It is commonly thought that organizations and businesses succeed and fail based on how well their leaders are able to lead. Kelley states that this success/fail rate is also dependent on how well followers are able to follow. Without having followers, or in the case of a boss employees, a leader is nothing. It is hard to enact change if you do not have any support behind you or run a business if you have no one working for you. I found the experiment about the commercial bank very interesting and posed many questions to answer about the leader/follower relationship. There was a bank on the east coast that was on the verge of being shut down and the head of the department had set up his employees to work without a leader to take responsibility and accountability for themselves. The employees were able to successfully do this, the department regained control and the bank was saved. This leaves us with the question of if we really need leaders. It is understandable that some cases definitely need one. For example, a whole country without a leader would only result in mass chaos. But maybe in some environments similar to the one above, it would be more beneficial and effective for there to be no leader.
Kelley states that if a person is a leader in one situation, they are most likely going to be a follower in another situation. Even though the head of a department is the boss to their employees the still need to report back to whoever is higher up than them, like a CEO. The role of a boss comes with power, attention, and a bigger paycheck so there are some selfish people in the world who only take the role to reap the benefits rather than help people. Kelley lists four essential qualities an effective follower must have: management, commitment, competence/focus, and courage/honesty/credibility. These are the same essential characteristics an effective leader should have so if they have the same qualities why don’t those effective followers become leaders instead? This shows us that there may or may not be something special about these leaders which causes them to be able to rise up to the role, like the Great Man Theory. Yet, effective followers have the possibility to become leaders if they have these traits.
I see what you are saying and I agree, the effective followers, often have the capacity to become leaders, however they are not always presented with the opportunities that allow them to benefit from their traits. Maybe in a perfect world, but that is not the case.