Leadership As A Dynamic Followership And Leadership Role

Though it is often forgotten, the concept of followership plays a very important role in the success of any group setting. For example, Steve Jobs may have founded and led Apple, but could not have achieved such success without the followers that worked under him. Our government, the education system and health services would not function properly without the support of the majority of their staff who are not in leadership positions. The job of followers is to make it possible for someone to lead.

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.

Many times in life, we are convinced that leaders rise from the ground, pulling the rest of us up to meet them. Followers are portrayed as decorations to help enhance the leader. The relationship between them, however, is more closely resembling a tower. Followers support and build up to a major cause with the leader at the top, the figurehead of their ideals. The ideal leader is the ideal follower, which helps to portray outwards the qualities they're looking for and the goals they have. The difficulty arises when today's society raises everyone to believe that they must be a leader or they're a loser. As Reese Bobby in Talladega Nights said, "If you're not first, you're last." During my time on the girl's golf team, I was in no way the best

In addition to completing the Strengths Based Leadership assessment, I completed Robert Kelley’s Followership Survey. According to the survey, I am an exemplary follower (Kelley, 1992). According to Kelley (1988), exemplary followers, or effective followers, mange themselves well and are courageous, honest, and credible (p. 144). These types of followers are additionally committed to the organization and to a purpose, principle or person outside themselves (Kelley, 1988, p. 144). Lastly, exemplary followers are independent thinkers who act on their own initiative, engage actively when working in a group and provide constructive input (Kelley, 1988, p. 144). Another assessment that I completed was the Authentic Leadership

The concept of followership is crucial to the leadership process today. In the past, followers were not viewed as important whatsoever. They were viewed as puppets that had no potential to make a change. In the new paradigm, followers are just as important as leaders. There are several behavioral styles of followers: alienated, conformist, pragmatists, passive, and effective.

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).

A follower must show integrity, therefore he must be honest. If a leader is trying to help you and you don’t tell him the truth, whether it be admitting that you don’t know how to do a stationary drill movement or you don’t like his leading style, then you have nothing to gain from him and he can’t help you. A follower must show respect. If an officer or NCO is placed above you then you have to follow his commands and listen to his orders, otherwise the leader-follower team accomplishes nothing. A follower must be willing to volunteer his time. A leader cannot shape his follower if his follower is constantly making excuses as to why he can’t be somewhere. If the follower never sacrifices his time so he can learn from the leader, then the leader’s efforts to teach ultimately fail. Last, a follower must have an extreme level of excellence. A good follower will listen attentively to his leader’s instruction, but a great follower will become his leader’s

A leader alone cannot accomplish a goal or vision by oneself. There is a built in assumption in our society that everybody should strive to be a leader. That’s where the fame and fortune are—with the leaders. “You can get a PhD in organizational leadership, but you can’t even get a bachelor’s in followership.” (Mercer) Why should an organization focus on followership as much as leadership?

One of the strengths of this approach is that it highlights that leaders and followers mutually affect each other, making leadership an interactive activity that is not restricted to only a formal leader. At the same time this approach lacks wide empirical research, specificity and conceptual

Followership is the ability to take direction well and be part of a team and deliver what is expected. Followers are just as important to an enterprise success as the leader’s lead. Followership, according to Atchison, is the reciprocal process of leadership (Atchison, 2004) The stigma of followership skills is, one does not reach progressively more responsible leadership positions without demonstrating an ability to follow and function effectively in a group. The fact is that in organizations

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

2. Followership should be viewed as an active skill that must be developed in order to be considered an effective follower. According to the Air and Space Power Journal (Winter 2004), followership is considered a discipline that when viewed from a professional perspective is considered both an art and a science, requiring a balance between the development of skills and the understanding of followership roles within a professional

The leader and follower relationship is looked at as winners and losers, when it is actually a symbiotic association. (Chaleff) Leaders cannot exist without followers and followers cannot exist without a leader. Leaders can forget that they need the backing of a solid team of followers in order to succeed. Because they make the “important” decisions and enjoy an astronomical rate of pay, it is easy to overlook the loyal, hard working individuals that make everything happen under them. Followers too can forget that they are a valuable element of a successful organization, and that their feedback and ideas are welcome.

As the leaders develop their grand ideas, it is the followers who actualize them, therefore it is necessary that effective followers have a conceptual understanding of their business (Antelo, 2010). They must be able to do the job. A welder would not expect a career ballerina to run a welding torch and a ballerina would never expect a welder to complete a pas de deux. A good follower must understand what they are doing. This is the foundation of a follower 's work.

Chapter one portrays the importance on followers and provides some insight and labels different types of followers. Riggio et al (2008), provides examples on the various styles of individuals as followers, for instance, the sheep, the yes-people, the alienated, the pragmatics, and the star followers. Furthermore, these classes of followers provide a better understanding to leaders on why one performs in an organization.