Relationship Between Leadership and Followership

This study adopts a qualitative approach to deconstruct the meaning of followership. Interviews were conducted with employees in various industries to examine how individuals socially construct their roles as followers and to explore followership schemas and contextual influences that relate to these constructions. Results suggest that while some individuals socially construct definitions around passivity, deference and obedience, others emphasize the importance of constructively questioning and challenging their leaders. With regard to personal qualities that are thought to make followers effective, major themes such as obedience, expressing opinions, and taking initiative were found to be most disparate across different groups of followers. Results also revealed that contextual factors may affect both followership constructions and behavior in the follower role. These findings have important implications regarding a need to examine the construct of followership in leadership resea...

This study adopts a qualitative approach to deconstruct the meaning of followership. Interviews were conducted with employees in various industries to examine how individuals socially construct their roles as followers and to explore followership schemas and contextual influences that relate to these constructions. Results suggest that while some individuals socially construct definitions around passivity, deference and obedience, others
emphasize the importance of constructively questioning and challenging their leaders. With regard to personal
qualities that are thought to make followers effective, major themes such as obedience, expressing opinions, and
taking initiative were found to be most disparate across different groups of followers. Results also revealed that
contextual factors may affect both followership constructions and behavior in the follower role. These findings
have important implications regarding a need to examine the construct of followership in leadership research, as
well as raise interesting possibilities for advancing an “expanded” view of leadership in organizations.
Keywords: Followership, Leadership, Social construction, Social cognition, Qualitative research

Seeing how the idea of the ‘ruler cult’ and the necessary ‘myth-making’ to establish it exists to this day, as seen with the regime of a 21st century dictator like Kim Jong-il, it would be most interesting to see what parallels exist between cases of divine leadership and what we might learn about our contemporary cult rulers when looking at the dynamics of the two-millennia-old cult of the deified Emperor Augustus. As such, I have formulated a central question that focuses on the reign of Divus Augustus, and in doing so provides opportunity to extrapolate from it new insights in similar but contemporary figures of leadership. A clear case of 'to understand motives in the present, one must look at actions in the past.'

This chapter is based on a series of experiential workshops and exercises to help leaders and followers to be more mindful about their leading and following styles, and the impact that has on their followers or leaders. This approach has emanated from the authors’ experience as academics, practitioners, and dancers. It focuses on management learning in a holistic way, and as such differs from management training that tends to focus on skills in a rationalist, often utilitarian way, providing “toolkits” to achieve simple cause-and-effect chains. This workshop has the potential to be enlightening and empowering, both for leaders and followers. It helps people to understand better the “lead” and “follow” roles and their mutual dependence, as well as to understand the implications of different leadership styles. The workshops are based on the view that leader-follower-ship is seen as relational, mutually constructed, and mutually enabling, rather than hierarchical and based on power and authority.

"Driving leadership style" of the school leadership proclaims to be important in bringing about changes in behavioural aspect of the followers. The hallmark of driving leadership style illustrated the characteristic of teaming, toning, tasking, timing and transforming with realistic view to subjective approach. This allowed the leadership to understand the human relationship approach while instigating as a lead follower in the group. The purpose of the study was to explore, the pertinence of leadership and how they grow with the followers. Semi structured interview were implemented with different actors with two sets of interview schedules separately designed for the school leaders and the other actors. Driving leadership style moreover, reflects to demonstrate the ability of working from middle as a lead follower allowing the opportunity to understand and knowing of followers. This somehow built the confident to the school leaders to overcome with the difficulties related with organizational climate. Driving leadership style illustrated to bring about social harmony and cohesive within the organizational behavioural settings furthering leaders to grow with the followers. (Contains 2 tables and 4 figures.)

Private sector employers in the UAE complain that the majority of fresh Emirati graduates are eager to take on leadership roles but hesitant in accepting followership roles and positions. This research presentation highlights the practical importance of followership roles in the formative stage of professional career and how it further leads to successful leadership positions.

Why does educational leadership need maintenance? In educational settings, leadership roles occur almost everywhere from principals to classroom teachers; and also among students and within student groups. In all of these cases, leadership roles are demonstrated in different ways. In all such cases, leadership maintenance is necessary. Leadership maintenance is a reflection of behaviour generated through leader’s psychological state of mind, sociological state of relational building, and physiological parameters of logistic adequacy. The maintenance of leadership, through Psychological, Sociological and Physiological (PSP) parameters, is an important ingredient to shape leadership competencies. The maintenance of PSP generates and offers wellness to leaders and further generates followership wellbeing, thus creating a mirror effect to followership maintenance and towards building a favourable organisational environment in educational settings.

Keywords: Leadership maintenance, leadership competencies, followership maintenance, psychological, sociological and physiological paradigm, reflexive and mirror effect, leaders’ wellness and followers’ wellbeing