The Rise of Followers

In a recent conversation about the components of leadership – leader, followers, and the situation – I was presented with a different word for follower, “led” (Northouse, 2021). So, I dove in to understand the perspective of “led” versus follower, and along the way, it became apparent that the word we use must fit into the context of today’s evolving leadership equation, rather than stand apart as yesterday’s leadership model. Leadership is not a mutually exclusive endeavor. The word “led” is a leader-focused term, that depends on the leader to pull and guide subordinates along. Whereas, the term follower empowers people with a choice to be in service of another. This may seem nuanced, but as a former assistant justice of the supreme court, Antonin Scalia, said, “Words have meaning. And their meaning doesn’t change.” (Senior, 2013).

The Leadership Equation

Leadership is a process where an individual positively influences groups of people to come together as a team to achieve a common goal (Northouse, 2021, p.6). This definition refutes the trait approach to leadership and focuses on the interaction between the leader and followers of influencing and being influenced (Northouse, 2021, p.352). Since interactions change across varying situations, we must take a more comprehensive view of leadership that recognizes each component with near equal proportional impact. Thus, an equation emerges as a summation of components to signify their combined effect on leadership. The Leadership Equation equals the leader plus the follower plus the situation. Below this is visually represented with the leader at the bottom of the three circles to offer a change in perspective for how we may view leadership. With the leader at the bottom in this diagram, it is as though the leader is assessing the situation and looking to their followers to see what they need. Ultimately, the leader has the responsibility for down and in and up and out decisions, so it is natural that we view the leader at the top, but when possible we should adjust our perspective to see if we glean something that we might not have seen before.

Leadership Equation: Leadership = Leader + Follower + Situation

Figure 1:  Leadership Equation Visualization

The “Led”

Throughout history, there have been good leaders, ambitious leaders, bad leaders, and we will continue to have that lot of leaders and more in the future. What every leader needs is someone to lead. We seem to be in societal default for the characteristics that put someone into a leadership role – a charismatic spokesperson, a larger-than-life stature, and many other “great [person]” traits from the trait approach to leadership (Northouse, 2021, p.27). Why do these paradigms prevail in a time when there is more information at our fingertips than we have ever had before? Perhaps the easy button is to go along to get along, accepting our fate as the one that is laid out before us by an outspoken person willing to take the helm. If that is the case, then we are much more likely to default to being “led.” Being “led” is a passive endeavor requiring the leader to provide direction, guide actions, and drive the results of the group. The “led” are not truly factored in as part of the leadership equation, they are merely a means to the leader’s end state.

Moving cattle on a ranch involves an interplay of ranchers, cattle dogs, cattle, and the environment. The ranchers lead and push the cattle and the dynamic cattle dog cajoles and vigorously encourage the cattle to move from grazing pastures to an enclosed protected area of the ranch. The cattle are no more concerned about where they are going or where they have been, the only concern they may really have is where they might get their next blade of grass to eat. In this situation, the cattle are the ones being “led.” Similarly, when people are “led” they are expected to be obedient, loyal, respectful, and cooperate (As cited in Moore, 1927, p.124).

To liken people to cattle, is a crude metaphor, at best. Yet, it symbolizes a relationship where the cattle are simply living an existence rather than accomplishing objectives to carrying out a strategic vision. People are no more cattle than they are “led,” and thus it is time to shift our mentality, focus, and perspective to an approach befitting the collective contribution to leadership and the team. We are dancing around a philosophical debate on “free will,” so for the sake of this topic, we shall infer that people have control over their actions, and as such, there is a correlational relationship between the actions of the leader, those being “led,” those choosing to follow, and the situation (Stanford, 2018). If following is a choice, being “led” may be considered a constraint, where not doing as the leader says is met with such dire consequences that being “led” is nested in the survival instincts of human behavior.

In the typologies of followership, the “led” might be considered to be passive, conformist, and compulsive bystanders (Northouse, 2021, p.354). The typologies of the “led” don’t bode well for a balanced leadership equation for success in competitive and complex environments. Now, there is another side to this coin in that the “led” can exhibit positive behaviors as well such as pragmatist, exemplary, partner, participant, and diehard (Northouse, 2021, p.354). To arrive at these positive typologies for the “led” we must then presume that the common understanding of “led” lends itself to these traits. If the term does not prompt these traits then we are back to our default comprehension of “led” as someone who is task-directed.

The Rise of the Followers

The leadership equation, Leadership = Leader + Follower + Situation, emphasizes the importance these three intersecting elements have on leadership (Northouse, 2021). Just as we are not born critical thinkers, we are also not born leaders or effective followers, these areas must be trained and developed over time and situations. A team is comprised of more than one person, and just as such there is no leader without people who choose to follow, there is no team either. Followers empower leaders with the privilege and responsibility to guide the team to a better place for the collective accomplishment of shared goals.  As such leaders empower followers with autonomy and trust to accomplish organizational goals.

Befitting to the discussion of the “led,” followers are also in need of education, training, and mentorship. The interplay between the leader and people who are “led”, rather than the leader and those that choose to follow is a dynamic outlined in the followership typologies. The most notable is The Kelley Typology which outlines effective followers as self-managed thinkers seeking to master skills who commit to the team for goal accomplishment with dependable courage (Northouse, 2021, p. 257). Kelley’s research also illuminated that followers impact an organization’s success by as much as 80%, whereas leader only impacts the remaining 20% (Schroeder, 2019). Perhaps a perspective and resource shift is in order with the emergence of more focused follower development to balance out leader development.

Clive Barrow, a New Zealand youth leader, stated in his TEDx Talk “If leadership is the spark, then followership is the flame” (Barrow, 2020, 19:55). The leader’s spark is the vision and catalyst of change, and the followers’ flame is turning that vision into reality (Barrow, 2020). Followership’s fundamental requirement is to embrace humility and demonstrate commitment to something beyond yourself by supporting from the shadows (Barrow, 2020). Success for the team comes from both leaders and followers’ creating the conditions for each other to succeed (Barrow, 2020, 18:43). It is in being vulnerable to provide service to each other without the expectation that trust and faith cultivate the foundation of a team.

“He who cannot be a great follower cannot be a great leader.”

– Aristotle (Schroeder, 2019).

Today, when most of us hear the term follower social media accounts probably come to mind. Although that isn’t the type of following we have been referring to, there are similarities in how the support of a few garners the support of the many. There is no better example of this than Derick Sivers How to Start a Movement TED Talk that demonstrates both leader vulnerability and the power of the first follower (2010).

There is also a notion that being a follower is a sign of weakness, and that leadership is more captivating to our desires (Northouse, 2021, p.352). The perspective of followers being lesser than, maybe due to our individualistic western culture, but it is unlikely to transcend to the global view. Mostly, a negative view of followership is likely due to years of overemphasizing the leader and devaluing the importance of followers in the leadership equation. Often times as leader’s come and go in an organization, followers remain to be part of the next leadership equation.

As someone who has been both follower and leader, followership is the humility to be selfless in cultivating the achievement of others for our collective triumph. Although being the leader is an empowering responsibility, being a follower is leading with the freedom to choose to empower others. We are at the crossroads of change and the need to recognize and appreciate the rise of the followers is here to evolve the leadership model.

References

Adobe. (2022). Adobe Stock. Retrieved from https://stock.adobe.com/.

Barrow, C. (2020 December 10). How Followership Leads to Leadership. TEDx Talks. Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JNOUO_zZ_kg.

Northouse, P. G. (2021). Leadership (9th Edition). SAGE Publications, Inc. (US). https://bookshelf.vitalsource.com/books/9781071834473.

Moore, B. V. (1927). The May conference on leadership. Personnel Journal, 6, 124–128.

Schroeder, B. (2019 December 5). To Be A Great Leader, Learn How To Be A Great Follower: The Four Rules Of Following. Forbes. Retrieved from https://www.forbes.com/sites/bernhardschroeder/2019/12/05/to-be-a-great-leader-learn-how-to-be-a-great-follower-the-four-rules-of-following/?sh=4d4f07417325.

Sivers, D. (2010). How to start a movement. TED Talk. Retrieved from https://www.ted.com/talks/derek_sivers_how_to_start_a_movement?language=en .

Senior, J. (2013 October 4). In Conversation: Antonin Scalia. New York Magazine. Retrieved from https://nymag.com/news/features/antonin-scalia-2013-10/.

Stanford University. (2018, August 21). Free Will. Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. Retrieved from https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/freewill/#DoWeHaveFreeWill.