Role of followers positive psychological capital and relational processes hui wang,1 yang sui,2 fred luthans,3 danni wang,4 and yanhong wu5 1. In truth, followers are themselves an important part of the leadership process, and react towards the leaders influencing attempts. Metaanalytic and primary investigations of the role of. But the true test of leadership lies in developing direct reports who need more guidance and hands on supervision. To find suggestions on what the accountability of followers might look like, including a thought provoking video by a leadership theorist, go to my post, the accountable role of. Role of transformational leadership in organizational. While it might not suit everyone to be in a leadership role, being a follower is often cast as being mindless, a sheep or lacking in some way. The role of followers in the charismatic leadership process. However, leaders lead followers and followers have special responsibilities if the leader is to achieve his or her potential. Good, skilled followers are able to nurture good leadership, by invisibly helping keep a novice leader upright and on track. Every person, no matter how powerful, is accountable to somebody. The role of followers in leadership development chief.
There is a mutuality that requires the leader and follower to work in concert so the organization can function. Great leaders usually are blessed with followers who have the courage and wisdom to advise them truthfully and. The leadership style may affect the percentage of follower types. Perhaps they would be content to be followers if it were seen as a more noble position.
Guanghua school of management, peking university, beijing, china 2. Transformational leadership serves to enhance the motivation, morale, and job performance of. Transformational leadership and follower creativity. But to do that, leaders must first believe in their own strategy.
Organizations require not only effective leaders, but also supportive followers, to achieve goals and objectives. Same when you allow them to demote a boss who is not fit. Learn about how leaders influence employee behavior in this lesson. Leaders as followers followers have enormous value to an organization as collaborators with leaders in achieving organizational success. Seeing followers as purely compliant parties in the leadership process paints an inaccurate view.
Servant leadership puts the emphasis on the needs of the followers psu wc, l1, p. Followership, like leadership, is a role and not a destination. Leaders need great followers 6 roles of great followers. Role of transformational leadership in organizational management. The role of power in effective leadership in the survey, respondents were asked to identify the extent to which they currently leverage the various sources of power at work. The purpose of this paper is to provide an examination of the mediating effects of empowerment and trust in the leader on the relationship between transformational leadership and two outcomes i. Followers are muchmaligned, but were all followers in some areas of our lives. As interested researchers in organizational analysis we judge as very important the study of the role of power to albanian leaders. The role of leadership in organizations leadership is a process in which a leader attempts to influence his or her followers to establish and accomplish a goal or goals. The terms follower and followership suggest a passive, noninfluential role in the leadership process. Although the role of followers is often overlooked, this paper highlights the importance of followers in a successful organization and the traits of an effective follower. For example, the typical behavior of transformational leadership includes idealized influence, which entails serving as a role model for followers to emulate. In leadership jargon, this is called idealized influence. For leadership to function properly, your followers need.
Ethical theories on leadership talk about two main things. It takes both the leader and the follower working together in a dynamic relationship, each one clearly executing on the critical role they have in the relationship, to accomplish effective leadership. Leaders are the role models for their followers, so followers will be willing to accept the. We present a theoretical analysis of the follower s role in the charismatic leadership process.
Followers and leadership essay 2334 words bartleby. Peace, reconciliation and social justice leadership in the. If the needs of the followers are met than it is more likely that the relationship and interactions between leader and follower will produce an increase of lmx from the followers. Of course it is not possible to lead without a leader. In order to accomplish the goal, the leader exercises his or her power to influence people. For leadership to function properly, your followers need power too. The followers responsibilities the leadership crescendo. Leadership is the action of leading employees to achieve goals. It plays an important role in employee performance and productivity. As such, researchers often control for follower characteristics e. How well the leadership is able to communicate the cause behind the change to the followers determines how much persuasion to will have to try at the later stages. Correlating ethics with leadership, we find that ethics is all about the leaders identity and the leaders role. The role of followers in the charismatic leadership. The 4 elements of transformational leaders psychology today.
The leader serves as a positive role model for followers i want to be like my. Ethical leadership and follower voice and performance. However, the understanding of leadership and its linkage to sustainable construction are still limited, thus more work is required to establish the leaders vital role in the implementation of. They are the ones who will expand their vision to truly make the business thrive. According to burns, transformational leadership can be seen when leaders and followers make each other to advance to a higher level of moral and motivation. Leadercentric views of leadership tend to regard followers as passive recipients of leaders influences. The mplus can also deal with nonindependence of ratings by leaders for follower voice behavior, and job performance, as well as ratings of ethical leadership by followers supervised by the same leader due to the stratified and clustering nature of our data structure. Being a follower is just as important as being a leader. They are diligent, motivated, committed, pay attention to detail and make the effort.
The onus is on leaders to create engaged, fulfilled followers who can help them drive change and achieve company goals. The accountable role of followers in the leadership. And in that role, we can learn some important skills that make us better leaders. One could argue that any good leader is in turn a good follower. As business professionals, were constantly being encouraged to strive for a leadership role.
Followers may even allow for a leader to be a figurehead while the secondincharge keeps the organization humming along. As a result of this glorification of leadership, many who strive to be leaders would actually make better followers, as well as be more satisfied in the followership role. School of economics and management, tsinghua university, beijing, china 3. We expect our leaders to provide motivation, direction, and. Leaders need the loyalty and followership of their subordinates. Transformational leadership is a theory of leadership where a leader works with teams to identify needed change, creating a vision to guide the change through inspiration, and executing the change in tandem with committed members of a group. On certain projects, the leader and follower may swap roles. Social oppression, civil war, and state genocide are often a direct product of leadership failures, but recovery from them can be facilitated by other leaders and even followers who appreciate and exercise the powers of truth telling, community reconciliation, and national rebuilding. Therefore, its important to realize that, as a powerful and great follower, individuals have a great opportunity to directly create a profound effect on leadership success. Followers plan an active role in the process of leadership. The role of leadership in organizations mba knowledge base.
Types of followers most leaders love their stars those who take initiative and do what needs to be done without being told. Leaders need great followers 6 roles of great followers encouraging a relationship of open and honest feedback. Thus, the present study clarifies why through follower relational identification with the leader and when inclusion of leader creativity expectations in role relationship with leader by followers transformational leadership is positively related to follower creativity. Followers go after a leader because of trust, honesty and other qualities thus the stronger these are the greater loyalty they. The concept of transformational leadership was initially introduced by leadership expert and presidential biographer james macgregor burns. Upwardly coaching and counseling the leader when appropriate. And yet, followers provide valuable supports to leaders. By being a follower, it does not mean that one is inferior. The author discusses changing expectations of followers, and examines the relationship between leaders and. In praise of followers pmi project management institute.
The role of followers in leadership development site staff july 9, 2012 one of the most important things for leaders to possess is the belief that their. Types of followers leadership development, strategic. Followers are not inferior to their leaders, and leaders are not superior to their followers. The critical role of leadership during organizational change. There seems to be a great deal of encouragement that everyone should be a leader. Followership is the actions of someone in a subordinate role. Why followership is now more important than leadership. If you are a version of the shirtless dancing guy, all alone, remember the importance of nurturing your first few followers as equals, making everything clearly about the movement, not you. It can also be considered as a specific set of skills that complement leadership, a role within a hierarchical organization, a social construct that is integral to the leadership process, or the behaviors engaged in while interacting with leaders in an effort to meet organizational objectives. The relationship between leadership and follower in. In truth, followers are themselves an important part of the leadership process, and react towards the leader s influencing attempts.
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