Dear All,
As I was looking for good material and concepts around “Leadership” for a short presentation that I had to make for next week, i was looking through various thoughts, expressions and opinions on what “Leadership” is all about. The concept of Leadership has certainly attracted lots and lots of thought and meaningful debate – if one were to go by the extent of volumes of Business Literature, books and periodicals space that the topic dedicates to. During the look out i also came across a lesser used term and concept known as “Followership” – although it is exactly the other side of the coin. It appears that as compared to the former topic the later topic is definitely not much is talked about or researched on.
I had come across a review of the book “Followership: How Followers Are Creating Change and Changing Leaders” by Barbara Kellerman and i am going to talk about some salient aspects of Followership as defined by the author. However, before we delve into that is it possible to visualize oneself as “Leader only” because every Leader is also a Follower – that is particularly true if one is somewhere in the middle of an organization (By definition one becomes both a Leader and Follower). Also it is almost certain that even a top most CEO would be say a “Follower” of a certain leadership thought or thinking which is shaped up by a leading academic or consultant. So it is very unlikely to find someone who would see himself or herself not to be a “Follower” and hence the definitions of “Followers” by level of engagement as defined by Barbara Kellerman makes both interesting as well as helps one to reflect upon where exactly one sees himself/herself in the categories “Followership”. She defines five categories of followers based on level of engagement. Importantly all these categories of “Followers” either do something in accordance to what the Leaders want or even against their leaders.
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Isolates – The first category obviously refers to the lowest level of engagement. Such category of followers due to their complete isolation from the process of how they relate to or experience leadership. One example given is Registered voters who never exercise their franchise (or) like in India many many educated Elite who don’t even bother to get themselves registered – They become isolants by definition as they have lest level of engagement with respect to the Leaders who eventually get to rule the country.
- Bystanders – While this is the second cateogry by the usage of word it is quite clear that this category of people do very little. The example given is that of majority of population in Nazi Germany’s predicament with entire acts of Holocaust as only a select few among the population had any active role to play in perpetrating the crimes. But majority of people who had a fair view of what happening can be best described as “Bystanders” as they were mute spectators to the whole event and choosing to do very little. In couple of isolated incidents(stated with detail) wherever common people actually opposed the Holocaust acts apparently the acts in itself had to be suspended or postponed which shows the power of involvement of general people.
- Participants – While the first two categories practically had no involvement, starting from this category the extent of involvement increases considerably. The example talked about is how many many consumers got together to oppose Merck, the pharma major Merck in US with respect to Vioxx drug technical name Rofecoxib (once considered a block buster pain killer – but later discovered to be one having increased risk of heart disease). However due to active participation by consumers in terms of higlighting the incidences where the long term usage of drug was proved to be fatal over 27000+ law suits were filed against the Pharma major. She calls this level of followership to be a very high degree of participation.
- Activists – The subsequent level of Followership is considered as being an Activist. The example given for this is how a group of believers who got termed as VOTF(Voice of the faithful) to take up the issue of a major issue in the Catholic Church i.e. Sex offenses commited by some of Priests and Clergyman against unsuspecting church-goers. Often taking up the path of activism against the mighty establishment is certainly fraught with dangers but activists take that up anyway. While only smaller percentage the priests had such allegations against majority of people who are serving the community there was definite issue of the offenders going about repeat offenses as the church establishment was not very active in curbing the practices. Allegations of this sort were there in the news but collective activism by some of the sincere followers of the religion helped highligh the issue in much more forth rightly, speedier resolution of punishment of guilty, financial settlements to victims as well as public acknowledgement by Pope on the issue.
- Die hards – The last and final category is die hard where the follower is prepared to die for the cause. Ofcourse this is true in case of Military or war fare situations. There are ofcourse negative images of the same phenemenon in case of Terrorisms and suicide bombers etc. Here the idea is that Followers have so much belief in the cause which they are after that they are even willing to die for the same. One example cited in the book was “Operation Anaconda” – in which US forces battled Al-Qaeda in a quite risky and daring mission which is described as the involved commandos having the ”Dire Hard” kind of commitment. I guess the recent example of our own NSG commandos battlings the terrorists in the wake of 26/11 situation can also be described as “Die Hard” – is n’t it?
The key idea is followership can be seen from both negative as well as positive contexts. It is also important to recognize that “Followership” goes hand-in-glove with leadership and hence practically inseperable from the issue of leadership and it is going to assume critical importance as we move further in the 21st century as increasingly more and more people would like to exercise their choices with their free will than being simply a blind follower. In the below link i had enclosed – the reviewer talks about two vastly constrasting approaches of two very different leaders. Mahatma Gandhi and Adolf Hitler.
Gandhi has been able to elevate his followers to reach up to “Activist” level which added tremendous impetus and eventually freed the whole country. While Hitler had many activities/initiatives in which most common people will be at best at “Participant” level which even further get downgraded to “Bystander” when it comes critical issues such as Holocaust act.
Do take a detailed look at the comprehensive review of the book by a Top 50 reviewer at Amazon – ofcourse i did cover some salient points of the same. http://www.amazon.com/Followership-Followers-Creating-Changing-Leadership/dp/1422103684
So – question is do you see yourself as a Leader (or) as a Follower? Ofcourse answer may change from issue to issue, cause to cause !!!
thanks