Leadership is widely researched concept because it has attracted attention of many scholars who have been trying to find the most appropriate ways of guiding organisations around the world. The other side of the coin of leadership is followership. One cannot be a successful leader if he cannot be a good follower. Leaders are not born in the positions they finds themselves in within the public and private sector. They start from somewhere, which means that at some point they have to be followers. According to Kellerman (2007), promotion of individuals is often determined by leaders. When a leader is selecting an individual who should be promoted to higher positions within their organisations, they often look for good followers. They look for people who are able to understand and follow their instructions in the best ways possible. It is through such promotions, based on good followership, that one finds self in senior positions of leadership. According to Kelly (2008), followers play a critical role in the development of any organisation if they embrace their positions and remain committed to doing what is expected of them. We need to understand the fact that the most successful organisations have learnt how to harness the power of followership in order to achieve success. In this presentation, we will critically look at the power of followership and its relevance to modern-day organisations.
Understanding the Concept of Followership
Followership is a process and to be successful as a follower, it may be necessary understand the steps involved. Whether you are working in the production, engineering, design, or sales and administration support, you need to understand these steps and follow them to ensure that you are actively engaged in contributing your ideas and expertise to your organisation. The Piktochart below shows these steps that need to be followed.
As shown in the above chart, the first step towards being a good follower is to conduct a personal analysis and to determine your position and role as a follower. If you are an engineer, clearly understand your role within the organisation. As an engineer, your role may be to design a given product within the company. You need to critically review that role and determine how your new ideas can help you do that work in a better way than what you are doing currently. The next step, as shown in our chart, is to identify fellow followers. Using the example of the engineer, you should identify fellow engineers who are working in your line. As Hurwits and Hurwits (2015) say, to be actively engaged in contributing ideas to your organisation as a follower, one needs to start a discussion with fellow followers to find ways of bringing change.
The next step is to determine the relationship with fellow followers. The main task at this stage will be to identify individuals whose roles are directly related to yours within this firm. At this stage, you will be trying to link your responsibilities to that of colleagues within your department and other departments related to your department. You should try to visualise how you as a follower, can work together with other followers to develop new ideas that can help transform your department and your firm in general. After the visualisation, the next step will be to try and develop a working relationship with these fellow followers. You should try to implement what had been previously visualised (Seteroff 2003). You can engage these fellow followers in relevant discussions about your different roles, how your roles are related, and what you can do to ensure that you achieve success when you coordinate very closely when undertaking your duties. It is at this stage that you as followers can decide, as a team, how you want your views to be heard by the superior authorities within the company.
The next stage is very important because it involves actual investment of time and commitment into this relationship. Developing a working relationship at workplace may sometimes be very challenging because of a number of factors. Sometimes your colleagues may fail to share your vision. At times they may have conflicting or irrelevant interests. Harmonising your visions and interests takes a lot of time and dedication. You need to have a positive attitude that indeed you can share a vision despite the possible different views individuals may have about a given issue.
As a good follower, you should encourage teamwork among fellow followers. This can be done using very simple processes that will create a unique bond among members of your team (Chaleff 2009). You may take time over lunch breaks and discuss the challenges you face in your areas of work. Through such discussions, you may share views about the possible ways of solving this problem using the available resources. The colleagues may also help in determining when it is the right time to engage the management, especially when the solution proposed needs some financial investment. Teamwork can also be translated to the actual tasks that individuals do in their workplaces. For instance, the colleagues may spare a few minutes to go and witness challenges that one of their own could be having at the place of work. As a team, you can find a solution to that problem. It creates an impression among your team members that you are always available for each other in times of need.
Communication, as Jackson and Parry (2011) say, is critical in creating a working relationship in the workplace. It is not just at this stage that communication should be maintained but also in the above stages and the other stages where two or more people need to come together and share ideas. You need to understand that effective communication is the glue which will ensure that you remain as a team and that no misunderstandings are allowed to prevail. The power of followership is strengthened by proper communication amongst yourself and between you and your leaders. First, you must ensure that your views have been harmonised so that you can speak in one voice. It should be noted that speaking in one voice does not mean engaging in activism or any activity against the management. The power of followership does not involve you fighting your leaders. It involves working very closely with them. It involves understanding that one day you will be a leader and as such you need to develop an environment that promotes success (Howell 2000). You will try to create ways of communicating with colleagues and the management to address issues affecting your organisation. Sincerity and commitment are values which are highly encouraged when communicating with various stakeholders.
The next stage is to promote research among members as a way of finding solutions. It should be remembered that the power of followership basically involves employees getting actively engaged in the activities within their organisations, giving their contributions, and ensuring that their views are taken into consideration when developing strategic objectives. The power of followership is exhibited when the followers are able to come up with unique and innovative ways of addressing challenges that their organisations face (Tourish, Craig, & Amernic 2010). This can only be done if they engage in research. Finding local solutions to local problems requires some form of investigation. This can be done by trying to find out how similar organisations in the local or international market are addressing similar problems. Their strategies can then be altered to fit into the local context.
Sharing of research ideas is very important stage in enhancing the power of followership. A good example that we can give is a situation where a sales and administration support comes up with a new idea based on what a similar organisation in the United States is doing. We to appreciate that there are fundamental differences between the business environment in the United Kingdom and that in the United States. As such, the new idea borrowed from the United States will need to be reviewed and adjusted to fit into the local context. This can be done effectively if there is a forum where followers share their ideas to come up with superior solutions to those that are currently in use.
Benefits of Embracing the Power of Followership
It is important to understand that followership is the only path towards leadership. You cannot be a good leader if at one time you were not a good follower. Ladies and gentlemen you need to appreciate the fact that success of any organisation depends on what individuals do in their respective areas of work. Using power of employees helps in transforming an organisation from that which is manager-driven to that which is people-driven (Lapierre & Carsten 2014). A people-driven organisation is beneficial to the managers, employees, shareholders, and all other stakeholders because everyone’s view is always taken into consideration. It is the power of followership that creates an organisation where managers feel obligated to consult the junior employees when developing strategic objectives. It means that there will be no scenario where junior employees are forced to implement new ideas and strategies that they had not been informed about. Through this power, followers will be transformed from implementers of change to drivers of change.
Conclusion
Employees are the most important resources that any organisation can have. Their activities define how successful an organisation can be in addressing environmental challenges that they face in their internal and external environment. Ladies and gentlemen, I want you to understand that you have the power to define the path that your organisation takes towards its future success. When you harness that power, and work together with your colleagues, then you can be the change that you desire to see in your firm. You need to understand that one day you may be a leader. However, that depends on how good you are as a follower. Take advantage of the opportunity you have as a follower to develop into a good leader.
Individual Reflective Cycle
The group work process was very informative and I was able to learn a lot. In this individual reflection, I will use Kolb’s Experimental Learning Cycle to bring out the important concepts learnt through this process. The figure below shows the stages involved in this cycle.
I had a concrete experience of the power of followership when the group members embraced the need for them to be actively involved in addressing the tasks assigned to us. At first, I thought that the team will face challenges working as a unit and finding solutions to our problems within the time that was available. However, this was not the case because the group members were highly motivated by the topic of power of followership and how it relates to leadership. They wanted to experiment and determine if it is true that success can be achieved through being good followers.
In my reflective observation, I can say that the experience I had was informative. We addressed our assignment in record time and the quality of our work was amazing. Indeed it was true that power of followership is important in achieving success in an organisational setting. In my abstract conceptualisation, I can conclude that power of followership is a culture and organisations should inculcate this culture in their employees to enhance their productivity. Active experimentation, based on this experience, will be to try out what I have learnt in this group work in my place of work and promote it among my fellow employees.
List of References
Chaleff, I 2009, The courageous follower: Standing up to & for our leaders, Berrett-Koehler, San Francisc.
Collinson, D 2006, Rethinking followership: A post-structural analysis of follower identities, Leadership Quarterly, vol. 17, no. 1, pp. 179-189.
Howell, J 2000, Case study on followership and leadership in college teachers, Capella University, Minneapolis.
Hurwits, M & Hurwits, S 2015, Leadership is half the story: A fresh look at followership, leadership, and collaboration, Springer, New York.
Jackson, B & Parry, K 2011, A very short, fairly interesting and reasonably cheap book about studying leadership, Sage, Los Angeles.
Kellerman, B 2007, ‘What every leader needs to know about followers,’ Harvard Business Review, vol. 6, no. 7, pp. 67-78.
Kelly, R 2008, Rethinking followership: How great followers create great leaders and organisations, Jossey-Bass, San Francisco.
Lapierre, L & Carsten, M 2014, Followership: What is it and why do people follow, McMillan, London.
Seteroff, S 2003, Beyond leadership to followership: Learning to lead from where you are, Trafford, Victoria.
Tourish, D, Craig, R, & Amernic, J 2010, ‘Transformational leadership education and agency perspective in Business School pedagogy: A marriage of inconvenience’ British Journal of Management, vol. 21, no. 8, pp. 40-59.