“Your behavior determines to some extent, the destiny of your nation and your group” - John Henrick Clarke. In this paper I will discuss and make application of the following group behavior themes covered in the Organizational Behavior Class; Leadership and followership styles, Synergistic Decision making, and Body Language as described in Amy Cuddy’s Ted Talk. In additional I will discuss the insights gained through the Desert survival exercise and Strength Development Inventory (SDI) and apply those insights to my personal real-life experiences.
The first theme to discuss is leadership and followership style. These are the behaviors exhibited, or methods used by a leader to control or influence his or her followers and the
…show more content…
The democratic leadership style provides for a happy medium between the autocratic and laissez-fair styles of leadership. In this scenario the leader attempts to provide direction to the group without overpowering or creating follower dependency on himself. This style of leadership is most likely to provide for satisfied and empowered followers. An example of this style of leadership can be seen in a workplace where employees feel empowered to work independently with clear and concise direction from leadership.
Followership style on the other hand, is the behavior the followers of a leader exhibit. Stewart Tubbs also breaks this down into three categories: dependent, Independent, and counterdependent followership. The dependent follower will follow orders as instructed and is highly reliant on his or her leader for instruction and decision making. As discussed above military organizations may produce highly dependent followers in response to an autocratic or authoritarian leadership style.
In contrast counterdependent followers are rebellious and seemingly refuse to be led. Those who exhibit counterdependent behaviors are used to getting their own way and resist being told what to do. Laissez-Fair leadership can result in a counterdependent follower.
Like leadership styles, there is a followership style that falls as a happy medium, the independent followership style.
Being a follower does not seem ideal in an Army in dire need of good leaders. Becoming a good leader requires you to establish a foundation to build your leadership skills. Dictionary.com
In followership there needs to be a leader that inspires and bonds followers together as a unit moving in one direction. Today’s leader has to be more than someone that was placed in a position of authority, a person with a title and a higher salary level. A real leader is found when the behaviors and attitudes of their
Followership can be defined as the willingness to follow a leader, to work effectively as a team member, and exhibit loyalty to the leaders. Cadets exhibiting followership should not be afraid to ask for help from their leaders in order to improve themselves. When a follower feels the need to voice differences of opinions, it should be done so respectively.
The book, Followership How followers are creating change and changing leaders, by Barbara Kellerman, publisher Harvard Business Press details an interpretation of followers with his or hers correlation to their managers. Kellerman portrays through her book from the leader-centric approach, which govern work on supervision and leadership. However, the book describes examples how a leader typically have power, authority, and influence over a stakeholder in settings of public, private and non-profit organizations sectors (Kellerman, 2008).
Furthermore, there are different theories which give insights about why some leaders lead the way they do. One of these theories is the behavioral theory, it emphasized on what leaders do and their leadership styles. The behavioral theory explains three different types of leadership styles namely: autocratic, democratic, and laissez-faire. An autocratic leader makes plans, gives direction on how to execute them, and makes decisions for the group. These type of leaders are highly power control. They give little or no freedom to the members. Whatever they say is final. On the other hand, democratic leaders allow members to participate in the decision making. They seek opinions of the members. On the other hand, laissez-faire leaders allow members to do whatever they like. This type of leaders does very little planning or decision making thus fail to encourage others to do it (Weiss and Tappen, 2015 p.
Bjugstad, K., Thach, E. C., Thompson, K. J., & Morris, A. (2006). A fresh look at followership: A model for matching followership and leadership styles. Journal of Behavioral & Applied Management, 7(3), 304–319 .
group effort and, therefore, leadership and followership” (p. 13). We must know how to follow before we can be effective leaders.
Followers help leaders manifest their vision. Successful followers (supporters or team members) come in a wide variety of personal characteristics. There are people who may be good followers who do not make good leaders or even want to be leaders, but there are no good leaders who are not good followers. A good leader was once a follower. Without followers there is no leadership in any organization. Leaders can develop effective followers as followers develop effective leaders. The performance of followers and leaders of an organization are variables that depend on one another. Both roles are proactive together they can
The role of the follower and the quality of the relationship itself are informally negotiated between followers and their leaders over time (Gils, Quaquebeke, & Knippenberg, 2009). Based on the LMX theory, leaders build a special relationship with an inner circle, or “in-group”, of followers, who often get high levels of responsibility and access to resources. The in-group members work harder and are more committed to task objectives. They are also expected to be totally committed and loyal to their leader. Conversely, other followers fall in the “out-group" and are given low levels of choice or influence. Aggression, sarcasm and a self-centered view are qualities seen in the out-group. The quality of the LMX relationship varies and is better when the challenge of the job is extremely high or extremely low (Graen et al., 1982).
1. When discussing leadership and followership, there is often a split in personal opinion when it comes to which one is more important. Leadership and followership both offer unique benefits in their own right and have supporting factors, which give them the perceived appearance of being more important. The focus for this paper will be to advocate the importance of followership over that of leadership. This will be accomplished by addressing the pros of followership to include some core skills of followership and the effects followership has on the development of a leader. The expectation of an officer however, places a high amount of emphasis on leadership more so than that of followership. Given this perceived importance of leadership as an officer, an effective leadership style will be explained and how officers develop this particular leadership style. While leadership has a distinct presence within the professional work environment, followership is considered the underlying backbone in developing an effective high performing team.
As a good follower, I need to accept responsibility and I need to be aware of the tasks that I have to take on. I have to readily support my leader at all times and I should be able to voice my opinions to my leader in a very supportive way. Leaders can only lead an organization successfully if they have personalities that appeal to their followers. The individual reflection and big five
showed that two main behaviors, consideration and initiating structure. Consideration is how the leader shows concern for members of the group. These leaders treated everyone as his/her equal and were friendly and approachable. Initiation structure means the leader
Leadership has become overly romanticized by popular culture, leaving little research and attention to followership (Meindl). This focus on leadership has left a deficit in the development of
Behavioral theory promotes the value of leadership styles with an emphasis on concern for people and collaboration. It promotes participative decision making and team development by supporting individual needs and aligning individual and group objectives. Behavioral Theories of Leadership, also known as “The style approach to leadership” focuses on the behavior of the leader and what leaders do and how they act. Learn about the two general kinds of behaviors; task behaviors and relationship behaviors and advantages of this approach to leadership. Learn more about this theory of leadership. What are Behaviors? Behavior is the range of actions and mannerisms made by organisms, systems, or artificial
Riggio et al.’s book, The Art of Followership: How great followers create great leaders and organizations, published by Jossey-Bass assesses the various functions, which followers can navigate in an organization through his or her rapport with a leader. The book is divided among four sections, which are defining and redirecting followership, effective followership, the pitfalls and challenges of followership, and followers and leaders-research, practice and the future (Riggio et al., 2008). These following sections in this paper will discuss and summarize two chapters, which I strongly preferred and have experienced in the military.