Followership In The Workplace

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

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

The current context of work, leadership, and followership is positioned in progressively multifaceted, uncertain, and dynamic business backgrounds with multiple realities founded upon various values, priorities, and requirements. The actual encounters demanded by globalization, amplified competition, far-reaching sociocultural and technological growths, and the acceleration of changes that are conveying new intricacies for organizations (Küpers, 2007).

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.

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 most relevant piece of Reicher , Platow & Haslan (2007 ) article in relation to my leadership role as it relates to followers is " one of the gang " . As the article indicates , group behaviour is possible due to individuals having a shared social identity (person's sense of self , defined by the group ) . This group identity binds the members together and allows for meaningful group behaviour . (Reicher , et al , 2007 ) In this respect to lead the group (1)in a meaningful way , one needs to represent the group or be seen as " one of the gang " . As I reflect on the leader-follower relationship (2)in a social identity context , I know I have put importance (3)on being one of the gang . I feel that it is (4)my (5)responsibility to represent

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

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).

Based on what I learned from the Leadership and Followership module, the one concept that is most important to me is Followership because Jesus invited his disciples to “Follow me,” not to “Come lead in my name,” and in a world preoccupied with leadership, what should we make of that invitation? Taking a look at the example He left for us, it fits right in line with the definition of followership from the lesson: One in service of another; one that follows the teachings of another; one that imitates another. Think of the impact we would have on our subordinates, peers, and supervisors if we all followed that example of followership.

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.

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.

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

In our modern world we are convinced that a company 's success is based solely on the way it is led. Because of this we study how companies are led, the great leaders past and present, we spend vast hours out of the day and unsurpassable amounts of money into finding today 's great leaders. I don 't argue with this amount of enthusiasm, we must be zealous in finding great leaders however, we tend to lose sight in finding the people these great leaders will lead. Organizations succeed or fail partly on the basis of the leaders and how well they lead but also partly on the basis of how well their followers follow. So what is a follower, more importantly what is followership? According to McCallum (2013) "Followership is a straightforward

Followers are given full authority for decision making and leader just pose as observer in the group. Follower should decide their own goal and ways for solution on their own. Thus they are required to be experienced and highly trained in order to achieve the effective outcome.