From: alphaviolet	Date: May 5th, 2008 04:13 pm (UTC)		(Link)

I prefer to follow in most group settings because I don't have the time available that it takes to lead a group. I don't like the word "follower" in this context very much - I prefer "participant" or "group member."

In general, I think it's best for people to lead/participate/etc. according to their interests, abilities and skills. I think that groups that keep "followers" from taking on responsibility are not as healthy as those that give them/us the opportunity to pitch in. I am interested in taking responsibility for things, I just don't have the energy/time to take on a leadership role. And yes, I do think community members deserve respect.

P.S. I don't "serve" any person, but I do see myself as serving the community. I am definitely willing to participate and help out.

	From: ysabetwordsmith	Date: May 6th, 2008 05:40 am (UTC)		(Link)

This is an interesting distinction. What, for you, distinguishes "participation" or "responsibility" from following or leading?

	From: alphaviolet	Date: May 6th, 2008 02:01 pm (UTC)		(Link)

For me, "follower" implies that one is likely to be following without asking questions. Whereas, if one is a "student" of a teacher, or a "community member," one is more likely to ask questions and participate actively.

	From: dulcinbradbury	Date: May 5th, 2008 04:28 pm (UTC)		(Link)

Do you think of yourself as a leader, a follower, or some of both? Why?
Leading is *work* that I don't always want to do, but, I have found myself in that position more than once.

What do you consider the personal qualities of a good follower?
-- Thoughtfulness, commitment

What are some of the skills of a good follower?
-- The ability to listen, the ability to take direction well are very useful. Most importantly? The willingness to *question*. This does *not* mean arguing at every opportunity. It does mean thinking about what's going on.

Can followship be taught or learned, or is it innate?
I believe this is a spectrum, and, I believe it can be learned. If you select a random group of people and give them a task to complete, without fail, a leader will emerge. Whether the person is the most opinionated, most confident, or just most organized, it will happen.
Since many of the qualities that make a good follower also make for a good leader or just a cooperative individual, I believe they can be learned. Some will just take to them more readily than others.

Do followers deserve respect? Why or why not?
Of course they deserve respect. I think there's occasionally frustration when people are what I would consider *blind* followers. That doesn't mean that following is bad. Leadership is stressful and not everyone *wants* to be a leader. Likewise, not everyone *can* be a leader. We'd never get anything done.

How does the wider Pagan community view followers?
I'm pretty outside the wider Pagan community at this point. However, most people find it uncomfortable to step outside of our comfort zones. People who decide to become Pagans are often people who rail against being told to be a follower. Hense the "herding cats" problem. (Using the term "problem" very loosely.)

What does it mean for a follower to bestow their service on a leader?
You raise an interesting question that I have not thought through before. I'll think on this one more and get back to you.

	From: dulcinbradbury	Date: May 5th, 2008 06:08 pm (UTC)		(Link)

I tend to see leadership as having an implicit contract. The difficult part is that people can find themselves leading without having consciously volunteered for it.

So... if a follower "bestows" their service on a leader, to me there's an inherent contract of trust. The leader has the additional hands to accomplish a goal while the follower trusts the leader to be honest in his/her goals, aims and intentions. This is part of the reason that violations of that kind of trust are (and should be) taken so seriously.

	From: ysabetwordsmith	Date: May 6th, 2008 05:35 am (UTC)		(Link)

Your point about trust is very well made! I suspect that's one reason we have such challenges with power dynamics in Pagan culture: many of us have had that trust violated before.

*ponder* There are things that can be done to help people recover from sexual violation. I wonder if anything similar would work with, hm, sociodynamic violation.

	From: ysabetwordsmith	Date: May 6th, 2008 05:39 am (UTC)		(Link)

Oh, that reminds me of a friend's story, all about how people discover whether their personality and talents incline them to be leaders or followers. The framing activity is a wilderness trek, and the students are sorted into groups without appointing a leader. It's up to them to pick one -- or not.

You can imagine how well that goes. It's a very enlightening story, though; I wish it were published so I could point to it.

	From: wyld_dandelyon	Date: May 5th, 2008 05:47 pm (UTC)		(Link)

Do you think of yourself as a leader, a follower, or some of both? Why?
I’ve done both, but mostly go my own way. I think I would be more of a leader if I wasn’t dreadful at remembering names and faces, a skill that I’ve worked at far longer and harder than I ever did things like calculus (which I enjoyed and aced in High School).
Also, I don’t follow rules well unless I understand them, (if I try to follow a rule blindly, whether in math or in personal interactions, I’m bound to come up with some interpretation of the rules nobody else ever thought up, not because I want to, it just happens). And all rules have exceptions, so if I tend to act on my understanding, not on the rule. I suspect this would make me a frustrating follower for some leaders…I try to choose who I work with wisely.

What are some of the skills of a good follower?
I usually think of skills in terms of the tasks, and a good leader should give tasks to followers with the right skills & abilities, or at least with some aptitude and willingness to learn. I guess I’ll have to think more on this. I don’t like the buzz words you usually see, like “team player”.

Can followship be taught or learned, or is it innate?
I would say of course, all skills can be learned (by most people, anyway), but even more than stuff like reading, ‘riting, and ‘rithmetic, you won’t get results unless someone is willing to follow. If someone won’t follow, then no amount of learning the skills will force them to do so. So, I guess it depends on whether you mean “followship” as skills that make one a good follower, once someone has chosen to follow, or whether you mean “willingness to follow”, which comes from one’s personality and convictions.
As to why someone won’t follow, I think that one common reason people find a Pagan religion in our society is that they were hurt in the name of their parents’ religion, often grievously. Being badly hurt by authority figures (even well-meaning ones) does not lend one emotional comfort with authority. I suspect that this means some of us will choose not to follow, but rather will be willing to “ally” with leaders. How much difference this makes, other than semantic, I’m not sure.
I also suspect that because we are willing to accept people who aren’t “just like us” we may have a higher proportion of people who have unusual social challenges because their brains function differently.

Do followers deserve respect? Why or why not?
Of course they do. They’re people.
From a practical standpoint, if you don’t treat them with respect, sooner or later (and in the Pagan community, sooner), they will stop treating you with respect. And people don’t follow people they disrespect, under ordinary circumstances.

How does the wider Pagan community view followers?
There’s some dissonance, I think. So many of us see people who would rather follow the current Christian Evangelical TV Preacher than think for themselves and take responsibility for their own actions and words, that I suspect for many of us, “follower” isn’t a compliment, especially in a religious context. We say things like “he was my teacher” or “I worked with him while he ran the festival”.

What does it mean for a follower to bestow their service on a leader?
Oh, this depends SO much on context. Let’s just say that in, say, running a Pagan festival, the lowest-level worker’s behavior and status is VERY different than privates in the military. (Hmm…the military works hard to make people good followers, but if it would take an equivalent of boot camp to do this, I’d rather herd cats!)

	From: ysabetwordsmith	Date: May 6th, 2008 05:28 am (UTC)		(Link)

It sounds like you're getting into some interesting new territory. One thing I'm hoping this column will do is get people thinking about alternatives. There's more than one way to do things. If what I've said doesn't suit, but helps you think of something that does, then I've done my job. I'm also taking notes so that I'll be able to explore some of the new ideas in more detail.

So, if you don't like the available buzz words, what are some alternatives? (I'm not much of a "team player" either. I have, however worked with wolf pack imagery in rituals.) How does the terminology and framing affect the structure and effects of followship?

Here's another interesting idea: Suppose someone knows that he comes from a background with really crummy power dynamics. Having no good examples, he's not good at following even when the leader is decent and the task reasonable -- and he's not happy about that. Are there things he can do to work on it? Suppose he encounters a small group of Pagans, many of whom have similar issues, but they all want to organize a monthly "Pagan Night Out" for socializing. What could they do to minimize tension and maximize the chance of success?

	From: wyld_dandelyon	Date: May 6th, 2008 02:17 pm (UTC)		(Link)

Here's another interesting idea: Suppose someone knows that he comes from a background with really crummy power dynamics. Having no good examples, he's not good at following even when the leader is decent and the task reasonable -- and he's not happy about that. Are there things he can do to work on it?

Most of the people I've seen trying to do this start by trying to be very formal, with explanations/expectations all very carefully agreed upon between him and the leader he's chosen. They also often try to do it in a very limited setting--a role playing game, their persona in the SCA, or for one limited goal or project. I assume that they then evaluate the results, whether formally or intuitively, but I do see that they need less formal structure eventually.

I don't know if this is a universal way to do it, but at least by strictly defining how they should act, they get a chance to experience something different than what feels "natural" based on past bad experiences.

And if it works poorly, then, well, it was an experiment, or it was the "actions of the character they were playing", and they can distance themselves from the failed expectation and also from other people's concerns that they will repeat that behavior. (At least, so long as they don't repeat that behavior.)

	From: ysabetwordsmith	Date: May 7th, 2008 02:02 am (UTC)		(Link)

That's an excellent description of technique. May I save it for possible book use?

	From: wyld_dandelyon	Date: May 14th, 2008 03:59 pm (UTC)		(Link)

Cleaning out my e-mail, I found this rather belatedly. Sure.

Depending on what I'm managing in the way of writing at the time, and assuming it's non-fiction, I might want some sort of attribution.

	From: ysabetwordsmith	Date: May 14th, 2008 05:00 pm (UTC)		(Link)

It's nonfiction; I'm hoping to collect the Pagan leadership column into a book. If you want attribution, please let me know now how to tag the quote. Unattributed stuff will probably get deleted.

	From: wyld_dandelyon	Date: May 14th, 2008 05:06 pm (UTC)		(Link)

Deirdre M. Murphy. I can understand not wanting to have to track things down later!

	From: ysabetwordsmith	Date: May 14th, 2008 05:10 pm (UTC)		(Link)

Yeah, a year from now it'd be a nuisance trying to find everyone. I'm careful with attributions, so anything I can't track has to get thrown out.

	From: wyld_dandelyon	Date: May 6th, 2008 04:07 pm (UTC)		(Link)

“How does the terminology and framing affect the structure and effects of followship?”

Oh, I think terminology and framing affect everything.

For instance, you can call someone’s firm stick-to-it-ive-ness stubbornness or will power. Which word “you” use almost always depends on whether you approve of the idea or task they are sticking to, or not. But which word you use in their hearing also affects them and your relationship with them.

I also think that choosing a word to use for “follower” that the followers are comfortable with, and if possible, can even take pride in, will improve the outcome.

Also, if like Alphaviolet, people in the group equate “follower” with “unquestioning”, then using some other word would be good if you want your people to think instead of just acting blindly on your words.

But my belief in the power of words is wider-reaching than any of these examples.

Words are magic.

Words affect our feelings and thoughts, and our logical understanding of things, and these in turn affect and direct our actions.

	From: morningdove3202	Date: May 6th, 2008 12:58 am (UTC)		(Link)

I think of myself as a leader in training really, but then again, I'm a leo. I'm not actively pursuing any degree work with my coven, as I'm pregnant, but I'm still paying attention and studying with the "outer court" stuff, and trying to do what I can to help out. I suppose that makes me a follower, at the moment.


Sure followers deserve respect, when typically 80% of the work is done by 10% of the group, any help should be respected and appreciated. And then there are the Leos who would wither and die without being appreciated and acknowledged, you wouldn't want to starve the Leos would you?

I have gotten some flack from solitaries at times. When I was big into Witchschool some solitaries felt that any kind of training was completely unnecessary. They just didn't see the point of taking online correspondence classes. Now that I'm in a RL coven with a RL trad, some people's views range between "she sold out" to "she joined a cult".

When you do consider how independent most NeoPagans are, I feel it's the ultimate complement for anyone in the Pagan community to serve a leader or community. I wouldn't say I serve my HP and HPS, I would say I serve the coven and/or the trad, not a particular leader.

	From: ysabetwordsmith	Date: May 6th, 2008 05:10 am (UTC)		(Link)

You've raised some excellent points here. Yes, a leader in training can be a follower -- indeed, it's tremendously helpful for a leader to have good followship skills too. Nobody is good at everything, so being able to swap off and follow someone else's directions for a particular project is a real asset. That background also helps leaders understand and appreciate their followers.

I'm also intrigued by the idea of following/serving a coven or other group instead of an individual leader. I'll have to jot down that idea for further exploration. What you consider some of the differences between serving an individual leader and serving a group? How did you come to that arrangement?

	From: morningdove3202	Date: May 7th, 2008 09:12 am (UTC)		(Link)

I would say that our leaders, the HPs HPS and even degreed people who aren't in an official leadership role (but are part of that 10% who do 80% of the work) really don't want us followers to view it as following a given leader. The leaders themselves are not about ego trips, they are about building communities. Also, our leadership changes over time, when a given HP or HPS starts a coven, they do so knowing that it will be handed down to coven members that they have trained so that the most experienced HP/HPS can "birth" new covens. So that "cult of personality" that can happen, doesn't so much, because when that coven is ready, the leaders move on.

What's the difference?
If I bring a snack to share to a meeting, I don't just bring it for Jim, my HP, I share it with everyone. When I decorate the ritual space, I'm doing that for everyone. Our coven has been given the responsibility of caring for our Great Circle, which needed a lot of landscaping work when we formed, so we planned work days to remove a few small trees and expand the circle back to it's original size, so we do that not only for our coven, but for the entire trad and the greater pagan community, because that space is also used for trad wide events and public events. It also builds positive connections between other covens because we invite anyone from any of the covens to help, so it's quite bonding and a social event as well.

Bottom line, leaders come and go, but well established communities are what keeps people coming back for more.