If you’re in any way connected to the nonprofit world, you’ve no doubt heard of the scandalous scandal of Three Cups of Tea author and Central Asia Institute Executive Director Greg Mortenson. A recent CBS News expose charged Greg with lying about the experiences that formed his success with his book(s) and his nonprofit organization that seeks to build schools and promote education in Pakistan and Afghanistan. Bloggers, journalists and fellow leaders in the education space have been GOING IN on Greg and the Three Cups of Tea theme. For example:

• Three Cups of a Flawed Hero: The Limits of Greg Mortenson’s Model of Change
• Why Three Cups of Tea are Not Enough
• Three Cups of Humble Pie
• The Greg Mortenson Scandal: One University’s Bitter Cup of Tea
• Why Three Cups of Tea Won’t Save Afghanistan
• Three Cups of Truth

And the tea goes on and on and on. In the end, though, I’m in agreement with Mulago Foundation director Kevin Starr, who writes on the Stanford Social Innovation Review blog that it’s not about the tea. It’s really about leadership and our responsibility as followers – staff, donors, readers and hero-worshippers.

I got into this a bit with fellow blogger Akhila Kolisetty in the comments on my recent post, Beware of Humble.  Akhila started by asserting her preference for humble leaders.

We have seen the problems with hero worship with the Greg Mortenson scandal — Mortenson came off as humble to the public, but in reality his actions were anything but. It is not enough to simply ‘appear’ humble — it is a quality that must be matched with ethical, moral standards in leadership.

Personally, I think we should stop hero worship and look at the results, bottom line of an organization. No longer will I blindly become enamored with people who seem bigger than life – from now on I will only appreciate those organizations with a strong emphasis on results and outcomes to alleviate poverty.

I responded with the idea that if hero worship is an issue with any leader, it’s ultimately the fault of the followers.

The Greg Mortenson scandal offers many leadership lessons, but the issue of hero worship is really up to the followers – we choose who we look up to & follow – but then we are also human & swayed by personality. Results & outcomes are important, but there is always *some* type of leader(s) behind the work, esp. founders who will often appear larger than life in terms of the work & sacrifice they have done. We just have to be responsible in our follow-ship & call people out when they are doing things they’re not supposed to. On the Greg tip? The board was 100% wrong for not taking disciplinary action with someone they were *supposed* to be supervising. But – I can also see how that could happen if they fancied him a hero.

The point I was getting at was this: followers have responsibility, too. And anytime we forget that, we are playing with fire. To quote Kevin Starr:

In the end, though, the responsibility for this mess lies with the donors. By and large, CAI’s supporters went for a feel-good story, didn’t do their homework, and didn’t ask the right questions. It appears that there was never a systematic attempt to verify whether schools were up and running, and the fact that there was only one audited financial statement over CAI’s history is jaw-dropping. If you smothered me with adulation and gave me a ton of money without much oversight, I’d probably run amok too.

The Danger of Outsourcing Leadership

Best-selling author Jennifer Louden has written a thoughtful and personally honest post about what Greg Mortenson’s failings can teach those who support social change.

Greg’s possible blunders are a liberating wake-up call to my own power. I’m thinking this is not an time for heroes, or white knights, or a “you know better than me” approach. This is a time for trusting ourselves. This is time for liberating our longing to do something. This is a time for asking hard questions. This is not a time for outsourcing our desire to make a difference.

Jennifer’s post drives home for me how easy it is to worship “larger than life” figures who are doing good work, because then it means we don’t have to take any sort of deep, personal responsibility for the community or cause. We can give our money to a charismatic proxy who will act on our behalf as the courageous leader we think we could never be. What if, instead, we saw ourselves as heroes? How then, would our relationship with communities, causes and even nonprofit organizations change?

More Power to the Followers

In Gary Yukl’s scholarly work, Leadership in Organizations, he discusses dyadic leadership theories that emphasize the possibility that leadership is actually a relationship dependent on the actions of both the leader AND follower. Even with all of the focus on the leader’s role in structuring the relationship, there is an important leadership role that followers can also play, which can limit the leader’s power and influence over them.

Yukl points out that when followers do not agree with the leader’s decisions or the way their relationship has been structured with their leader, they have the option to dissent. Yukl asserts:

Followers often have more counterpower than they realize, and there are things they can do to deter a leader accustomed to exploiting people who are unassertive.

Specifically, Yukl says that followers can contribute to leader effectiveness in four important ways:

1. maintaining cooperative working relationships
2. providing constructive dissent
3. sharing leadership functions
4. supporting leadership development

Given the options available to followers in their interactions with leaders, dyadic leadership theories suggest that followers have just as much power as leaders. Which means that if, in fact, Greg Mortenson’s teacup comes up empty (sorry, couldn’t resist), his followers may be just as guilty as he is.