The Role Of Follower As A Leader

There are many theories when it comes to leadership. Many of these date back hundreds of years to military styles of leadership. The 1990 's saw the emergence of a new theory in terms of leadership, Complexity Theory, which has since developed further and has been implemented in some of the most successful companies in the world.

This paper aims to address and discuss about the leadership and management of the nurse leader interviewed. This experience was a great opportunity to witness first hand how a nurse leader cultivate and manage their staffs in real life setting. Moreover, it provides a great access to gain insight and knowledge about nurse leaders’ vital responsibilities and role diversities in the organizations they work with. Nurse leaders pay more specific and close attention in handling the staffs and most importantly, patient care.

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

Leadership at times can be a complex topic to delve into and may appear to be a simple and graspable concept for a certain few. Leadership skills are not simply acquired through position, seniority, pay scale, or the amount of titles an individual holds but is a characteristic acquired or is an innate trait for the fortunate few who possess it. Leadership can be misconstrued with management; a manager “manages” the daily operations of a company’s work while a leader envisions, influences, and empowers the individuals around them.

Every day, a set team of nurses and nursing managers set out to ensure the health and well-being of their patients. To achieve this goal, a nurse manager must adhere to a specific style of nursing leadership. There are many different styles of leadership in the healthcare field. Bass and Barnes (1985) stated that the two most common are transformational and transactional (as cited in Frankel, 2008, p.24). This paper will define leadership, the two different styles, how each are executed, as well as pros and cons of each.

In healthcare it is very important to have strong leaders, especially in the nursing profession. A nurse leader typically uses several styles of leadership depending on the situation presented; this is known as situational leadership. It is important that the professional nurse choose the right style of leadership for any given situation to ensure their employees are performing at their highest potential. Depending on which leadership style a nurse leader uses, it can affect staff retention and the morale of the employees as well as nurse job satisfaction (Azaare & Gross, 2011.) “Nursing leaders have the responsibility to create and maintain a work environment which not only promotes positive patient outcomes but also

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).

“The difference between followers and leaders is that followers need leaders to help them follow what leaders themselves are following. This relationship takes the form of a shared response-ability to a shared calling. Both find each other in a true fellowship to create the world responsibly.” —James Maroosis

This is why, Organizational renowned scholars have been studying of this very significant topic of leadership for literally hundreds of years. Because. It is very complex, not simple one.

Effective followership is an essential component of effective leadership in that, without good followers, the leader’s work is difficult and cumbersome. The role of the follower is many times understated. As illustrated by Kelley (1998), “effective followers are thinkers; energetic and assertive, self-starters, independent problem solvers, and carry out their tasks with these characteristics (p. 143). Effective followers also are characterized by their ability to perform tasks with little supervision, their intelligence, and ability to think for themselves. We are all followers, even those who consider themselves leaders; so to encourage this effectiveness in others; we must be role models for those under us, so that they may also be effective at following. Chaleff (2009) observed that “all important social accomplishments require complex

Leadership is an important role in all aspect of the business world, including nursing. To be a great leader is to be on the frontline taking risks, while achieving shared goals and inspiring others to action as they follow (Marquis & Huston, 2015). Having the title of leader does not equate to one being an actual leader, it is the actions of the leader that must backup the actual title they possess. According to the roles of a hospital-based unit, a nurse may be a floor nurse one day and a charge nurse the next day. Flipping the role of a nurse from follower to leader can cause confusion to the nurse changing roles and to the followers who are expected to adjust their expectations from their peer one day to

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.

According to Daft (2008, p.20) leadership typically reflects the larger society, and theories have evolved as norms, attitudes, and understandings in the larger world of change. Throughout the centuries leaders have adapted in response to these changes. Northouse (2007, p3) defines leadership as a process whereby an individual influences a group of individuals to achieve a common goal. A person’s ability to

Quote from Jerry Rice “Today I will do what others won’t, so tomorrow I can accomplish what others can’t”. Leadership is not a title; it is not a trade, or some sort of hierarchy. Positive leadership is really something more. For leadership to exist, the leader has to have influence to lead oneself, and to lead others. Leadership at its core is a process of influence, meaning the influence must be transactional. The leader must affect the follower by setting goals, and the follower must affect the leader by setting goals. As the leader and the follower come together in a common understanding, and with a common sense of purpose, only then can they begin to move together to accomplish a common goal.

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.