Bottom Up Leadership

Comment: Most people think of leadership as being something top down and doing what they are told. The fact is that everyone is called to be leaders. Unfortunately, few have proper leadership training or realize that a greater amoun t of leadership is bottom up.  Bottom up leadership is not about kicking your boss in the butt to motivate him or her. Leadership, in general, is about motivating others to effect a change. Bottom up leadership is the ability to effect that needed change from a humble place.

Leading Bottom Up

In some situations there is faulty, absentee, or weak leadership top down. This occurs for a variety of reasons. The individual is simply inexperienced, has an emotion aversion towards leadership, has an incorrect focus, or has causes that are not just. Other situations are such that you have a good idea, you know how to solve a persistent problem, or you want to change something for the better. If you are under one or more of these situations then what to you do?

You step up and lead!

The American Forefathers abhorred aristocracy as much as tyranny. Bottom up leadership is the classic model of leadership that the American Forefathers used when framing the United States under the Declaration of Independence, The Constitution, and the U.S. Bill of Rights. They designed a framework in which the common human being could rise up to perform great feats then return to the humble origin from where they came. Another example of bottom up leadership is the Biblical form of leadership. Even modern culture has shifted more towards bottom up leadership known as democratization. There has been a movement to democratize many activities such as design, conversations in the public sphere, governments, and  even marketing. Methods include small groups in the church or community planning in Progressive party, design of the Internet using Request for Comment’s (RFCs), and many more approaches. The idea in all of these is to take a vision, build support, and achieve an end state.

The Leadership Model

Leadership begins when you correctly identify a problem, formulate a vision, set the goals to get you to the end state, and motivate people to join the cause. Bottom up leadership requires that the leader builds constituencies’ not only beneath them but to a greater extent on their level and above their level. Each group requires different approaches and may even have different goals common to the same end state. The successful leader is capable of pulling it all together.

More importantly, constituencies must believe in the cause, solution, or end state. The successful leader has an end state and goals that are deemed worthy by the constituencies’ who are stakeholders and principles in the cause. The cause must not be self-gratifying, self-indulgent, or apply to a limited group of people among those affected. The cause may be different to groups within the constituency but the end state will remain the same.

Parsing bottom up leadership into formal, informal, positional, green, thought, and other forms of leadership does not change the practical skills or the process. The leader may adjust the tactics and approaches used but the leadership process remains stable.

Top Leadership

Wise leaders at the top are not top-down leaders. They are top-out and tend to delegate authority to the bottom up leaders. For top leadership, the general thought shifts from looking inward at the organization for control to looking outward guiding where the organization is going. This is a paradigm shift for many people who feel a tight control is important. Leadership is a loose control over the constituency and more akin to the idea of charging ahead, throwing your arm up, and shouting follow me! Those who see the value in your efforts will follow.

In conclusion, bottom up leadership is really true leadership. Bottom up leaders are not attempting control. They, too, like top leadership are looking at where they are going and not where they were. If everyone were leaders looking to the future then organizations would soar.  People would be pulling together not  good ideas but instead good vision as well as good works. Onward and upward.