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Business
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Bartleby
巴托比专栏
Dare to follow
敢于追随他人
Almost everyone aspires to lead. But being a good follower matters, too.
几乎所有人都立志成为领导者，但成为一个好的追随者也很重要。
If there is one thing anyone with a job and a pulse needs to learn, it is how to lead.
如果说任何有工作、有脉搏的人都需要学习一件事，那么这件事就是如何领导。
That, at least, is the message from the tsunami of books, courses, videos and podcasts on the topic.
至少，这是关于这一主题的众多书籍、课程、视频和播客传达的信息。
Business schools offer all kinds of leadership training.
商学院提供各种领导力训练课程。
Authors pump out books instructing you to eat last, be daring and take leaps -- which risks stomach ache if nothing else.
作家们大量出书，教导你最后一个吃饭，大胆一点，大踏步前进--这样做就算没有其他作用，也可能会让你胃痛。（注：eat last来自关于领导力的书《团队领导最后吃饭》，意思是领导要优先考虑队员。）
Gurus tell you how to lead without actually being a leader; you might be on the reception desk, but you're really in charge.
大师们告诉你如何不是领导，但胜似领导，你可能只是前台，但你掌握一切。
Missing in all this is an inconvenient fact.
但这些都遗漏了一个令人不快的事实。
Most people in the workforce are not leaders and pretty much everyone reports to someone else.
职场上的大多数人都不是领导，几乎每个人都要向别人汇报工作。
The most useful skill to have in your current job may well be how to be a good follower.
在你目前的工作中，最有用的技能很可能是如何成为一个好的追随者。
That leaders depend on followers might seem blindingly obvious, but the way that people lower down the ladder interact with those above them gets much less attention than the reverse.
领导依赖于追随者似乎是极其显而易见的，但下位者与上位者的互动方式所受到的关注远远不及上位者与下位者互动方式所受到的关注。
A corner of the management literature is devoted to “followership”, but it remains small, for several reasons.
管理学文献中有一隅之地是关于“追随力”的，但出于几个原因，这一方天地依然很小。
The first is that you don't need any advice to achieve the position of follower; you will never be more of one than on the very first day of your very first job.
第一，你不需要任何建议就能成为追随者，在你第一份工作的第一天你比任何时候都更像一个追随者。
The second reason is that, although some people have little desire to be in a position of authority, very few aspire to follow.
第二，虽然有些人不想处于权威地位，但很少有人立志追随他人。
The word itself conjures up a self-abnegating passivity, more ovine than human, more bleater than leader.
“追随”这个词本身让人联想到一种放弃自主性的被动性，相比人类更像绵羊，相比领导更像咩咩叫的胆小鬼。
In an experiment conducted by Colette Hoption of Seattle University and her co-authors, people who were randomly assigned to the role of followers felt unhappier and were less willing to do work at the weekends and early in the morning than those given the label of leaders.
在西雅图大学的科莱特·霍普辛及其合著者进行的一项实验中，被随机分配到追随者角色的人比那些被分到领导者角色的人感觉更不快乐，而且在周末和早晨工作的意愿也更低。
Plenty of companies encourage even their lowliest employees to show initiative at work, but almost none use the language of being a “good follower”.
许多公司鼓励最底层的员工也要在工作中表现出主动性，但几乎没有一家公司会说要成为“好的追随者”。
“We behave like owners,” is how Moderna, a biotech company, urges staff to see themselves as more than cogs in a machine.
“我们要像主人一样行动。”生物科技公司莫德纳敦促员工不要只把自己看作机器中的齿轮时这样说。
NerdWallet, a consumer-finance firm, also counts ownership as one of its values.
个人财务管理公司“书呆子钱包”也将主人翁意识视为其价值观之一。
The third reason why the art of following gets little attention is that most subordinates have much less agency than the people above them.
追随的艺术之所以受关注很少的第三个原因是，大多数下属的主动权比他们的上级少得多。
There is often no choice in whom you report to: senior people are appointed by even more senior people, not given their positions by acclamation.
你向谁汇报工作往往不是由你选择：上级是由更上级的人任命的，而不是通过口头表决获得职位的。
Leaders, not followers, set the tone: even if bosses are not old-school command-and-control types, they mould how everyone beneath them behaves.
领导者，而不是追随者，为工作定调：即使老板不是老派的“命令和控制型”领导，他们也会塑造所有下属的行为方式。
The language of rank and responsibility is hard to avoid; the most independent-minded people will still sometimes shrug and say “That's above my pay grade.”
关于职级和责任的语言很难避免，思想最独立的人有时仍然会耸耸肩说：“这不是我这个工资等级的人该操心的事。”
If such things explain why leadership hogs the limelight, the behaviour of followers is still crucial.
即使这些原因解释了为什么领导会成为聚光灯下的焦点，但追随者的行为仍然至关重要。
Hierarchies can be more fluid than they sometimes look: as teams form and dissolve, you may be running a project one month and contributing the next.
等级结构可能比它们有时看起来的样子更具有流动性：随着团队的形成和解散，你可能在这个月管理一个项目，而在下个月只是为这个项目出力。
Things generally go better when people at every level are engaged in their work and prepared to take on responsibility.
当每个层次的人都投入到工作中并准备承担责任时，事情通常会做得更顺利。
And everyone has some agency, even if they exercise it only to take or ignore a call from the boss.
而且每个人都有一些主动权，即使他们只是在接听还是忽视老板的电话时才行使主动权。
Proactivity is a big part of being an effective follower.
积极主动是成为有效追随者的一个重要部分。
One of the fathers of the field, Robert Kelley, has usefully identified five styles of followership: sheep, who are wholly passive; yes-people, who enthusiastically do what the boss wants but never think for themselves; alienated followers, who can think for themselves but mainly to explain why the organisation is being stupid; pragmatists, who get on board with things but rarely initiate changes; and stars, who think for themselves and have bags of positivity and energy as well as a willingness to offer constructive criticism.
罗伯特·凯利是该领域的创始人之一，他进行了有用的分类，指出了5种追随类型：完全被动的“绵羊”；热情地执行老板的命令但从不自己动脑筋的“好好先生”；可以独立思考但主要是去解释为什么组织很愚蠢的“冷漠追随者”；参与事情但很少发起变革的“实用主义者”；以及能独立思考、充满正能量和活力、愿意提出建设性批评意见的“明星”。
(Star followers, in other words, behave like leaders in waiting.)
(换句话说，明星追随者就像预备役领导那样行事。)
Which bucket of follower people fall into will undoubtedly depend on their boss: plenty of leaders like the idea of being challenged and then, when confronted with it in practice, find that they prefer craven submissiveness.
人们属于哪一类型的追随者无疑将取决于他们的老板：许多领导嘴上说喜欢被挑战质疑，但在实践中面对挑战时，他们发现自己更喜欢懦弱顺从的下属。
It may depend, too, on the purpose of their organisation and how motivated they are to help it succeed.
属于哪种类型也可能取决于组织的目标，以及他们有多大的动力去帮助组织取得成功。
But it will also depend on them: on whether they raise a discomforting point or stay in their lane; on whether they ingratiate themselves with their managers or challenge them; on whether they see their boss as someone to support or moan about.
但这也将取决于他们自己：取决于他们是提出一个逆耳的观点，还是留在自己的圈子里；他们是讨好自己的经理，还是挑战他们；他们认为自己的老板是值得支持的人，还是应该抱怨的人。
As the British Army, a rare example of an organisation that has an explicit doctrine of followership, puts it,“To follow effectively...is a choice.”
英国陆军是少有的对如何追随有明确指导原则的组织，它说“有效地追随......是一种选择。”
It is a choice that all the ink spilled on leadership easily blots out.
而所有关于领导力的笔墨都能轻易抹去这个选择。
