It is very possible that the first question that the reader asks, when examining the title of this article, has been What is that of Seguirazgo?
It is relevant to admit that the term, as its mastermind Dr. Jeffrey De León, a specialist in business leadership, says, is a challenge that seeks to elicit reflections on the issue of leadership.
Knowing how to lead is an art; in the same way, knowing how to follow is an important work too. The differences between the first and the second are profound. Many might think that the Seguirazgo has only a direct relationship with the ability to know how to accompany others, and there would be the main mistake. Only when delving into the concept can we find subtleties such as the one explained by Dr. Eduardo Martí: "Seguirazgo is the possibility that every person has to exercise their personal leadership to ensure the success of the person who is practicing collective leadership." Thus, Seguirazgo is to know oneself a leader occupying the momentary place of the follower. In different leadership courses that are taught in many of the Latin American latitudes, comments such as: "There are many caciques and few Indians here", "All are good at leading but nobody knows how to follow",Both expressions refer to the fear of supporting another, since it seems to be perceived that the attitude of a person when identifying with a proposal and supporting it, runs the risk of being identified as passive within the company, all of which directly attacks the ego and survival in the organizational world.
We are then at what appears to be a crossroads; In one way, organizations ask people to be leaders, to be successful, powerful; by another route it happens that if everyone wants to achieve this at the same time, no one has sufficient legitimacy to lead others; What to do then? To lead or not? Continue or not?
It is appropriate to clarify that the follow-up does not correspond to a passive attitude, much less incapacity or any limitation, on the contrary, knowing how to accompany, requires an effort and discipline that from the perspective of Factos constitute the bases and foundations for a progressive process of building future business leaders.
En el mundo oriental, donde las artes marciales han sido centrales para el desarrollo de diferentes formas de abordar el mundo organizacional, nos plantean una ruta. Nos referimos entonces a esa relación entre maestro y discípulo en el que el primero tiene el arte dentro de sí mismo y lo enseña para formar a su discípulo. Éste al observar atentamente con todos sus sentidos, despliega una secuencia de fotografías en su mente que posteriormente, intenta de manera gradual, reproducir en su cuerpo. Al principio el discípulo es lento, torpe e inseguro, pero su constancia, perseverancia, práctica y disciplina, resultan en la incorporación del arte como una pequeña semilla que germina en tierra fértil y que deberá trabajar con esfuerzo para producir una obra artística. Seguramente, los primeros resultados de las nuevas obras serán inacabados, con defectos, sin embargo, esto le permite al maestro observar al discípulo y explicarle en que se ha equivocado y qué debe corregir.
Only the constant practice of the follower will achieve that he can do with his body what he saw and remembers that his leader did. Then there comes a time when there will be no difference between what the first did and what the second does. At that time, the process begins again; Well, in martial arts, and in the modern Western corporate world too, leaders don't teach everything at once. They teach one task first, then another, and then another. This means that the follow-up as such is a constant act of all those who declare that they still have a lot to learn and need to practice with humility and joy.
In any case, it is always up to the person if they allow another to teach them, which leads us to a question to close this article, Who are they willing to follow?
