Leadership and Followership - 3976 Words

INTRODUCTION [pic] There is no leader without at least one follower. Yet the modern leadership industry, now a quarter-century old, is built on the proposition that leaders matter a great deal and followers hardly at all. Good leadership is the stuff of countless courses, workshops, books, and articles. Everyone wants to understand just what makes leaders tick—the charismatic ones, the retiring ones, and even the crooked ones. Good followership, by contrast, is the stuff of nearly nothing. Most of the limited research and writing on subordinates has tended to either explain their behavior in the context of leaders’ development rather than followers’ or mistakenly assume that followers are amorphous, all one and the same. As a†¦show more content†¦As the ideas of the Enlightenment took hold in the eighteenth century, for instance, ordinary people (in industrialized societies especially) became less dependent on kings, landowners, and the like, and their expectations changed accordingly—as did their sense of empowerment. The trend continues. Increasingly, followers think of themselves as free agents, not as dependent underlings. And they act accordingly, often withho lding support from bad leaders, throwing their weight behind good ones, and sometimes claiming commanding voices for those lower down in the social or organizational hierarchy. Witness the gradual demise of communism (and totalitarianism) in the former Soviet Union, Eastern Europe, and now China. And consider the social and political upheavals, all of them antiauthority, in the United States and elsewhere during the 1960s and 1970s. Similarly, there has been a dispersion of power at the highest levels of American business, partly because of changes in the cultures and structures of corporations as well as the advance of new technologies. CEOs share power and influence with a range of players, including boards, regulators, and shareholder activists. Executives at global companies must monitor the activities of subordinates situated thousands of miles away. And knowledge workers can choose independently to use collaborative technologies to connect with colleagues and partners in other companies and countries in order to get things done.Show MoreRelatedLeadership : Leadership And Followership996 Words   |  4 PagesLeadership and followership are two sides o f the same coin. However, one of these topics is more closely studied than the other. Leadership is studied in the halls of famous universities and discussed in various books and articles. Many of these discussions involve the same question; what makes a good leader? The question to this answer is both the cause, and the product, of excellent leadership, good followers. What a leader strives to create in the company can only be completed by a force of followersRead MoreLeadership : Leadership And Followership865 Words   |  4 Pages1. 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 skillsRead MoreLeadership : Leadership And Followership1099 Words   |  5 PagesLeadership and Followership Both leadership and followership is a continual journey through actions and growth (Stricklin, 2014). Therefore, leaders must seek development opportunities to optimize their effectiveness. In a followership role, leaders learn important skills that enable them to become better leaders. Ironically, the importance of followership is often overlooked. This essay will identify the leadership skills Mark Zuckerberg, CEO of Facebook, still needs to develop and explore hisRead MoreFollowership is as Important as Leadership1319 Words   |  6 PagesPhD 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? The Merriam Webster dictionary defines followership as â€Å"the capacity or willingness to follow a leader†. Over the last several years, there’s been a huge interest in leadership. However, former HP Executive Vice President, Vyomesh Joshi, shared that the key to being a great leader is not about leadership but instead the real attributeRead MoreLeadership and Followership800 Words   |  4 PagesOne of the most important components of leadership is the leader. A leader is responsible for his or her followers and the overall goal of the group or organization. Leaders are the people held accountable or everything that happens, good or bad. On the other hand, the second major component of leadership is the followers. Without followers, a leader would be worthless. Followers make up the backbone of a leader because they are the masses that get goals accomplished. A leader is just one personRead MoreFollowership: Leadership and Followers1218 Words   |  5 Pagesof a le ader, but followership has received less attention. Treister and Schultz (1997) â€Å"suggests that a follower is someone who accepts guidance and, on receiving it, takes the appropriate action. Treister et al (1997) also state followership is â€Å"considered a passive or submissive role of lesser importance than leadership. However, the effectiveness of leaders to a large measure depends on the qualities of their followers.† Treister et al (1997) go on to say â€Å"good leadership enhances followersRead MoreLeadership As A Dynamic Followership And Leadership Role1270 Words   |  6 PagesIn the preface of Followership, the author Tom Atchison, states the reason there has to be a dynamic followership and Leadership role it s not that there s a lack of effective leadership in healthcare, it’s that the current, worsening, issues are the moral and the staffing shortages of followers which result in a toxic work environment and the challenges on how followers overco me that while being a productive team. In followership there needs to be a leader that inspires and bonds followers togetherRead MoreFollowership And Leadership Of General Schwarzkopf876 Words   |  4 PagesFollowership and Leadership of General Schwarzkopf Introduction General Norman Schwarzkopf had a long lasting career in the United States Army as a follower and a leader. Schwarzkopf’s Army career began with experiencing the Vietnam War, Cold War and eventually commanding the US Central Command (CENTCOM) during Operation Desert Storm and Desert Shield. His ability as a follower and leader influenced multiple layers of personnel in executing military operations, and fostering affiliations amongstRead MoreAnalysis Of Leadership And Followership. Reflecting On1183 Words   |  5 PagesAnalysis of Leadership and Followership Reflecting on my nursing career and trying to pick out a situation that would appropriately describe a leadership or follower situation, I decided on a leadership scenario. I most often assume the role of follower and avoid taking charge of situations. Once I had worked a few years in the emergency department, I began to be nudged into the leadership role more often. Working in the resuscitation room gave me a better feeling of leadership amongst my peers.Read MoreThe Difference Between Leadership and Followership759 Words   |  4 PagesExplain the difference between followership and leadership As you have all learned from leadership classes, all leaders are followers, but not all followers are leaders. One of the biggest differences that separate leaders from followers is the fact that many leaders have charisma. Many followers have charisma, although it may be stifled because they are not in a proper position to utilize it. Charisma, by my own definition, is the compelling attractiveness or charm that enables you to influence