Writer Robert Kelley, in his article, compared the quality of leadership to the quality of followership. Without an army, a leader is just a person with great ambitions as there is a lack of people to lead. Kelley then goes on to highlight the importance of effective following. Not everyone is mentally or intellectually fit for the tangible role that they play. For instance, a person could hold and live out the career of being a professor by showing up to their scheduled classes and telling students a bunch of information. Yet, that same person who holds the role of professor could lack the ability to teach or give an adequate amount of information in a way for students to comprehend and retain it.
Kelley suggests that followers are the ones who truly compose leadership. Leaders could hold visions for organizational goals. Followers participate in bringing those goals to life. Because there is more diversity in followership, followers are able to better tap into their individual talents to bring the leader’s, or the head organizer’s, ideas to pass. Furthermore, Kelley ensures that leaders have the potential to become good followers. In the same way that followers (and leaders alike) study leadership, it is not the worse idea for leaders to study followership. I am a firm believer that a great leader knows when to step back and allow others to lead, anyway. This would not just be a form of co-leadership but the ability to step into the role of being a follower.
After reading Kelley’s listed “Qualities of Followers”, could one consider a follower to be a leader of themself, in almost a sense of self-leadership? The abilities to self-manage, to be honest, to be credible, and to focus their efforts for maximum impact all stand out to me as prominent leadership qualities.
It seems obvious to me that you can’t have an effective leader or organization without followers, so I thought it was interesting that we don’t talk about what makes a good follower more often. I also agree that knowing when to step back into the role of a follower is an important skill for leaders to have.
I think it depends on whether the leader is good or bad. A leader definitely affects its followers, but most of the time we assume the leader would be good therefore praising them for positive accomplishments and blaming the followers for bad work espacieally in the workplace.
What I didn’t consider however is the insight the writer does give us on followers. When he was defining them I did not think much of that, but distinguishing types of followers definitely helps show or highlight their importance.
This is an important point about the roles of leaders and followers. Effective followers see themselves as equal to the leaders- after all, they just have different skill sets. Leaders have the ability to see the big picture and can manage other people while followers are better with details and seeing the day to day progress. Both parties need each other and its hard to value one over the other
I like how you mentioned that although leaders hold goals and visions, it is the followers who act those out and they cannot be fulfilled without the followers. I think this is a very important notion for leaders to acknowledge because leaders should make their followers feel important so that their goals can come to life through the respected followers.
I think its interesting how you mentioned that perhaps leaders should study follower-ship. I feel that each leader, in their path to attaining their position and power, was once a follower.
The question of how effective they were as a follower is then brought up–I believe that if a person is not a great, active and effective follower they would not be able to be in a position of effective leadership.
I love your point about good followers. Furthermore, I think good followers is an example of positive feedback. It shows that the followers are invested.