Leadership First Step: Avoid Rejection!

Without followers, you aren't a leader

The first impressions you make are very, very important. In fact, split-second first impressions are extremely important. Why? Well, what does every leader need to be a leader? Followers! That’s right, you can’t be a leader unless others choose to follow you.

Leaders Avoid Negative First Impressions

How quickly can someone reject you as a leader? In less than a tenth of a second. That’s all it takes for someone in your target audience to decide that her survival and your survival are not linked, that her welfare will not be enhanced by you. Once that first tenth of a second is over, you may never have another chance to lead that person because of our species’ innate survival mechanisms.

There is a strong, well-documented biological basis for the statement “you may never have another chance to lead to that person.” Deep inside our brain is a primitive area the size of an almond, the amygdala, that is very concerned about our survival as an individual and as a specie. It is constantly vigilant, seeking to avoid pain/death. It knows what has hurt or threatened us deeply in our past and seeks to avoid anything that resembles that threat.

Leaders Watch Followers’ Reactions

If, in your first contact with your intended followers, their amygdala identify you as a threat, they will reject you out of hand – and they are not likely to chance their minds easily in the future. The amygdala is your body’s first line of defensive against environmental threats. It evolved to protect you against saber tooth tigers, falls from cliffs, poisonous food – and dangerous humans.

The amygdala was one of the first parts of the brain to evolve and, as might be expected, it is primitive. When we think of the fantastic abilities of the human brain, we usually focus on the abilities that the human brain has developed in the last 80 million years or so, especially within the cortex. We are not thinking about the amygdala and how it affects us. Yet it still drives our survival responses and can override our rational thoughts in the blink of an eye.

What happens when your intended followers first come into contact with you? Most likely, they first see you or hear you. Many studies have shown that sight is the most important sense for sighted persons. Your appearance is your strongest first impression and the person’s amygdala will decide within milliseconds whether you are an immediate threat. You may be too close, invading the person’s space. You may be moving in a way that has been a threat in the past or you may look like someone who is perceived as a threat. The sound of your voice takes just a little longer for the amygdala to process, and you may sound like a threat. It may be the volume, frequency or timber of your voice, or it may be the emotion that is communicated by your voice. Any of these may trigger a threat response by the person’s amygdala.

Leaders Don’t Push Forward

If you sense a negative reaction, the best actions you can take are to move back physically, slow down and soften your voice. Let the person’s amygdala calm down. The worst things you can do is move forward or faster, get in the person’s face, speak louder or become more emotional. Any of these actions can reinforce the idea that you are a threat, making your job as a prospective leader even more difficult. If you are perceived as too great a threat, you may cause the person’s amygdala to demand an emergency reaction to your threat. Those reactions often prove to be catastrophic, changing the relationship between would-be leader and intended follower forever – nearly always in a negative way.

So, if not creating a negative first impression is so important, what does a skillful leader do? Remember that relationships are important to a leader. Thus, you should establish a comfortable relationship with your target followers long before an issue requiring leadership emerges. Get to know them and their goals while there is no reason for there to be tension between you, so you look at each other as equals – or at least not a huge power differential.

I hate to suggest looking at politicians and definitely don’t want to suggest “acting like a politician”, but this is an area where successful politicians learn to excel. In this area, they learn to act like successful leaders. Unless they are tapped because of they are known and trusted by their target followers (General Eisenhower had international fame and Ronald Reagan was well-known as an actor, then state governor before campaigning for President), political leaders usually start small.

Leaders Build Trust by Supporting Followers

Barack Obama is a good example of someone who started small. He began as a community organizer, a position that was viewed by his target followers as supportive of them. He was someone they could trust. He then moved through progressively more powerful positions, cementing strong relationships each step of the way.

Notice what happened when he was competing with Hilary Clinton for the Presidential nomination. She was asked by her party to step aside, even though she had been on the national scene for a much longer period of time. I don’t believe this was accidental or incidental; I believe Obama had carefully created a legion of well-wishers at all levels, while Hilary assumed that people would support her. I’m not saying that she didn’t put any effort into growing her following, I’m saying that she didn’t put enough effort into getting enough people comfortable with her until too late.

There is a lot more to be said on this matter and how that small piece of brain material, the amygdala, affects our success as leaders, but these areas will be the subject of later posts. For now suffice it to say you can lose your potential followers within the first tenth of a second that they become aware of you. One blink, and your fate may be sealed.