Recently I was meeting with the CEO of a large company. I had recently become the President of an organization, and we were talking about the experience of being the top leader in a company. He gave me a small piece of advice—which at this level is of great value. If a successful CEO is going to tell you something he wants you to remember, it tends to come out as a sentence that encapsulates a big idea. He told me, “Always follow up. Don’t forget with people to follow up. It will make or break your leadership.”
As I got back to my car and made my way out of the parking deck of his building, I started marinating on that though, “Don’t forget to follow up.” I started thinking about people I knew, projects I had going on, relationships I wanted to form and initiatives I wanted to begin. At every point I realized my CEO friend was right. Without follow-up, none of it was going happen. I couldn’t just have one conversation, one plan, one decision, and hope it all went well. If I was going to be successful, follow up was going to be everything.
Did we get to step two? Follow-up is not micromanagement. It’s not the idea that I’m checking in to make sure something got done or a person kept their word. Really, it’s taking time to convey the importance of a relationship, my commitment to the other person. Follow up is the opportunity to convey value. “I haven’t forgotten about you, and you are important, a key facet of making our plans happen together.” Follow-up is a check-in, more focused on the person than the project.
At some point during follow-up, a leader does ask, “Did we get to step two?”, but more importantly he invests time in the individuals. Are they doing well? Do they understand their areas of responsibility? Is there anything hindering their progress? Are they demonstrating the knowledge and skills required for the tasks? Most importantly, don’t look at how you can help the project along, but more directly, how can you help them?
Is the relationship growing? Whenever I meet with someone at lunch, or on a matter or project, I ask two questions. Near the beginning of the conversation, I ask, “How is your family?” This conveys two things—one, that I value them as an individual above what they can do for me. Second, that my investment of time is in the person and their wellbeing. Leadership is fundamentally about relationships. Connecting to an individual and learning about those closest to them creates an opportunity to follow up and engage in relationships most important to the individual.
Toward the end of a conversation, I typically ask, “How can I pray for you?” This tends to open up a challenge or two that the person is facing. “Prayer” as a word conveys “I want to help you, spiritually.” And it’s nonthreatening, a display of genuine concern. If I were to ask, “Is anything wrong?” I would get “No, fine. Everything is fine.” But asking how I can pray will drop a person’s guard. They’ll tell me something that’s really going on. “My wife is sick;” “My kid is having trouble at school;” “I haven’t felt like myself lately.”
To be effective in growing the relationship, personal and spiritual follow up must actually happen. That is, I can’t express concern for the family, or ask about prayer needs, and then not actually pray, or see about that family need. But I find that these questions really help me grow a relationship, because the other person walks away knowing I really do care about them as an individual. Not their job role. Not their production report. Not if they’re hitting their quarterly goal. No, I earnestly want to know how they are doing.
Dropped. Ghosted. Gone. Just after the Pandemic, there was a mad rush to get back to work for many that had been laid off. Some would apply for dozens of jobs, and even accept several openings. Then on the first day at work, they just wouldn’t show. They had chosen another option instead. This became known as ghosting. The person was there, engaged, ready to go—until the moment they weren’t. Phone calls, emails, texts, all went unanswered. They became a ghost.
But this happened before the pandemic, and it happens all the time to this day. A person is there in a group, a team, a circle of friends, a sports fan ring. They engage, contribute, connected—until they don’t. One day they’re just drop. Ghosted. Gone. And this is a primary reason why diligent follow-up is so important. It’s hard enough to start and grow a relationship, as there will always be a significant investment in time. But failure to follow up in a timely manner greatly increases the likelihood a person will ghost. And a ghosted relationship is often unrecoverable. The individual has just moved on. One could make a judgment call about their character, but the truth is, failing to follow up has clearly shown them that you don’t care. And that’s on you, or me.
The New Testament mandate. Lest you think follow-up is just a business best practice, consider Paul’s instruction in 1 Thessalonians 2:7-8: “But we were gentle among you, like a nursing mother taking care of her own children. So, being affectionately desirous of you, we were ready to share with you not only the gospel of God but also our own selves, because you had become very dear to us.” Here we see the example of Paul investing specifically in people and their families. Paul says in addition to his mission of sharing the gospel, he was also desirous that he and others shared “our own selves”. Paul pursued authentic and dep relationships that had become “very dear” to him.
We see this discipling example of follow up elsewhere in the New Testament. In Acts 14 we read, “When they had preached the gospel to that city and had made many disciples, they returned to Lystra and to Iconium and to Antioch, strengthening the souls of the disciples, encouraging them to continue in the faith...” See how the disciples returned to certain destinations to strengthen and encourage. This too is follow up in its most basic form. Make a connection, build a relationship, then follow through to ensure you’ve done what you’ve committed to do.
Cover photo: Adobe Firefly