There are lots of “ingredients”, as Gardner put it, that make up a leader. From earlier readings in the semester, we know that leaders can be successful, charismatic, toxic, tyrannical, and sometimes just straight up not good at their job. One new ingredient to add to this recipe of leadership is the follower.
According to Gardner, “the state of mind of followers is a powerful ingredient in explaining the mergence of the charismatic leader”. Followers and their state of mind can, and most of the time do, have almost as much influence on a leader as a leader has on their followers. Whether you think the follower-leader relationship should be a formal or informal one is up to debate, but the interwoven relationship between leader and follower is undeniable.
It is interesting to note that in recent decades, it seems as if people support leaders who help them arrive at their own judgements. Maybe in other places of the world, but in America, there seems to be a lot more polarizing arguments rather than arriving at one’s own opinion across a plethora of topics: healthcare, college tuition, immigration policy and the list goes on.
I also found it interesting when Mabye says that theories such as trait, organizational, vision, situational and power theories threaten the idea that the leader can be one of us or among us, putting them up on a literal and metaphorical pedestal. The crises confronting society are on a continuum and so should the relationship between leaders and followers. The dichotomy of the leader and follower titles is what can ultimately get us into trouble of resorting to a “Great Man”-“divine right is above the law leadership theory” we have worked so hard to abandon with democracy and citizen leadership.
Actions speak louder than words and actions of leaders influence actions of followers which again influence the actions of leaders. It is an ebb and flow of relationship between following the leader and leading the follower.
Action seemed to be an important topic in Mabey’s work, and I like how you describe the relationship between the actions of leaders and followers. It is much more cyclical than linear, and I feel that it is pretty commonly thought that the leader acts and the followers react, and the interaction ends there. Obviously, that couldn’t be farther from the case.