Innovating Leadership:
Co-Creating Our Future

Resources:

Ira’s book, To Stop a Tyrant, is available now on Amazon in hardback at  https://amzn.to/3W5XDys and on Kindle at https://amzn.to/420Zvwc. An audiobook edition is on Audible.com as well.

Our host Maureen Metcalf posts a newsletter every week on LinkedIn. You can subscribe here.

Maureen’s latest book is Innovative Leadership & Followership in the Age of AI. You’ll find details about it at https://bit.ly/LeaderInAI, or check out the Kindle version at https://amzn.to/44buVz8. The audiobook version is now available at  https://amzn.to/4dTCleZ.

Her other 10 books are available on Amazon here.

Learn more from Ira’s in-depth knowledge of followership in these past episodes:

– How Five Types of Followers Make (or Brake) a Toxic Leader

– The Dance Between Leadership & Followership – Margaret Heffernan joins Ira

– Courageous Followership – Neil Grunberg joins Ira

Guest(s):

Guest(s) Bio:

Ira Chaleff is an author, speaker, and innovative thinker specializing in the dynamics between leaders and followers. He serves as chairman emeritus of the nonpartisan Congressional Management Foundation in Washington, D.C., an organization dedicated to enhancing communication between constituents and their elected representatives.

Chaleff’s groundbreaking work, The Courageous Follower: Standing Up to and for Our Leaders, has been published in multiple languages and is utilized globally across educational, corporate, government, and military institutions. He co-edited The Art of Followership: How Great Followers Create Great Leaders and Organizations, part of the esteemed Warren Bennis Leadership Series. His book Intelligent Disobedience: Doing Right When What You’re Told to Do Is Wrong explores the roots of obedience and provides guidance on resisting inappropriate orders to achieve ethical outcomes.

As the founder of the Followership Learning Community within the International Leadership Association, Chaleff has been recognized as one of the 100 “Best Minds on Leadership” by Leadership Excellence magazine. He has served on the board of the International Leadership Association and was a visiting leadership scholar at Churchill College, University of Cambridge, England. His ideas on leadership and followership have influenced cultures within the U.S. military, civilian agencies, and international institutions, including the European Union and the British Army.

Chaleff holds a degree in Applied Behavioral Science and is a Board Certified Coach from the Center for Credentialing and Education. He continues to contribute to the global followership community through writing and lecturing from his home in the Blue Ridge Mountains of Virginia.

Transcript
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Maureen: ​ Welcome back to Innovating Leadership Co-Creating Our Future. I am your host, Maureen Metcalf, CEO of the Innovative Leadership Institute, where we help leaders be future ready. Today we’re diving into a powerful exploration of leadership authority and the courage it takes to resist abuse from within the system. guest is Ira Iff, whose work has long pushed the boundaries of what it means to be a responsible follower. His book and newly released audio book to stop a tyrant. The Power of political followers offers timely insight on standing up to abuse of power. Whether you’re leading, supporting, [00:01:00] resisting, or re-imagining change, this conversation will provide significant insight to you. So Ira, it’s been a few months since we spoke and the world’s undergone significant changes even in these few months. So let’s revisit. What prompted you to write the book and how do those motivations reflect the changes leaders and followers are facing today?

Ira: Well, first, Maureen, I love the introduction. You really framed this well, so thank you very much for having me back again. It’s always a pleasure to be in conversation with you because we’re both very curious about the world and how we might make it better, so you’re absolutely right. Of course, when we last spoke.

In the US for sure. There’s been a major change as when we spoke. The election had just occurred and we [00:02:00] have since had the, obviously the inauguration. Of a new presidential administration, one that I must say has been extraordinarily active in ways that we haven’t experienced before. And from a leadership perspective, there is something to say about that energy and activity.

Now what it does, of course, is create huge waves of consequence that, um, those of us who are. Either in support of, or perhaps resisting, as you say, um, need to really work to, to stay abreast of and not just a kind of drown in the inundation of, of movement and, and, and activity. So it’s been an extremely interesting time and it’s a time I think, when we have to be more conscious than ever.

About in, certainly in the US what is our [00:03:00] role as citizens who are political followers in that sense, um, but also in the world because. In tandem with the changes in our country, there have been significant changes and ramifications throughout the world, and as you well know, and as your listeners well know not just in politics but in business, uh, given all of the changes in international trade.

So we have a lot that we can talk about here.

Maureen: Uh, we certainly do, and I’m thinking as you mentioned, international trade. This conversation isn’t necessarily timeless Day by day, we are seeing changes in the trade ecosystem and hopefully that evens out during this administration. Whether we like it or not, the markets dislike unpredictability, so hopefully [00:04:00] we, we get to a steady state of that will allow businesses, especially to predict and manage their business.

Ira: Yes, exactly. It’s a very interesting. Time for that reason. As we know, all systems are very complex and even in, you know, Newtonian physics, uh, all actions, uh, generate reactions and we’re seeing that everywhere in multiple dimensions. Those actually have a lot of. For creativity, for change, even for progress.

And they also have a lot of pre, uh, uh, potential for, uh, confusion, a regression, um, and disorder. So we have to stay particularly alert to what is happening at the government leadership level that is affecting the economics of [00:05:00] our, of our country, and those around the world.

Maureen: And I’d like to pose another thing to be aware of, and this is driven by several conversations I’ve had with leaders and followers recently that we are seeing Authoritarian or certainly more assertive leadership behavior in the business sector. So people previously, if we use things like gallops looking at employee engagement, that leaders that were inclusive, more collaborative, are shifting their behaviors to be. Less of those things and employees and followers and leaders, the leaders that are following the more authoritarian executives are struggling with. [00:06:00] What is the appropriate way to respond to this situation? Uh, largely because it’s new.

Ira: Right. Well, we are in a sense looking at a variation of the fundamentals of leader follower dynamics. Essentially, when we are in a follower role, one of our responsibilities is to understand what is the leader trying to achieve that is aligned with the purpose of the organization and how can we best support them.

Achieving that, that that’s the, the fundamental role. At the same time, because all leaders are humans and therefore they all have flaws, we, as we all do, they will have blind spots. They will make misjudgments, they will get overly cocky, and they really require that the people around them be truthful and [00:07:00] say, boss, that’s a bridge too far.

If they may or may not be well received, that’s okay. They, you know, there’s no requirement that the leader absolutely listen to all of the feedback. And yet at the same time, followers have a responsibility that if they see that the actions that the leader is taking are very likely going to be detrimental.

They have to figure out other ways to present their case and get the leader to see, um, the danger there. And often the way you do that. Is to align your feedback with what the leader perceives is their self-interest. And we all have self-interest. So you have to always take into account the mission, the um, the culture and the perceived self-interest.

And then with ethical, um, acuity work out the best [00:08:00] way to make your case. Followership is not easy. It’s a real art. Uh.

Maureen: I, I appreciate that you’re saying that because I’m thinking of lots of situations where if we have a leader who isn’t receptive, person who pays the price for expressing their concern is the follower. The leader gets to keep their job. The follower gets invited to become an alumni in some cases, and so how do we, it seems like there are, it’s a tricky situation and what I’m thinking of specifically is I’m a leader in the organization.

I have a boss who’s a senior executive who, who. May not be living the values of the organization, but they’re also the CEO. The CFO. They are the key decision makers [00:09:00] and I wanna keep my job.

Ira: Okay. I agree that you wanna keep your job possibly even more important. You want to keep your reputation

Maureen: Mm-hmm.

Ira: that if you, uh, do need to part ways in this, uh, company, you still have your reputation in the industry.

Maureen: Mm-hmm.

Ira: You also probably want to keep your, um. Legal liability to a minimum. So there are always a number of different factors to consider when responding to a problematic situation, and both in my earlier books on the courageous follower and intelligent disobedience, as well as in.

My current book to Stop a Tyrant. I offer ways to think about these and to make choices that are not reflexive, but they’re really well thought out. Um, [00:10:00] there’s always risk. There’s no guarantee of outcome, but keeping your own integrity and making sure that the path that you choose to walk is the path that you’re not going to regret 10 or 20 years from now.

Maureen: Which I really appreciate. Um.

Ira: so let’s, let’s take this because, you know, my books all weave together. Um, I started writing about followership about, um, oh four decades ago because I was very concerned historically. About the misuse of power, particularly in governments, but also in corporations. We all know the stories of, uh, malfeasance and they’re very disturbing and a lot of people get hurt.

The leadership industry has done a good job of [00:11:00] naming all of the virtues of good leadership and trying to get people in leadership classes to. Understand those virtues and activate them. It’s done a terrible job of shining the light on the dark side of leadership, the, the side of leadership that’s, you know, based on ego and uh, uh, greed and trauma and power, um, and control, and.

All of these show up at different times in in, in corporations, in governments, in the military, and we rather than just become the effect of that, certainly as we rise within our organization, we have to have the political astuteness to understand how can we. Use our position, our voice, [00:12:00] our acquired power to make a difference in that, not to.

Remove the leader necessarily, but to get their better angels to again, be ascendant and their darker sides to kind of crawl back into the cave from, from which they came. And that’s hard to do as you’ve said, but it’s doable. In my new book, um, I devote a lot of, um, uh, chapter to what I call political.

Acuity political savvy because it’s not simply enough to be right and morally indignant. You have to understand the politics of the people of the group you’re in and learn how to productively. Um, navigate those politics so you can make a difference. So even though my, this current book is focused [00:13:00] very, very roundly on political leadership, it translates very easily to corporate, uh, leadership and followship as well.

Maureen: I think that’s important because I assume many of our listeners are working in corporations. Small businesses, nonprofits, not in the government sector. And unfortunately, people like me can’t just pick up the phone and tell the president we’re unhappy with his current tariffs or something. So I wanna make sure that our conversation is incredibly relevant everyone, not just interesting.

Ira: Yeah, exactly. So, you know, here’s the good news. We are still in a democracy. Again, my book is called To Stop a Tyrant. It is, and, and, and what that means is it doesn’t mean that the president. Is a tyrant. It [00:14:00] means that the president has certain characteristics, which I call proto tyrant that could become.

Tyrannical, if not appropriately checked. And I go into these, you know, definitionally in the book, and I’m not, I’m not, I didn’t write the book because of the current president. I wrote the book because this is, um, endemic to, uh, government leadership throughout history. So what we need to be able to do is to understand what are the ways that we can create a relationship through wherever we are in society.

So, for example, in the business world, as soon as the first, um, exceedingly high tariffs were, were, um, announced, I knew for a fact. Not because I have inside information, [00:15:00] but just because I understand systems that the system was going to react. Farmers were going to say, well, wait a second. You know, look, look, look what you’re doing here.

This is could really ruin us. Oh, by the way, the farm states are really critical to your reelection, uh, you know, to the election of your reelection, of your party holding a majority. Um. I think that’s even happening with immigration. You know, in the United States right now we’re experiencing, I think everyone would agree pretty draconian, uh, responses to our legitimate immigration problem.

But the responses are being particularly draconian and we are starting to see the system react. Well, wait a second. I, you know, I was just reading about the devastating fires in California. Where there’s so much toxic cleanup who’s doing the toxic cleanup? It’s, you know, hundreds of immigrant [00:16:00] workers are out there cl cleaning that up.

Suddenly they’re afraid to come to work. Well, wait a second. Who are the people who, um, are quite muddied who own the, those properties who say, well wait a second, we’ve gotta get them back to work. Uh, the same in the meat processing plants in the. You know, poultry processing plants, et cetera, the system will be elastic and it will, it will tend to give pretty forceful feedback to the political authority.

Now, what we need to do is to make sure that the political authority remains responsive to that in our case. The current president was elected to achieve certain things and has the right to try their way of achieving those things. This is why I’m very clear in my book that my book is nonpartisan. I’m [00:17:00] not saying that the Democratic way is the right way to deal with it or the Republican way.

What I’m saying is that as a country, there are issues that must be dealt with and they must be dealt with. With sufficient intensity and power to actually make a difference, but not so much as to erode our democratic institutions. And that’s the line that we have to learn to walk here at this time in our history.

Maureen: And so Ira, what would that look like to you? As I, I tend to be a bit of a news junkie, so I’m watching a lot of a and. Your focus on preserving democracy, I think is crucial. And also the arc of time that we have had other times in history when had authoritarian [00:18:00] leaders and as we look around the globe, there are also other societies who have had authoritarian leaders and were able to come out of those times with parts of their system strengthened. So as to reduce the probability that that happens again in the near future.

Ira: Yeah, that’s very well said. I, I love the fact that you’re stepping back and taking an historical perspective. What I find is that, um, some of my friends on the progressive side are just, they’re melting down. They think the world is coming to an end. Some of my friends on the, um, I, I don’t even know. I could call it the conservative side, um, but conservative slash MAGA side.

They meltdown saying the deep state is, is ruining our country, we’re gonna cease to exist. [00:19:00]None of that is true, neither of that is true. Um, and you know, we have to understand that, you know, because of the amplifier effect of the media that making, um, sort of outrageous claims on both sides feeds the anxiety of both sides.

And we wind up with a country that is too anxious to think and act rationally. That’s bad. So in in my book, what I’m doing is stepping back and saying, look, this has occurred throughout history. It always feels like this is the worst time. There’s a trick here not to underestimate and become complacent, but not to get so anxious that you actually, um, lose the capacity to think strategically and take strategic action.

So what’s different about my book is that I’m not looking [00:20:00] at what’s. Wrong with the leader so much. I’m looking at how do we as followers, regardless of where we are in the political system, how do we tend to respond? Where in which way are those not functional? How could we do that better and how could we make a positive difference and feel that we can make a positive difference regardless where we are in the political system.

Maureen: So Ira, let’s dive into a few of those. You said earlier, aligning the organization’s interest with the better angels of the leader. So you, John Doe are running an organization and this is our mission and that thing you did amplified and this other thing undermined our. Successful accomplishing of our mission, something like that. Can you give a couple either [00:21:00] examples of that and or additional recommendations for our listeners to put into practice?

Ira: So I think we need to define a little bit here. Are we talking about in the, their corporate settings or in the political world? Um, w which, where would you like me to start with that, Maureen?

Maureen: Let’s start with the corporate settings primarily because I assume most of our listeners are not a position to influence either Congress or our president

Ira: Okay. Well, I,

Maureen: Supreme

Ira: will, I will challenge that, that everybody could potentially influence Congress, but let’s get back to that and start, start, start with the, um, with the corporate setting. I, in current [00:22:00] leadership theory, we don’t talk about leaders. We talk about. A relationship between leaders, followers, and context.

Maureen: Mm-hmm.

Ira: Context is very important. The context of a military unit during war is different than the context of a military unit during peace. The context of a corporate, um, situation during expansion is different than it during, uh, contraction of the industry or the company. So the strategies that you use have to be within.

Uh, the context of what is happening, the leaders are going to be under great stress, whether they’re managing, uh, a contraction or an expansion. There’s a lot of stress. How do we help them from wherever we are in the organization? And of course, we may, we may [00:23:00] be five levels below the, the CEO, but um, we certainly can help our direct.

Manager and their their manager. Um, and you can get a, a cascading upward effect of helping people, both through support to manage the stresses and then through truth telling to put the right issues that need examining on the table at the higher levels of the organization where they can be, um, reviewed and dealt with.

Again, in my books, I give so much information on how we can each do it. I’m an executive coach. If I was coaching you. I would be coaching you differently than I would coach someone else because your context would be different. Your position would be different. Um, your own risk factors would, would be different.

So I would have to, [00:24:00] um, be cognizant of all of that and then ask you to view your options within those realities. In my books, I try to do that in terms of, um, a, a little bit more. Globally in terms of if you’re in the middle of the organization, here’s what it’ll tend to look like. Here’s what your options will tend to be.

If you’re at the senior levels, you’re going to have different stresses, different um, expectations, requirements. And even though it seems like you have more power, the or up you go, that isn’t always the case sometimes. Um. You’re more restricted ’cause you’re expected to be loyal no matter what. The same happens in the political system.

So in my book I look at a, to stop a tyrant, I look at the five different levels of citizenship or followership within a governmental system. And on each one [00:25:00] I describe what are the potential. Pitfalls, powers, uh, uh, and, uh, communication channels, strategies. And it’s up to the reader to then identify, well, yeah, that’s me here, and let me think about what I could do differently or more of, or less of.

Um, now that I have a new lens on which to look at that.

Maureen: And so as I’m reading to stop a tyrant, I might read through the lens of I’m a citizen in the country, uh, and if I’m in South Korea, I’m gonna be a citizen in a different country. I can still use this durable framework. But it may look slightly different for me.

Ira: Absolutely. It, it is going to look different culturally, it, it, it always does, but I use quite a few global examples. In to stop a tyrant, um, [00:26:00] because there are so many examples, unfortunately. Um, you know, and, and in some ways, you know, there are more examples globally than there are historically in our country.

But, um, that doesn’t make us immune from. From the potential here as our founding fathers well knew. And you know, that was the whole design of the system they created because they understood that, um, you know, we were trying to free ourselves from, uh, a royal system and we were experimenting with this whole new way of doing things, but.

We were still people and people have certain character dispositions and we could be, again, wooed back to some sort of a, um, authoritarian or even royal model. So, um. This, this [00:27:00] is, this is an age old challenge. What I’ve done in this book is based on my 40 years of experience in Washington DC and working, uh, globally with countries, uh, like Nigeria or Sierra Leone or, uh, with Asian countries.

Um, I have,

Maureen: Okay.

Ira: um, put this into a framework that I think speaks to. Pretty much anyone, and again, I’ve been pristine in not castigating anyone for their political beliefs, but rather getting them to examine the dynamics through which they form their political beliefs and act. Their political beliefs and how they might want to do that differently so that they really get the results out of their leaders that they want, not the results that they didn’t want, which happens too [00:28:00] often in history.

Maureen: I, and so one of the things you mentioned that seems paramount here is understanding how the system operates. So I may be a single. Issue voter, which puts me at risk of making a decision that my elected official may vote like I want on women’s rights, but may then also against my values on several other rights. Uh, and so understanding, and I don’t know that we are teaching. Voters and or leaders often about nuances of how systems operate, especially. One, I may know how my organization fulfills an order. order comes in and how do we turn it to a product or a service bill for it, collect for it. But I may [00:29:00] not understand how I’m situated within my community, within my industry, and at this point globally. We just live in a time where a tariff on. country could ripple through and completely impact my ability to get raw materials.

Ira: Yeah. The truth as I see it, Maureen, is that the systems we’re part of are so complex that actually none of us can fully understand them. I am continuously amazed and somewhat chastened as I learn more and more about how our systems in this country. Work. So I think it’s probably more than we can really realistically ask each of us to fully understand the systems.

What I think we need to do and can [00:30:00] do is go back to the basics. If you have an issue that you are. Strongly for or against. By all means, use the legitimate levers at your, uh, control to speak up for or against that issue. At the same time though. All of us need to understand that the, the fact that you can speak up for your issue is because we are in a democratic, highly complex democratic system in which these basic rights of speech and assembly, um, and media, et cetera, have been guaranteed.

And we have to understand that if those seem threatened. Then what’s even more important than our issue is the system S [00:31:00] integrity itself. And that’s where I’m at at the moment in our, in our political moment here. I believe that, again, politics is always about people. Uh. You know, very energetically fighting for the way they think the country should be and what we should be doing, what we should not be doing.

That’s normal politics. What we have to be, what we are, what we are seeing, and I’m concerned about and because this is the nexus of my book, is that. If you consolidate too much power in one person in one office, then you move down the historical route of how republics and democracies become tyrannies from Greece and Rome onward.

Again. Our founders understood that, and that’s why they went to great pains [00:32:00] to separate, uh, the, the powers between the legislature, the executive, and the judicial. And implicitly through the press, the, you know, the universities, the church, et cetera. I think that that’s where we have to keep our eye on the ball at the moment, um, and to make sure that we are standing up for those institutions in whatever way we can do so.

And again, in my book, you will identify where you are in the system. And what you could potentially do to stand up for the system.

Maureen: And so you referenced the five circles. I assume it’s those five circles that help guide your readers to what is an appropriate and advisable action.

Ira: Yeah, so. It, you know, models are just helpful to, again, hold very complex, uh, [00:33:00]realities in, in a way that we can remember them. So, um, these five circles, there are no real circles are there, but what, what they are is what is your relative proximity to the leader. By that I mean your relative capacity to actually.

Reach the leader directly or indirectly. So the outer circle is the populace. Um, you know, we have a, the potential to. Influence through rallies that we go to or don’t go to. And through the voting, of course, the next circle are activists. And these are those of us who feel so strongly that we put a lot of the rest of our life on hold and we work for or against, uh, issues or, or particular political figures.

And there are traps here and there are. [00:34:00] Powers there that need to be understood, and I’ll go into that. The third circle are the bureaucrats. Now bureaucrats have a bad name in our system, but there is no government without bureaucracy. Um, bureaucracy has to exist for government policies to be implemented.

There can be too much bureaucracy, it can get, um. It, it, it can get too complex. It can get, uh, to the point where it starts to actually make it more difficult to get things done. Sometimes bureaucracy has to be cut down to size. You know, there are all, all those realities, but you have to have a bureaucracy.

And in my experience, I have worked with. Hundreds, if not thousands of individuals who worked for the federal government, who are so smart, so educated, so dedicated, and um, and yet, um, how do they navigate what they consider very perilous times I go into that [00:35:00] insignificant depth. The, um, the fourth circle are what we call elites.

And elites are not just people with a lot of money. Elites are anybody. Who can, um, sort of command the attention of the broader population and of the political leadership? Entertainers are elites, sports figures are elites. Um, uh, high level. Um, not, not every member of Congress is an elite, but some really are, are elite and, um, there are, you know, the people who control the internet or elites and et cetera.

There are serious mistakes that elites can make and have made throughout history, and I go into those in the book and really warn, um. The those who are in fact, elites pay attention because you could inadvertently wind up creating something you did not intend to create. [00:36:00] And lastly, there’s the inner circle.

The people that the leader relies on the most must be rely on. And there’s something to be said that the character. Of the people who most closely surround a leader tell you a lot about the leader and, but that doesn’t mean that just because. You don’t like the characters. That doesn’t mean that they can’t effectively be a check on the leader’s, um, sort of proclivities, but they could also be an enabler and they can suffer serious long-term consequences.

We look at Watergate, the number of people who went to jail because, you know, they enabled, uh, Nixon’s coverup, so. In each of the chapters of the book, I am looking at where are you, what are the danger points? What are the potential PowerPoints, and how can you [00:37:00] do something so you have agency

Maureen: Mm-hmm.

Ira: can make a positive difference and avoid the pitfalls.

Maureen: I, and I can’t resist, but say dynamics between Trump and Musk is an interesting one as

Ira: Extremely interesting,

Maureen: roles each plays.

Ira: extremely interesting. Um, and. Not unpredictable, you know, because when you get, um, and, and, and I’m not gonna just single out Musk and, and Trump, all people who rise to the very, very top of their field have huge egos. It’s extremely rare to have a true servant leader. They exist, they’re very valuable, but it’s rare.

And, you know, e ego dynamics. Probably are important part of a, of a leader’s, um, ability to generate the energy needed [00:38:00] to be a leader. But those clash and, and they’ve clashed again throughout history. How many wars in Europe where, because you know, you know, this king effect, uh, insulted that that King’s wife or the Duke’s daughter or, or you know, or whatever.

And. The consequences are terrible. So what we saw play out with Musk and Trump, and it’s not fully played out yet, um, is an example. And I hope that other elites, um, will read at least the chapters of my book that help them navigate those dynamics.

Maureen: And so I wanna shift now from national politics to corporate politics because I assume while they may have slightly different titles for the circles. Th [00:39:00] there is the rank and file instead of the population there. There are still elites, and depending on the organizational structure and culture, that may or may not be people with money.

It may or may not be family members, board members, or favorites, but the five circles probably hold relatively true.

Ira: Yes, there is an analogy there. Um, what I, what I do in the book is, which would be most relevant to, uh, corporate, uh. Life is, I look at the unspoken rules of hierarchy. Um, for example, it’s almost, it’s almost a, a, a rule that almost no one will break to go above [00:40:00] their boss’s head. And yet, and as I lay out in the book sometimes the worst thing you can do.

Is not go above your boss’s head. Um, but how you do that in a way that does your best to preserve the relationship can actually help make your career instead of break your career. So there are shibboleths that need examining, uh, in the corporate world as well. And I think I do a pretty strong job at that, particularly in the, um, it’s, it’s kind of in the.

Uh, circle on bureaucrats. ’cause all large corporations are to some degree bureaucracies, you see? Um, and therefore I think people will see quite clearly where, where they would fit in in the organizational structure. Small businesses are different, um, and in a sense, in a [00:41:00] small business, um, you’re more likely to be part of the inner circle, even.

Maureen: Mm-hmm.

Ira: Um, and so how you comport yourself there, I think, uh, those chapters would be most relevant to you.

Maureen: Great. Thank you. And, and one thing I wanna point out, and hopefully listeners are hearing this through the conversation, this is absolutely a nonpartisan evaluation of stopping a tyrant. Uh, like you said, the book was already written close to publication when the current election in the US had happened. So wrote it based on a much larger arc of history.

Ira: Yes, I’ve been writing this book almost since childhood. Um, as, as I’ve shared with you in the past, my maternal grandmother. Lost her family in the Holocaust. And I’ve always been, um, [00:42:00] compelled to ask, well, how do we f how is it that leaders can rise and be so destructive and what can we do differently?

And the answer turned out that, um, fo the way we follow needs to be different. And there are many different ways of following some. Quite healthy and some quite unhealthy. And, uh, you know, again, in the book, uh, we look at what does it mean to be a, um, conformist follower. Yeah, you might kind of. You might sort of save your own skin, but you wind up in a sense, allowing the whole organization to go down the wrong path.

Or you could be a coll polluter follower who thinks, wow, this is an opportunity for me to get ahead. And you could wind up supporting unethical behavior. Or you could be a courageous follower who says, you know, this isn’t in the interest of the corporation. Or the people we serve, or ultimately even the leaders of the [00:43:00] organization.

And I’m gonna find politically savvy ways to speak up and try to change this trajectory. And, you know, we all know the, the huge ethical examples of this, um, you know, um, with, uh. Um, banks that, uh, uh, that have, uh, written millions of, uh, accounts that, uh, uh, clients didn’t ask to be opened, or automobile companies that have jiggered the, um, exhaust, uh, mechanisms so that the.

They pass the tests but have 40 times more, the exhaust, uh, than is, is, is, uh, allowed by law. And, and this goes on and on. We, you know, we, this is not a pretty picture and it’s a shame because almost everybody. Who works in organization and government is trying to do [00:44:00] the right thing, but sometimes the systems incentives are set up to encourage the wrong thing.

And once those incentives are set up to do that, and they, there are wrong incentives in politics are wrong, incentives in, in, uh, in the corporate world, um, behavior starts to change in ways that. Uh, can be quite injurious. So the principles of courageous following, how do you do it? Uh, I think are essential for all of us, no matter where we work.

If we work in a school room, uh, a school, a school lunchroom, or a factory floor, or you know, a com, you know, high tech industry. We all have to deal with the pressures that come from, oh, we’re supposed to make this metric. We’re supposed to make that metric. We can’t fail on this one. And, um, and well, it’s okay if you cut a corner and, and the next thing [00:45:00] you know, you know, as we are recording this, we, we, you know, we’ve just experienced a disaster of, of our a hundred lives lost in the floods and.

Texas and you know, the fact that the girls camp were 27 young girls’ lives were lost. Um, you know, that the, the cabin in which they slept, um, it was known to be in a floodplain. And because people didn’t speak up, um,

Maureen: Hmm.

Ira: strenuously enough, it was allowed to go on and on until the disaster and so many people’s lives.

We’ll be tragically affected for, for the rest of their lives. So this applies to all of us, wherever, wherever we are. And, um, I hope that I make a contribution to each of your listeners’ lives and how to avoid those pitfalls and, um, you know, do the best they can within their [00:46:00] contexts.

Maureen: Ira, thank you for ending with such a strong case. Uh, and what I’m taking away from this is leadership and followership is a collective dance when done well, that as the leader I need to. Attend to being attuned to my followers, irrespective of what level I am within the organization and to those to whom I am responsible.

So that may be my board, it may be my executives, it’s also my stakeholders that more of the stakeholder or servant leadership qualities. Will certainly help me avoid some of these pitfalls. And it’s always in the context of the system. So my board has expectations, my owners have expectations.

If I’m [00:47:00] privately held, if I’m publicly a, a government organization, my voters influence. And so I am always doing the calculus as. An astute leader on what are my ethics and what am I being asked to do, and what is the system requiring? Even if my board isn’t asking for something, if I’m publicly held, my stockholders May may have activist investors. So I am as the leader, continually recalibrating. A, and we’re watching leaders exit their roles because they no longer align with the systems in which they’re operating a. And so all of these inform the, the leaders’ actions, reactions, decisions, and [00:48:00] it. Is a paramount for me, a paramount framework, whether I’m looking through the lens of a voter or an activist or someone with more influence in the political sphere and also the corporate sphere.

How do I. Develop a savvy way to navigate through the systems in which I’m working. So thank you, IRA. And how would listeners get a hold of your hard copy book or your audible book?

Ira: Right. Well, um, wherever you get your, uh, well audible will will be un audible and it’s to stop a tyrant. The power of political followers, hard copy of the book are. Available through whatever book sellers you choose to use, [00:49:00] and my website will give you more information. And that’s my name, which I assume you’ll write up somewhere.

Uh, IRA chala author, um.com.

Maureen: Thank you, IRA, and thank you to our listeners for engaging ethically and courageously a time that is interesting in the arc of history.

Ira: Yes. Thank you so much, Maureen.

Maureen: Thank you. And for our listeners, please like us, share us, make comments. Your engagement helps us sustain this show.