The Art of Followership: How to Transcend Status Games & Master the Status Dance

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Detaching your identity from your position helps lessen status anxiety. It liberates you to more fluidly shift between leadership and followership as needed.

It's pre-K. We're making a book for our beloved teacher, Ms. Lindsay. A group of parent volunteers are asking each child: "What do you love most about Ms. Lindsay?"

When they turn to me I say, "She lets everybody do the same thing."

They pause. This can't be right. "You mean she lets you do what you want to do?"

No, I insist, she lets everybody do the same thing.

I was a born follower. My mom would find me standing inches behind my big brother, holding the same physical pose. My best friend, Emma Rew, played teacher and I did whatever she said. I was good at following and I liked it.

Yet children are brilliantly attuned to pleasing the adult-demigods before them. They understand the games they're meant to play. I learned to play what Will Storr calls "the status game"—an individualistic competition where followership was devalued and I was encouraged to be more independent, more leader-like.

Cut to today: I'm a leadership trainer and coach.

And I'm here to make the case for followership.

Learning to fluidly shift between leader and follower roles—sometimes within one conversation—takes us out of zero-sum "status games" and into the win-win-win "status dance."

Let's dive in.

What Are Status Games?

In The Status Game, Storr breaks down three games that he posits are at play in almost every human dynamic:

→ Dominance: "I'm over you"

→ Success: "Look what I've done"

→ Virtue: "I'm more good than you"

They look different but share one thing: individualistic focus. "Success for me."

And we can transcend these dynamics by shifting to a collective outcome focus—"What are we trying to achieve?"

Status Is Primal

It's been said that all of humanity's problems can be boiled down to going against nature. Status is part of our nature. Accepting this is the first step toward conscious mastery of it.

Status dynamics are pervasive because they're primal. We evolved to constantly assess where we are in relation to our tribe.

Status shows up everywhere through consistent patterns of micro-behaviors: shrinking the body, lowering the voice, using linguistic qualifiers ("maybe, I think, kind of") when in low status; taking up space, pausing more, using more direct language when in high status.

Status Anxiety Is Pervasive

"Status anxiety"—the fear of not measuring up or losing your place in social hierarchies—affects us regardless of where we sit at any given moment.

Those experiencing chronic low status face real health consequences: more stress, anxiety, depression, cardiovascular disease, and shorter lifespans.

For those at the top, the fear of losing status cannot be overstated.

Loss of status has significant effects on our physical and psychological health. Take Olympians, going from the center of the world's attention to just another face in the crowd overnight. 24-26% of Olympic athletes experience significant psychological distress after the Games. In the days after winning 6 medals at the 2012 Olympics, Michael Phelps says he remembers: "Not wanting to talk to anybody, not wanting to see anybody, really not wanting to live."

We're powerfully influenced by pressure to not disrupt the established status hierarchy. The well-documented "Aviation Authority Gradient" refers to co-pilots being unwilling to speak up to pilots. This dynamic has led to thousands of aviation deaths. As a result, the industry has implemented direct training to encourage co-pilots to speak up.

From Games to Dance: Zero Sum to Win-Win-Win Status

We can't deny status. (Think Occupy Wall Street—a flat hierarchy that collapsed.)

We can't let it rule us. (Think Wolf of Wall Street—runaway capitalism promoting the worst aspects of human nature.)

We can consciously master status toward a shared positive outcome.

This mastery is the Status Dance: win-win-win status benefiting you, them, and the outcome. It requires moving from denial and unconscious programming to acceptance and conscious choice.

Leadership Evolution

Transcending status games to the status dance tracks with the natural maturation process of a leader.

The immature leader asks, "How am I showing up?" The mature leader asks, "How are we meeting our goals?"

When the shared positive outcome, not the individual ego, is the focus, we naturally shift status roles dynamically to serve the whole.

When unselfconscious, anyone can dance.

The Value of Followership

If you have an adverse reaction to "leadership," you likely have negative bias around followership—seeing it as loss of autonomy and power. Not wanting others to be put in the place of followership, you shrink from leadership.

And yet, we all actively seek followership to some degree: calling upon mentors, teachers, and guides to lead us. If you've ever turned to a podcast or book for guidance—heck, if you're reading this post to support yourself—you know the value of followership.

In fact, lack of professional mentorship is linked to:

  • Slower career advancement

  • Reduced job satisfaction

  • Higher turnover

  • Increased burnout

Just as we benefit from followership, others benefit from our leadership. This simple reminder can lower "status anxiety" associated with taking high status.

Practicing The Status Dance

Radar Perception

While chronic low status is detrimental to our health, wellbeing, and success, it is not without its developmental pearls. Those in low status often develop heightened awareness to survive.

A coaching client escaped a communist country. In her first role in the United States, she was told by a senior leader: "You have amazing radar. Your ability to sense the room is on point."

We get to heal our trauma and keep the strengths we developed through it. Heal the wound, keep the gift.

And this "radar perception" is a valuable leadership skill we can all cultivate by shifting into the follower role.

Exercise: Sit back in your chair. Breathe. Take in the whole of the room. Become an observer. What do you notice? How subtle can your awareness become? How much information can you take in?

Seeing Beyond Status

At the end of our Success Circles program, each participant tells a three-minute personal leadership story. Here's one reflection from a participant: "I will remember these women, the struggles and dreams each brings into the room. The women in this program see each other. This builds confidence and resilience."

Knowing each other's stories—really understanding who each other is—we walk out of the numerical mindset around who's up and who's down, and we walk into true relationship.

Learn about leadership storytelling training for individuals and teams

The Power of Introductions

Everyone on your team is qualified to lead in some way. Knowing how begins with seeing one another. A Johns Hopkins study showed that when medical teams simply introduced themselves before surgery, complications fell by 35%.

Imagine what can happen when we introduce one another well. Priya Parker writes in The Art of Gathering: "Introduce people to each other a lot, but take time with it. Be generous."

Exercise: With your team, have pairs interview one another. Instruct them to assume their partner is "the most fascinating person" they have ever met! (I love to have teams do this on a walk, activating the mind-body for increased energy and memory.) Then, have them introduce their partner to the group as "the most fascinating person." This can be especially revelatory to teams who assume they already know one another well.

Breaking the Bubble

It is true for many: We like people, we fear strangers. A stranger can be a person you've worked with for years who you've never seen beyond their role. Whether above or below on the all-too-rigid hierarchy of organizational and cultural life, our relationship to status can shroud any potential real connection.

Exercise: Dare yourself to "break the bubble" with a stranger by asking an open question. Afterwards, note any assumptions you made about them prior to connecting and how true those were. Did anything surprise you?

"I Am Not My Role"

As a leadership coach, I've walked hundreds of people through status transitions. When navigating status changes—promotions, demotions, transitions—one thing my clients notice is that people, from one day to the next, treat them differently.

This alone should tell you: You are not your role.

Detaching your identity from your position helps lessen status anxiety. It liberates you to more fluidly shift between leadership and followership as needed.

Exercise: Give yourself an unshakeable title that cannot be taken away, like CEO of Your Life. The next time you feel your status threatened, bring to mind your self-appointed title. Feel it in your body. Let it affect your posture.

The Bottom Line

As you rise in leadership, your work becomes less and less about your individual contribution and more and more about your ability to bring forth the best in others. And this transition can be riddled with status anxiety. Leaders wonder, "What am I bringing to the table?"

I recently walked a client through this. She's a cheerleader-type leader—naturally fostering excellence through positivity. And she's struggled with seeing her contribution. Together we crystallized what she does into a defining statement, or what I call a "leadership stand." She now knows exactly what she does: "Spotlighting strengths for collaboration."

Her statement perfectly captures the status dance—highlighting others' strengths for collective outcomes versus demanding the spotlight for individual recognition.

Your Next Steps

1. Notice status dynamics around you—they're always at play

2. Practice the dance—How can you take status, hold it, and share it?

3. Remember: Holding your own full status liberates you to give it to others

4. Embrace followership as a strength, not a weakness

The most graceful dance step? Stop talking, sit back, and let others shine.

That light you're shining is felt, valuable, and more than enough.

Now to you: What's your experience with the balance between leading and following? How have you seen status dynamics play out in your leadership journey?

Let me know @ LuciaCBrizzi@gmail.com

Ready to master the status dance?

#Leadership #EmergingLeaders #LeadershipDevelopment #Mentorship #TeamDynamics #PsychologicalSafety #AuthenticLeadership #SuccessCircles #ConnectedLeaders #ListentoLead

Lucia brizzi