Followership

Question 1

What are leaders and followers?

Answer 1

Leaders have been viewed as the causal agents for organisational success. Followership is a relationally based process that includes how followers and leaders interact to co-construct leadership and its outcomes.

Question 2

What is followership?

Answer 2

Followership is a process whereby an individual or individual accepts the influence of others to accomplish a common goal. Followership has an ethical dimension; it is not morally neutral.

Question 3

What is the relationship based perspective?

Answer 3

Based on social constructivism: People create meaning about their reality based as they interact with each other.

Question 4

What is the concept of leadership and followership as a dance?

Answer 4

One person leads and the other follows. This isn’t about superiority or domain or submission. It’s just a practical issue of who initiates a movement, but there is always interplay.

Question 5

What are the follower types?

Answer 5

1. Effective - Independent and active.
2. Alienated - Disillusioned and negative in outlook.
3. Survivors - Do enough to get by.
4. Sheep - Waits for orders and not motivated by organisational goals.
5. Yes- people - Enthusiastic workers but not critical thought processes.

Question 6

What are the 4 typologies of followership?

Answer 6

• Zalenzik (1965): Compulsive, Impulsive
• Kelley (1992): Alienated, Passive
• Chaleff (1995): Implementer, Partner
• Kellerman (2008): Isolate, Bystander

Question 7

What is Zalenik’s typology?

Answer 7

Four types of followers:

Withdrawn - Submissive/passive: Care very little or not at all about what happens at work and consequently take little part in work activities
Masochistic - Submissive/active: Want to submit to the control of the authority figure, even though they feel discomfort in doing so.
Compulsive - Dominance/passive: Want to dominate their leaders, but hold themselves back.
Impulsive - Dominance/active: Are often rebellious, trying to lead whilst being led.

Question 8

What are the key points of Kelly’s typology (1992)?

Answer 8

The most recognised followership typology
Perceives Followers as enormously valuable to organisations
Emphasis on the motivations of followers

Question 9

What are the 4 types of followers according to Kelley?

Answer 9

• Passive followers: Look to leader for direction and motivation.
• Conformist followers: On the leader’s side but still look for direction and guidance.
• Alienated followers: Think for themselves and exhibit negative energy.
• Exemplary followers: Active, positive, and offer independent constructive criticism.

Question 10

What do effective followers do according to Kelley?

Answer 10

• They self-manage and think for themselves; they exercise control, they can work without supervision.
• They show strong commitment to organisational goals as well as personal goals.
• They build their competence and master job skills.
• They are credible, ethical, and courageous.

Question 11

What is Chaleff’s typology (1995, 2003, 2008)

Answer 11

• Chaleff asked why do people follow toxic leaders like Hitler? What can be done to prevent this from recurring?
• Constructively challenge the leader if the common purpose or integrity of the group is being threatened.

Question 12

What are the Two axes of courageous followership?

Answer 12

Courage to support (low–high)
Courage to challenge (low–high)

Question 13

What are the 4 styles of followership?

Answer 13

• Resource (low support, low challenge)
• Individualist (low support, high challenge)
• Implementer (high support, low challenge)
• Partner (high support, high challenge)

Question 14

What is Kellerman’s typology (2008)

Answer 14

• Developed from a perspective of political science
• Leaders’ importance overestimated because they have more power, authority and influence; importance of followers is underestimated.
• Followers are “unleaders” with less rank and who defer to leaders.

Question 15

What are the levels of engagement according to Kellerman?

Answer 15

• Isolates are completely unengaged.
• Bystanders are observers who do not participate.
• Participants are partially engaged and willing to take a stand on issues.
• Activists feel strongly about the leader and the leader’s policies and act on their own beliefs.
• Diehards are deeply committed to supporting the leader or opposing the leader.

Question 16

What is the value of follower typologies?

Answer 16

• They provide labels for follower types which can assist leaders in effectively communicating with them.
• They highlight the many ways in which followers have been conceptualised.
• They share some commonalities among them.
• They provide a starting point for research.

Question 17

What are the theoretical approaches to followership?

Answer 17

Uhl-Bien (2014): Followership consists of “characteristics, behaviours and processes of individuals acting in relation to leaders.”
Followership is a relationally-based process that includes how followers and leaders interact to construct leadership and its outcomes.

Question 18

What are the new perspectives on followership?

Answer 18

• Followers get the job done
• Followers work in the best interest of the organisation’s mission
• Followers challenge leaders
• Followers support the leader
• Followers learn from leaders

Question 19

What is the leadership co-created process?

Answer 19

• One person’s leadership behaviours interact with another person’s followership behaviours to create leadership and its outcomes.
• Leader behaviours are influence attempts.
• Follower behaviours grant power to another, comply, or challenge.

Question 20

What are the influence triggers to leadership and followership?

Answer 20

• Investigates follower’s compliance or non-compliance with leadership directives.
• Barbuto argues that a leader can use several different triggers to secure follower compliance with leadership directives such as rewards and incentives.
• However, followers may also resist leadership directives because of incongruence with their values, interests and goals.

Question 21

What is follower resistance?

Answer 21

• Constructive resistance involves well-intended efforts to open a dialog with the supervisor (e.g., ask for clarification or negotiate).
• Dysfunctional resistance involves passive–aggressive responses in which subordinates might act as if they are too busy to complete the request, pretend they did not hear it, or say they forgot.

Question 22

What is follower self concept?

Answer 22

• Carsten et al. (2010) state that followership style played by the followers is affected by cultural norms which finally forms a self-concept.
• An individual’s self-concept refers to a personal characteristic which distinguishes an individual from another (Howell and Mendez, 2008).
• Hence, some forms of follower resistance may be rooted in a rejection of leadership directives which are perceived to violate a follower’s self concept.

Question 23

What are the influence tactics of followership?

Answer 23

• Influence tactics used by subordinates are significantly affected by the manager’s leadership style and vary as a function of the goals he seeks to achieve by influencing the leader.
• When followers seek personal benefits (e.g., career advancement), ingratiation is the most often employed tactic.
• With respect to leader style, followers have a greater tendency to use non-rational tactics—such as blocking, upward appeal, and ingratiation.

Question 24

What are the reactions to follower resistance?

Answer 24

• Tepper et al. (2000) studies how managers evaluate follower resistance and their influence attempts. They found two types of reactions:
• Some managers have a uniformly dysfunctional perspective (i.e., managers regard all manifestations of resistance as indicators of ineffective influence and rate subordinates unfavourably when they resist).
• Some managers have a multifunctional perspective (i.e., managers regard some manifestations of resistance as more constructive than others and rate subordinates more favourably when they employ constructive resistance tactics).

Question 25

What are some leadership and followership dysfunctions?

Answer 25

• A follower’s action can make or break the leader. Poor followership can severely damage the organisation and harm those who depend on it.
• Chronic and extreme criticism of leaders ultimately reduces the quality of leadership, causing the organisation itself to become ineffective.

Question 26

Why do Followers follow Destructive Leaders?

Answer 26

• Our need for reassuring authority figures.
• Our need for security and certainty.
• Our need to feel chosen or special.
• Our need for membership in the human community.
• Our fear of ostracism, isolation, and social death.
• Our fear of powerlessness to challenge a bad leader.

Question 27

What is Folie à Deux?

Answer 27

At the extreme, such leader-follower relationships can develop into a psychiatric condition known as folie à deux, in which two or more afflicted individuals reinforce each other’s delusions.

Question 28

What is the toxic triangle?

Answer 28

Padilla et al. (2007) explore how followers contribute to toxic leadership.
- Susceptible Followers
- Conformers
- Colluders

Question 29

What is Elizabeth Holmes and followers at Theranos?

Answer 29

Elizabeth Holmes fooled a lot of people. The Theranos founder promised to revolutionise health care with a pinprick of blood and ended up indicted on charges of defrauding investors and deceiving patients and doctors and was sentenced to 11 years in prison in 2023. How did she fool her followers? In the paper “The Mismanaged Soul: Existential Labour and the Erosion of Meaningful Work,” ( 2017) researchers found that organisations can “use the rhetoric of service to a higher ideal to mislead members about the nature of their work.

Question 30

What are the Contributions and Cautions of followership?

Answer 30

• Recognition of followership as an integral part of the leadership process.
• Forces a whole new way for people to think about leadership, and to focus on followers.
• Views leadership as co-constructed.
• Provides a set of basic prescriptions for what a follower should or shouldn’t do to be effective.
• Leaders can learn how to understand followers and how to most effectively work with them but need to be wary of typecasting.