When Carlos Alcaraz won Wimbledon recently, Nike came up with an ad “Don’t belong to an Era, Start your own”. Yes, it’s a lovely line, but it also plays up the importance of leading. Campaigns like these that hype up leadership are frequent in the workplace too. We over-emphasise the importance of leaders, which triggers the aspirations of coworkers who think the ultimate glory lies in leadership. This quest for elevation keeps us in the eternal hunt of chasing promotions and negotiating titles at any cost. Any hint of lack of immediate growth opportunities makes us quit for new opportunities elsewhere.

Say, Stay, Strive

What’s keeping you in your current job? Is it the role, the brand, the people around you or the money in it? How many of us are staying or striving in our roles because of the leaders? The danger of stating that openly may sound like you are either a sycophant or incompetent. Hence, we end up saying things like, “The culture here is great, the role is very fulfilling… “. It’s politically correct to state these things vs saying I love working here because the CEO is great or even taking the boss’s name sometimes.

Followers Galore

Corporate and political history is replete with great stories of followers. However, it’s the leaders who are talked about the most. Infosys was founded by NR Narayana Murthy but equally strengthened by the power of another six co-founders who followed him. We all know the genius of Steve Jobs but struggle to remember most names who executed his ideas at Apple or Pixar. Every time a new CEO is appointed, he or she gets a bunch of their trusted ex-colleagues. CEOs know that their followers give life to their vision. But in the narrative of achievements, the followers get a far lesser share of credits, leading to their pursuit of leadership roles elsewhere. It would be interesting to see how many of Infosys’s senior leaders follow their ex-bosses to Cognizant and Tech Mahindra over the next few months.

The Shadow of Following

“At best, you are a shadow of your boss; you are wasting your time here; we all know he is running the show,” said my boss, thereby upsetting my country manager whom he was poaching for another internal role. Generally, strong allegiances are frowned upon in enterprises as they may create biased coteries that may prevent the harnessing of fresh talent and new ideas. It’s true that many of us bring our best due to our leaders, and sometimes it’s difficult to figure out if we work for our leaders or the organisation. However, HR rightfully fears the hangover of cult leadership built within due support from followers. Recent instances of governance failures in some funded start-ups where founders and their reportees colluded for wrong causes highlight the need to break such groupings.

The Carrot of Leadership

“I am happy here — I don’t want to be a CHRO. Why should everyone aspire to be the numero uno?” asked my ex-colleague when I tried to get him for a CHRO role that I was hiring for. I gave him the usual spin around impact and empowerment, sweetened the deal with higher pay, and he eventually joined us. Many of us are wired to sell aspirations; we call it challenging people to expand beyond their own capabilities. We also ridicule people who aren’t feverishly ambitious about their growth.

The high decibel noise created around CEO salaries only fuels the ambitions of others. When will we develop the nerve of telling our team members something like, “Hey, look, you got the talent to be a great individual contributor, don’t aspire to be a leader, you don’t make the cut”? These honest communications are tough, and maybe we tend to believe that people develop over time. So, in the short run, we like to sell hope to most of our team members that they too shall be a leader. By doing so, we buy peace temporarily and permanently lose credibility with them.

The Universal Follower

Irrespective of how high we climb up the corporate ladder, we will continue to be controlled by someone else. How do we make peace with ourselves that without being a titled leader, we can still make a difference? The competitive forces around us will constantly push us to be in pursuit of bigger roles and larger than life titles. We will do to others what others shall do to us that the next best thing is to be the Team Leader, Manager, Vice President, CEO and Founder of Enterprises.

We have even coined cheering adages like ‘Lead, Follow or Get out of the way’. Following is the most challenging school to be in, as leaders take it all!

(Kamal Karanth is co-founder of Xpheno, a specialist staffing firm)