In college, I studied under a theatre director named Ray Gibbs, a former Metropolitan Opera star with a huge and disconcerting laugh. I could never predict what he would say in a given rehearsal.
I’ll never forget the time when an actor got a note from Ray and then replied, “What about doing it this way instead?” Ray watched him, staring like a laser burning through metal, and then said, “You’re not supposed to be able to do this better than I.” And then he laughed his big laugh.
Pretty good leaders become great leaders when their followers can push back, propose new ideas, and speak with candor.
That insight about the relationship between good leadership and great follower-ship emerges in this week’s intergenerational conversation with Rabbi Elan Babchuck. He helps you see that, if you’re frustrated with your workplace leaders, you may need to strengthen your follower-ship by…
sharing brave feedback from other employees on the floor, and
concocting new ideas for needed change (in a process Elan calls Plus-Delta)
communicating the org vision in a way that other followers can hear and share
Being a good follower’s a discerning and risky art. Your leader may be plunging forward toward places you don’t think the org should go! But in any case, there’s a close, close relation between a leader’s ability to forge footsteps and a follower’s ability to speak up and name reality.
Riley Johnston, our Mode/Switch audio and video editor, helps make this podcast a tight half-hour convo. But this week, she had her work cut out for her, because our recording session with Elan was nearly an hour long. So, yep, we had to cut some things. Here’s a story that fell to the editing floor.
The morning of our recording session, Elan had been trying to get his three kids out the door for school. His plan for an on-time arrival was working until his daughter sat down on the floor and announced she was going to tie her own shoes. Elan’s fingers were twitching to do it for her. All he could think was, Must. Get. Child. To. School.
But instead of snatching the laces from his daughter, he pulled himself up short and asked which was better: being on-time to school or empowering his daughter. He went with option B.
That’s just one of the tales Elan tells to show how attentive leadership (what he was trying to do as a dad) and active follower-ship (what his self-directed daughter modeled) are integrally bound up in each other.
As a rabbi, community organizer, social entrepreneur, innovator, nonprofit leader, and CEO, Elan’s done a lot of leading. He’s also been published in The Atlantic, The Guardian, Washington Post, and Religion News Service. He’s spoken here at Calvin University’s Festival of Faith & Writing sharing insights from his co-authored book Picking Up the Pieces: Leadership After Empire (2023, Fortress Press).
His storytelling and insight provoked our team to some soul-searching, as you’ll hear in our Roundtable Wrap-up at the end of the show.
This week’s Mode/Swich team includes Ken the Boomer, David the Xer, Emily the Xennial, and LaShone the millennial. We were delighted to speak with Elan, who’s our first return guest. Check out his earlier appearance here.
The Mode/Switch Team’s on vacation till mid-January. If you celebrate this holiday, we wish you a Merry Christmas. And given this week’s guest, I’d be especially remiss if I failed to say Happy Hanukkah!
P.S. If you’d rather not listen to this in your inbox, check it out on Spotify or Apple.
Christmas Giveaway!
Got some last-minute shopping for that early-to-mid-career professional in your life? Reply to this email with your P.O. address, and (for the first two respondents) I’ll send a free copy of my book, Digital Overwhelm for a stocking near you.
