Why Do People Follow You?

I’ll never forget the day my grade 6 teacher told me I was a leader.

I was empowered…and confused.

She said, “You’re a leader, Rosanna,” and it felt great.

She then said, “But it’s not always fun being the leader because you don’t pick who follows you.”

I was 12 years old, and I couldn’t fully grasp what she was trying to say.

I never forgot it, but I couldn’t make sense of it.

Not until today at least, 20 years later, where I think I may have found some clarity. Even though she was the best teacher ever, the clarity I found was to realize…I disagree!

This is why:

The thing with leadership is, we follow people who have something we want for ourselves, whether a character attribute or a nice car. And when people follow us, the same is true.

What might be less fun than looking behind us to see we don’t enjoy who our followers are is acknowledging that it’s directly related to our behaviour.

You see, if people follow us based on how we represent ourselves to them, then it’s completely in our hands to influence who decides to follow us.

I’ve been thinking about what this all means when it comes to social media and how we share ourselves online. Personally, I want to build more of a following this year, and I know there are certain strategies, as this blog’s picture denotes, that will increase the amount of followers I have faster than others.

Show that bod; get those followers!

The internal struggle for me is the fear of looking behind me to see who’s following, as my grade 6 teacher pointed out, and finding out they’re people I would have never picked.

They’re people who want something I have, but it sure ain’t my brains or heart!

So, the challenge I give myself, and perhaps also you as you read this blog, is to consider what we want people to want from us.

What do you want people to want from you?

As you build your personal brand, for what reason do you want people to choose to follow you? I’d love to hear your thoughts on this topic in the comments below!!!