Most associations and nonprofits struggle to find or create volunteer leaders. It strikes me that most associations recruit their leaders just like they recruit staff members even if they have a leadership development program.

As an association staff person and as a nominating committee chairman, I’ve helped run these leadership searches. You search for really talented individuals who have the right stuff and insert them into committees, task forces and boards with other talented individuals. It’s much easier to be a leader among other hand-selected leaders who have some sense of shared values, vision and group norms about what it means to perform in these roles.

If your association maintains some form of formal or informal representation, you will try to mix it up and find people with connections to key constituent groups. But how often do we look for people who already have followers? I am convinced this is the best demonstration of a person’s leadership ability.

I’ve gained new respect for this simple truism: leaders have followers. Leaders have followers when they take the time to create relationships with others. They keep followers engaged by communicating openly and consistently about the work the organization wants to do. These leaders know how to organize their followers to get critical work done. They stay focused on goals and have the optimism to keep their followers believing in what they can do even when the initial results are discouraging.

All this I am learning through a more humbling form of leadership: community organizing for Virginians Organized in Community Interfaith Engagement (VOICE). When I first started volunteering for this effort, I am sure most people judged me as having the talents and skills for organizational leadership. My career as an association executive and a consultant would suggest so. But when I attended regional training two years ago, one phrase really resonated with me: leaders have followers. Learning how to engage many followers in this work is becoming a life lesson in leadership, volunteerism, vision and change.

Recently my son applied for and was accepted to the American Society of Association Executives leadership academy for young association executives. In the application he had to demonstrate his leadership potential. He knows many Millennials already have amazing service resumes and he wasn’t quite sure his one achievement would be sufficiently impressive. He organized and coaches a men’s soccer team.

The ASAE program will polish his knowledge and talents through its educational courses, peer and mentor learning. The Real Ballers, on the other hand, will turn him into a leader who has followers. Putting a team of 20-something young men on the field each Sunday when they could choose to do something else is a real demonstration of leadership.