Being A Follower, Part 1
The latest release by Evanescence, “Who Will You Follow,” has made me think and reflect deeply on what it means to be a follower. I wrote about this topic before in Being Thankful for Leaders and Followers. As I dug in I realized this will be a two part post. In this post I’m thinking about what it means to create the conditions for effective followers and in Part 2 I’ll examine leaders being authentic and principled in working alongside followers.
During my studies at the University of Oxford Saïd Business School I learned that there is no perfect image of a leader. We studied the work of Robert Nye and found that in over a thousand studies cited by Harvard Business Review, none have produced a clear profile of the ideal leader. That affirms for me the importance of recognizing leadership attributes as opposed to leadership models or archetypes. One of the attributes we talked about at Oxford was that of leaders needing to also be followers. organizations with highly engaged and proactive followers tend to have better team cohesion, innovation, and performance, demonstrating that good followership is an integral part of successful leadership systems.
This leader and follower dynamic is captured in the Leader-Member Exchange (LMX). This is the relationship between the leader and follower. LMX focuses on the quality of the relationship between leaders and followers, emphasizing mutual trust, respect, and obligation. Strong followership behaviors can facilitate high-quality leader-member exchanges, which are crucial for effective leadership and organizational success.
We need to develop organizational communities where followers are able to be effective, with the capacity for independent and critical thinking.
Byron's Babbles 
leave a comment