To have leadership, you need your first follower.

 

How movements start

Why do some geeks go on to become incredible leaders like Steve Jobs, and other geeks turn out to be bad personalities that people point fingers at?

To understand this, let's take a quick look at how a movement gets started. First, take a look at Derek Seaver's 3-minute video. Here, we first see a geek, followed by one first follower who sympathizes with the geek's behavior, and then a few second followers who follow the geek.

 

The leader's behavior, which initially seems like an act of "bullying," suddenly becomes a "bandwagon" that forms a group, and others rush to join it before it's too late. So, isn't this how we might define leadership? Getting people to embrace following a leader emotionally - that's leadership.

 

Of course, Derek Siver argues that leadership is overrated and emphasizes the importance of the first follower. But I don't think the role of the leader, the person who is willing to be a geek in the first place, can be ignored.

How can you have leadership?

1. Causes and methods of leadership

There are many ways to have leadership. For example, a company's CEO oversees his employees under his position alone. In Korea, the owner of a company often has solid leadership. In addition, there are cases where a person has leadership just by having expertise in a particular field or having an energetic personality.

In this article, we're not going to look at what causes this kind of leadership but rather how it happens and what processes are required to make it happen. The answer is in Derek Siver's TED video above.

2. Two steps to leadership

<Step 1> Take something compelling that someone cares about and show it to them,
<Step 2> Find the first followers to spread the word about it.

Most people are only concerned with <Step 1> - finding their appeal. For example, the head of a company thinks they need to show warmth and respect for their employees, and they want to cultivate their insights to help shape the company's future. Of course, that's important.

But it's not likely to translate into leadership if you don't take <Step 2>: find your first followers. These first followers aren't just people who follow you. They're people who are moved by your talent and are willing to spread the word about it.

For Steve Jobs, that would have been John Sculley, also the CEO of Pepsi. Steve Jobs is famously quoted as saying, "Do you want to waste the rest of your life selling sugar water, or do you want to change the world with me?" and John Sculley was inspired to move to Apple. 

Who can be a geek's first follower?

When a geek with great talent or idea wants to take leadership, they must find a "first follower." But you can't just go looking for your first follower blindly. There are many criteria, but let's start with "personality." So what kind of person is more likely to be Steve Jobs' John Sculley or the first follower in the video above?

1. Different types of personalities

We all have different types of personalities around us. Some friends are full of ideas and geek out when they're not working, others think about work all day and only network around work, and others are great at picking up on what their bosses are looking for and adapting to it, while still others are competitive and well-spoken.

It's not that these types of friends can't be your first followers, but they're a little less personable. Friends who are full of ideas are often only interested in the ideas themselves and are not good at networking; they are often too proud to admit that someone else is better than they are, and while they may be more aggressive when it comes to survival, they are usually very conservative in their assessment of new ideas.

2. Personalities that favor being the first follower

Some personalities enjoy meeting people. They love going to drinks or get-togethers with their friends and dominating conversations at those events. They already belong to several groups that they feel are right for them and have a presence within them. Geeks must impress these friends with their personalities and turn them into their first followers.

These first followers then go around telling people in their circles that "this geek they found is great," and people who hear that the geek is great to think that the geek is great, and they become followers.

Socialize with people you don't get along with

The reality is that you don't meet people you want to meet. Startup founders meet a lot of different personality types as they build their startups and scale their businesses. Still, we tend to associate with people whose personalities match our own subconsciously. While that's a natural way to build friendships, it's not the way to go when building a business and trying to lead yourself.

 

What are some negative qualities of the right personality to be your first follower?
(1) Relationships: If you have a girlfriend/boyfriend, you're more likely to be the type of person who likes to meet up with friends.
(2) Social life: They are easy to get along with but can be authoritarian sometimes, so they check people's ages when they meet them. They quickly forget most problems and value group-based values such as "justice" and "friendship." They are not good at creating reports, so they often cause harm to others, but they can solve problems by talking to their bosses.

Taking leadership and growing a business can be difficult if you only surround yourself with people you're comfortable talking to. Sometimes, there are people you don't think are a good personality match for you, but you still need to bring them into your organization or maintain a friendship with them outside of work. That's what we're talking about when discussing "first followers." How you find and leverage those people is up to you as a founder.

Now wait a minute, how exactly do you get the type of friends who like to meet people on your side? Of course, there's no absolute answer to this, but there's a lot of research in psychology already. We'll talk about that next time we have a chance.