Introduction

      During a family trip to Sweden a few years ago, I came across the historical Vasa. The Swedish warship from the 1600s stands as an enormous symbol of leadership and followership gone awry. Gustav II Adolf was the King of Sweden between 1611 and 1632. He commissioned the construction of four ships to support his war effort, with one being the most powerful warship in the Baltic. The ship was doomed from the design. The hubris of the king and the enormity of the ship were too much for the ship's lead designer, Henrik Hybertsson. Although he was an experienced ship designer, the size and scale were beyond Hybertsson’s experience. However, he designed what the king wanted.

      Although it was common for warships in the period to be somewhat top heavy, the experts at the shipyard were convinced that there was too much height and weight above the waterline and far too little ballast to support the buoyancy of the ship. Yet construction continued. The workers and their supervisors at the shipyard were not devoid of national pride, nor did they intend to put an unseaworthy vessel into war. They simply did not have the courage to tell the king, their titled executive or boss, that his vision was flawed.

Prior to the maiden voyage, the ship's captain had thirty men run across the deck to cause it to sway to demonstrate to the vice admiral that the ship was unsafe. After three passes, the captain stopped the demonstration for fear of the ship sinking. Yet even with this knowledge, at the final hour prior to the ship's sailing, the captain, the admiral, and the crew chose to squash their concerns and continue on the perilous mission. After sailing only 1,400 yards, the ship sank during its maiden voyage.

      Although they were following the directives of the king, this example shows the flaws in both the king's leadership and the ship workers' followership. The king could not accept truth and criticism, and the followers could not deliver the news. Whereas the responsibility lies on both leader and follower to avoid disastrous, or in the case of the Vasa, fatal, consequences, it is hard for followers to bring bad news to a hubristic leader. However, leaders are rarely effective unless they themselves cut their teeth in followership. Good leaders need good followers. And exceptional followers possess a unique blend of leadership and followership characteristics. These exceptional followers are true Amplifiers.

      True Amplifiers look like everyday people, but they produce outsized contributions to society. Racial injustices have existed for hundreds of years, but as a result of the killings of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, and sadly too many more, we are now seeing the seeds of change begin to take root. The hard truth is there is significant work to do, and some have been doing it for years. John Hope Bryant has been sowing the seeds of change for decades with Operation HOPE. His vision is that if he can help people with economic and financial independence, they can prosper and live a more fulfilling life than previous generations. Bryant is a leader for sure. But a closer look will confirm he is just as strong a follower as he is a leader. In fact, I'd argue that his success as a leader is a direct result of his followership. In this book, we will take a closer look at leaders like John Hope Bryant, assess their followership skills, and define the characteristics of a true Amplifier in action.

As someone who has played baseball my whole life, it isn't surprising that one of my favorite books is Moneyball by Michael Lewis. Although I was familiar with what Billy Beane was doing with the Oakland Athletics, I did not know of the origins and the nuance underneath the strategy. Beane reinvented traditional thinking on what statistics matter in player recruitment and development. His new take on talent scouting in fact led to a transformative approach for all professional sports. The same philosophy applies to corporations. Organizations need to look at their employees in an entirely different way. For a century, we have evaluated employees on job competencies, management ability, and leadership. These are definitely important, but they miss the true human capital value in an organization. It misses finding the key followers and thus, the true Amplifiers.

      Thirty years ago, my cofounders and I started Clarkston Consulting with a simple desire to genuinely serve our clients and create a rewarding environment for our employees, whom we call stewards. We called our employees stewards from the start because we want to emphasize the spirit of service we expect of them for our clients and our colleagues. We have worked with a wide variety of global and diverse companies from startup biotechs, upstart consumer brand disruptors, middle market manufacturing companies, and established global consumer products, life sciences, and retail companies. Over the years, we have helped these companies with their strategies and implemented transformation projects, ultimately exceeding $1 billion in cumulative revenue over the years. As a firm, we have seen many executive leaders in action, as well as leadership demonstrated through high-performance teams. We have also seen companies struggle to change and compete in the marketplace. And we have seen how they overcame those challenges. This book reflects our research and observations over the last three decades, dozens of case studies, and our interactions with thousands of professionals in the workplace.

Throughout my consulting career, I have seen countless examples of how some companies can outperform their peers by tapping into the special employees that have Amplifier qualities. On the flip side, we have seen the negative consequences of companies losing their way by following a crash course set by the executives at the top. What separates performance of the top-quartile and bottom-quartile companies oftentimes is the motives of the people at the top. Understanding these motives is critical to understanding ultimate job performance.

      We can also turn to areas outside the corporate world to gather insight into good followership and how that leads to Amplifier behavior. Imagine an electorate who can honestly face facts, sort through fact and fiction, and make truly informed and unemotional decisions. Far too often, we replay or echo information we want to believe, think we should believe (for countless reasons), or are afraid to change our old ideals and don't take the time to critically think for ourselves. Today's political stage across the world is very polarized. This is not productive. But compounded with misinformation and delusional thinking throughout the political spectrum, we end up with suboptimal results. We fail to realize that the pursuit of this misinformation and blind support of a politician or political party hollows our intellectual core and renders us as puppets. More critical, independent, challenging, rigorous thinking is needed because we are assaulted with so much information. We need more true Amplifiers who are not afraid to seek a 360-degree view of the truth, speak truth to power, and redirect the polarization to productive means.

Over the years, I've been a student of leadership and followership and their impact on corporate performance. The theme that has emerged from this study is that it takes a special blend of a professional—an Amplifier—to create and wield the power to magnify corporate outcomes. These people possess the unique combination of strong leadership and followership skills. This book is largely aimed at a corporate audience, but it applies to many other social, political, religious, athletic, and philanthropic