This reading made me think a lot about what I’ve learned in my leadership and Humanities course over the last semester. One of our units focused very specifically on defining leadership, and the role followers play in it. One of the things my professor touched on that spoke to me is the importance of followers in any leadership dynamic. In today’s society, followers are often seen as a minor part in any group, organization, or movement. People prefer to focus on leaders as the key component to understanding a group. However, as the reading also says, this is a faulty view. The groups, and the followers in them, are critical. Even in very top down restrictive organizations such as the Military followers can and do have significant influence on the activities and strategies said group engages in.
Another idea we looked at in my humanities course is different types of followers. One thing the reading mentions in that for leaders the group must come first and depending on the followers this is absolutely correct. Followers who involve themselves more and are devoted to the cause must see their leader as furthering the group towards said cause, or the leader will be at risk of losing their position. Due to this, the leader has to take great care to ensure that their decisions are supported by their followers and help the group at large.
In my 102 class, we also focused a lot on the role of followers and how the dynamics of followers are just as important as leaders. I enjoyed how this reading touched upon the importance of communicating and interacting with the followers at every stage of the leadership process. After all, there can be no leader if there are not any followers.
I really liked your example of the military when describing the need for followers. Yes, leaders are obviously important in the military, but without followers, there literally wouldn’t be a military. The needs, capabilities, and structure of the followers often dictate the decision making of the leaders.
I completely agree with you that the role of followers is often overlooked with leadership. One thing that I remember debating, and still don’t have a concrete opinion on, is whether the leaders attract the followers or whether the followers select a leader (even if unconsciously) based on what they need at that moment. This relates to Bezio’s emphasis on context and how context shapes events and leadership.
I really liked how you brought up the importance of the follower in the leader-follower relationship. Without the follower the leader has no one to lead and indoctrinate with his beliefs and thoughts.