Review Questions – Chapter 12: Followership

1. What is followership?
Followership can be defined as the process whereby an individual or individuals accept the influence of others to accomplish a common goal. This process involves a power differential between the follower and leader, which typically refers to followers deferring to the leaders’ power. Additionally, it is important to note that followership can be both positive or negative depending on the situation. An example of a positive use of followership is platoon members following a leader to complete a mission, whereas a negative example of followership would be following a cult leader to do potentially harmful things.

2. Why does followership have negative connotations?
Followership can have negative connotations, as it is not typically praised within society. It is the leaders rather than the followers that take center stage, and the leaders rather and followers that will often gain recognition for performance of a team. As such it becomes more compelling to be a leader and not a follower.

3. What is the ethical dimension of followership?
Like leadership, followership is not a process is morally neutral. It carries with it an ethical dimension that primarily concerns the actions of the followers, in which followers take responsibility for the morality of their actions it is determining the rightness or wrongness of their outcomes. This is particular pertinent and the actions and behaviors of a follower, can have a direct impact on organizational outcomes. Furthermore, leaders share a common moral obligation with followers in achieving common goals.

4. Distinguish between role-based and relational-based perspectives of followership.
There are two broad categories of followership; role-based and relational-based. Role-based followership emphasizes the roles and styles of followers, as well as how their behaviors affect the leader and organizational outcomes. This category of followership focuses on the typical roles displayed while occupying a formal or informal position within a hierarchy. An example of role-based followership occurs when followers in a staff meeting are engaged offering insightful suggestions that will have a positive impact on the meeting and its outcomes.
Conversely, relational-based followership argues from a social constructivist perspective that followership is co-created by the leader and the follower. In this category of followership, the meaning of followership emerges from the communication of the leader and the follower. As supposed to focusing on rules, relational-based leadership focuses on the interpersonal process and one person’s attempt to influence another person’s response.

5. What is a typology?
Typology is the process of grouping followers into distinguishable categories, thus creating an accurate classification system. Use of a typology enhances our understanding of the broader followership, by breaking it down into smaller pieces.

6. Describe the two axes of the Zaleznik Follower Typology. What do they measure?
The two axes of the Zaleznik Follower Typology are Dominance-Submission and Activity-Passivity. The vertical axes in this typology represents the control a follower want from his/her leader ranging from wanting to control the leader (ie., dominance) to wanting to be controlled by the leader (ie., Submission). The horizontal axes represent a range of follower who want to initiate and be involved (ie., activity) to those want to sit back and

withdraw (ie., passivity). The combination of these two axes results in the identification of four different types of followers; withdrawn (submissive/passive), masochistic (submissive/passive), compulsive (high dominance/passive) and impulsive (high dominance/active). These types of followers exist in response to inner tension regarding authority.

7. Describe the two axes of the Kelley Follower Typology. What do they measure?
The two axes of the Kelley Follower Typology are independent critical thinking-dependent uncritical thinking (on the vertical axis) and active-passive (on the horizontal axis). These dimensions resulted in five different types of follower rules including; passive followers, conformist followers, alienated followers, pragmatics and exemplary followers. The Kelley Follower typology primarily focuses on the motivations of follower as well as their behaviors and how these aspects make up and measure exemplary followership. Kelley’s typology suggested that effective followership is composed of four indispensable qualities: 1. Self-management, 2. Commitment to organizational goals, 3. Master job skills and 4. Characters of humility (to include being credible, ethical and courageous.

8. How does Chaleff’s Follower Typology differ from Zaleznik’s and Kelley’s?
Chaleff’s Follower Typology varies from Zaleznik’s and Kelley’s typology through arguing followers and leaders have equal influence. In order for this to occur Chaleff emphasized a prescriptive method that advocates how leaders are supposed to behave. This includes; assuming responsibility, support the leader, challenging the leader, championing the need for change and taking a moral stand different to that of the leaders to prevent ethical abuses. This is constructed through the use of an axis that ranges from low challenge to high challenge on the horizontal axis to low support and high support on the vertical axis. This axis helps to form four different followership styles; resource, individualist, implementer and partner.

9. Explain the five levels of engagement in Kellerman’s Follower Typology.
Kellerman’s follower typology is composed of five different levels of engagement, which make up a continuum from low levels of engagement to high levels of engagement. These five levels are described in more detail below:
1. Isolates; are completely unengaged and do not care about the leaders, which in turn gives leaders more power to exercise their personal will.
2. Bystanders; are observers who do not participate, and when asked to make a decision will declare neutrality.
3. Participants; are partially engaged individuals who are willing to take a stand on issues, both in support or opposition of the leader.
4. Activists; are change agents, who are adamant about acting on their own beliefs.
5. Diehards; are deeply committed to either supporting or opposing the leader. A diehard will be all consumed with his/her position to the point of extremism.

10. Explain the relationship between the variables in Table 12.2.
The constructs listed in Table 12.2 are a first attempt at differentiating the main components of followership. According to Uhl-Bien and her colleagues the four main components of followership are: follower characteristics, leader characteristics, followership (and leadership) behaviors as well as followership outcomes. Each one of these constructs contains at least two variables that help to construct that component. In order to understand the relationship between the variables and constructs of Table 12.2 two theoretical frameworks should be utilizes both ‘reversing the lens’ and ‘co-creation’ as described in more depth below.

11. What is the “reversing the lens” approach to studying followership?
The ‘reversing the lens’ approach reverses the typical approach of followership through emphasizing the notion that followers can be change agents. In particular this approach addresses three main aspects; the impact of followers’ characteristics on follower behaviors, the impact of follower behaviors on leaders’ perceptions and the impact of leaders’ perception and behavior on followers ‘behaviors.

12. How is leadership co-created, according to Uhl-Bien and her colleagues?
The leadership co-created approach conceptualizes followership as a give-and-take process, in which one individuals following behaviors interacting with another individuals leading behaviors in order to create leadership and its resulting outcomes. This approach emphasizes that leadership is co-created through the combined act of leading and following. As illustrated very simply in Figure 12.7 leading behaviors are in direct influence to following behaviors to not only allow leadership, but also achievement of common goals and outcomes.

13. How can followers effectively challenge leaders?
Followers can effectively challenge leaders through being proactive and attentive in the work they do. As such followers may have knowledge about a process or procedure the leader is unaware of, making the them a strong asset to both the leader and the organization. Furthermore, followers that challenge leaders can help keep the leaders in line with the overall mission of the organization.

14. How does unhealthy followership occur, according to Lipman-Blumen?
According to Lipman-Blumen unhealthy followership occurs as a result of people’s need to find safety, feel unique and be included within a community. In particular Lipman-Blumen identified six psychological factors that foster destructive leadership as desrcibed below:
1. Our need for reassuring authority figures; which can make followers potentially vulnerable to abusive leaders.
2. Our need for security and certainty; in which we struggle, with stress and anxiety in environments of uncertainty.
3. Our need to feel chosen or special; which gives a sense of security to followers, at the expense of appreciating the humanity of the others.
4. Our need for membership in the human community; which can be exploited by destructive leader who take advantage of individuals highly dependent on the group.
5. Our fear of ostracism, isolation and social death; which can lead to group conformity.
6. Our fear of powerlessness to challenge a bad leader; in which destructive leaders are unintentionally enabled.