First Follower: Leadership Lessons from Dancing Guy

Official transcript at http://sivers.org/ff
---
If you've learned a lot about leadership and making a movement, then let's watch a movement happen, start to finish, in under 3 minutes, and dissect some lessons:

A leader needs the guts to stand alone and look ridiculous. But what he's doing is so simple, it's almost instructional. This is key. You must be easy to follow!

Now comes the first follower with a crucial role: he publicly shows everyone how to follow. Notice the leader embraces him as an equal, so it's not about the leader anymore - it's about them, plural. Notice he's calling to his friends to join in. It takes guts to be a first follower! You stand out and brave ridicule, yourself. Being a first follower is an under-appreciated form of leadership. The first follower transforms a lone nut into a leader. If the leader is the flint, the first follower is the spark that makes the fire.

The 2nd follower is a turning point: it's proof the first has done well. Now it's not a lone nut, and it's not two nuts. Three is a crowd and a crowd is news.

A movement must be public. Make sure outsiders see more than just the leader. Everyone needs to see the followers, because new followers emulate followers - not the leader.

Now here come 2 more, then 3 more. Now we've got momentum. This is the tipping point! Now we've got a movement!

As more people jump in, it's no longer risky. If they were on the fence before, there's no reason not to join now. They won't be ridiculed, they won't stand out, and they will be part of the in-crowd, if they hurry. Over the next minute you'll see the rest who prefer to be part of the crowd, because eventually they'd be ridiculed for not joining.

And ladies and gentlemen that is how a movement is made! Let's recap what we learned:

If you are a version of the shirtless dancing guy, all alone, remember the importance of nurturing your first few followers as equals, making everything clearly about the movement, not you.

Be public. Be easy to follow!

But the biggest lesson here - did you catch it?

Leadership is over-glorified.

Yes it started with the shirtless guy, and he'll get all the credit, but you saw what really happened:

It was the first follower that transformed a lone nut into a leader.

There is no movement without the first follower.

We're told we all need to be leaders, but that would be really ineffective.

The best way to make a movement, if you really care, is to courageously follow and show others how to follow.

When you find a lone nut doing something great, have the guts to be the first person to stand up and join in.

---
Original video at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GA8z7f7a2Pk

Category:

Education

Tags:

• derek
• sivers
• first
• follower
• dancing
• guy
• leadership
• leader

[LeCutter]

And there are those few of us who don't want to lead or follow but just left alone to do our own thing.

[getatmegamer]

ron paul 2012.

[matt92hun]

I love the commentary.

[beastie246]

thumbs up if you ignored the guy talking and watched the dudes dance

[amosref1]

@dforenkid2 you had me... at "first nut"!

[GouledXD]

This comment has a lot of thumbs up. I should thumbs it up too.

Thus is the way of YouTube comments.

[LeCutter]

Where do you idiotic trolls come from? You're worse than cockroaches. Do the world a favor, go away and die already. You're a waste of space and resources.

[muwiras]

i didnt see the dislikes RED

[dforenkid2]

You had me at "first nut"! :-)

[Aprinsa]

@LeCutter You are a troll. End of story. Don't reply to this message because I am not a troll and don't responses from trolls (or most of YouTube for that matter, since YouTube commentors are pretty much the rudest people on earth).

[top20modernrock]

@haywooodjiblomi you should ask LeCutter for his number. You guys sound like great 69 buddies.

[haywooodjiblomi]

@top20modernrock the attitude that we must divide into one of two classes is what's wrong with the world. that little clip shows a man dancing, followed by others joining him. then they're all dancing. equally. they might have danced on their own, they just happened to do it with him. no great leader, no passive followers.