowell.

Have you ever tried to figure out what's most important in business, and what’s not?  Especially when there are too many things to do, too few people, and hours in the day, to get it all done.  How can you make a greater contribution, if you don’t know what your company needs most to survive?

To answer this question, we’ll examine citizen-controlled companies and government-controlled organizations, which comprise 90 % of the workforce. 

Let's start with the civilian-controlled companies.

What do Civilian-Controlled Companies need to survive?

These companies include the self-employed, small businesses, and corporations like Microsoft.

As an Executive Coach, I often asked senior executives, What matters most to the survival of your company?  The first answer I normally got was people.  People are an important resource, but not the most important.  Just quit your job and see how quickly you’ll be replaced.

Some folks said technology.  And technology is important but again not the most important.  So, what really matters most to the survival of every civilian-controlled company?

The only folks who don’t struggle with this question are the self-employed and Small Business Owners; these guys get it.  They’ll tell you that the most important thing to their company’s survival is Positive Cash Flow or PCF.

Positive cash flow is when a business’s money

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