Leadership is Half the Story: A Fresh Look at Followership, Leadership, and Collaboration

Can you imagine a choreographer only training one dancer to lead while his or her partner sits in the lobby staring at the wall? Yet we do this all the time in organizations. Half the partnership is missing.

Leadership is Half the Story introduces the first model to seamlessly integrate leadership, followership, and partnerships. This research-backed, field-tested book contributes many new ideas and practical advice for everyone in an organization – from CEO to HR director to front-line manager to consultant.

All of us lead, not just those with the formal title. All of us follow, not just front-line staff. In great collaborations, one moment we are leading and then we flip to following; in other words, the relationship between leadership and followership is dynamic, context-specific, and ever-evolving. This empowering perspective opens up leadership to everyone, normalizes followership, and enables more productive and innovative collaborations. Candid discussions about both roles allow for better coaching, mentoring, skill development, and interpersonal agility, and result in stronger teams.

Marc and Samantha Hurwitz give us a category-busting book that “practically glows with energy and vision,” according to Marshall Goldsmith, executive coach and best-selling author of What Got You Here Won’t Get You There.

Marc Hurwitz is co-founder and Chief Insight Officer of FliPskills and a lecturer at the Conrad Centre for Business, Entrepreneurship and Technology at the University of Waterloo. He holds a PhD in cognitive neuroscience, an MBA, and has many years of corporate, executive, and entrepreneurial experience. Samantha Hurwitz is co-founder and Chief Encouragement Officer of FliPskills. She is a coach, consultant and facilitator with twenty-five years of corporate and entrepreneurial experience, including nine at the executive level.