 Leadership is one of the oldest fields of study of human behavior. Homer, Plato, Aristotle, and Confucius all wrote of leadership, although the oldest written leadership principles are found in The Instruction of Ptahhotep from 2300 BCE! One of Ptahhotep’s principles that I like is "If you as a leader decide on the conduct of a great number of people, seek the most perfect manner of making your decisions so that your conduct may be without blame or fault.” Much of recorded history chronicles the leaders of armies, nations, religions and social movements. Fast forward a few centuries and the modern study of leadership began in the early 1900’s with a focus on leadership traits like ambition, intelligence, extroversion and even height. Trait studies soon gave way to a focus on leaders’ skills, behaviors and styles. Today we are familiar with leadership models like charismatic leadership, transformational leadership, servant leadership, and situational leadership, to name a few.
But what about followers? Aren’t they important too? Followership is a relatively new field within the leadership studies. In 1992, Robert Kelly developed a model of followership highlighting the importance of independent, critical thinking for effective followers. In the 2000’s, Ira Chaleff added the importance of followers not just serving leaders but serving a common purpose to achieve positive leadership outcomes. Most recently, in 2014, Mary Uhl-Bien presented perhaps the first formal theory of followership. Uhl-Bien identifies a rich set of characteristics of both followers and leaders, and how they interrelate, to achieve outcomes in general. Her theory has two parts, the first of which is called “Reversing the Lens” and shows that followership is the other side of the coin of leadership with its own follower traits, behaviors and outcomes. The second part, “Leadership Co-Created Process,” focuses on how leader and follower behaviors integrate to jointly create the outcomes of the organization. This elevation of followers to the same level as leaders, theoretically speaking, is striking and adds significantly to our understanding of leadership. For example, the theory would help explain how followers influence leaders, how followers might actually lead the organization, and how synergy between followers and leaders might lead to new heights unachievable by either separately. So why does all this matter? Well, leadership has been around a long time and isn’t about to go away. We need leadership. And countless studies have shown the positive (and negative) effects of leadership on organizational performance. An appreciation of the importance of effective followership, an integral part of effective leadership, can help your organization reach new heights too. |