How do you equip workplace "follower-ship" without turning it into an excuse for toxic leadership?
That question gets teased our in this episode's intergenerational conversation on the Mode/Switch 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 art. And a risky one. 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. Here’s a story he told that, unfortunately, 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, Elan 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 stories he tells to show how good leadership (what he was trying to do as a dad) and active follower-ship (what his self-directed daughter sought to be) are integrally bound up in each other.
And as a social entrepreneur, innovator, nonprofit leader, and CEO (not to mention a rabbi), Elan’s done a lot of leading, as you can see here. He’s also been widely published in The Atlantic, The Guardian, Washington Post, and Religion News Service. He’s spoken here at Calvin at the Festival of Faith & Writing about insights from his co-authored book Picking Up the Pieces: Leadership After Empire (2023, Fortress Press).
This week’s 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 that this week’s guest was a rabbi, I’d be especially remiss if I failed to say Happy Hanukkah!
