Followership is not the antithesis of leadership

  John Gardner has served in six different presidential administrations in varying capacities and now resides as professor at the Stanford Business School.  His professional life has largely taken on the role of serving a higher authority within an organization.  While he led his subordinates, he also was a consistently active follower and these experiences have formed his opinions on followership (the act of following).  Gardner calls attention to the sociologists', Max Weber and Georg Simmel, theories of the role of the follower being of equal importance to an achieved goal to the actions of the leader (Wren, 1995, p. 185-186).  These conclusions were drawn in a very non-populist environment - pre-World War I Germany.  An important tension arises in comparing the two options a leader has in the face of responsibility to the follower; should the leader impose their will after making decisions without consultation to the followers or does the leader need to invite varying degrees of follower participation? This and other corresponding questions to the reciprocal participation between leader and follower have answers muddled by conditions and exceptions (Wren, 1995, p. 187).  Gardner boils the questions down to the ability of the leader to meet the explicit and implicit needs and expectations of the contingents who they are placed in leadership over (Wren, 1995, p. 188).  

  Joseph Rost is a leadership professor at the University of San Diego and instead of taking a relative top down viewpoint to the responsibility of a leader to their followers, he views the relationship between the follower and leader as shared agency in the work.  Rost begins by dispelling the notion that followers are innately passive and unproductive unless directed in favor for the notion that we are all leaders, albeit in differing roles.  Rost attempted to shine understanding and meaning onto the term, "follower" by using five points:

  1) Passive people are not followers for only people actively participating in a leadership process are followers

  2) Activity is a spectrum with the influence correlated to activity.

  3) Followers can become leaders and leaders can become followers in any one leadership relationship.

  4) The role an individual plays as follower or leader is not indicative for every relationship - leaders can be followers in different relationships.

  5) Followers do not do followership, they do leadership (Wren, 1995, p. 191-192).  

  In Joseph Rost's new leadership paradigm, followers and leaders both do leadership.  This brings followers into the fold as equal partners, co-creators, sharing agency.  

  There are not many majors that induce more independence of their students than biology.  There is rarely a group study session and never a group presentation or project.  This makes it difficult to hold a leader and follower role within the major because it is so individualistic.  But in a future healthcare career, there is a distinct hierarchy between physicians and their "followers" consisting of nurses, interns, social workers, and other workers that surround the healthcare process.  If Rost and Donald Miller share a common thread in theory, it is this: that co-agency was meant for the creation of something great (The Storyline Conference, 2014).  Rost would say that co-agency is utilized in leadership relationships for success at achieving objectives while Miller would suggest that humans delve into co-agency with God in the writing of their human story.  Both of these actualizations are useful for my future direction.  Bringing a team mentality into healthcare enables each person to share their expertise and strengths to provide the best form of healthcare for the patient.  And as the story of my life is continually written, co-agency with God can facilitate the making of a captivating story worth sharing.  

  

Miller, D (2014) The Storyline Conference.  San Diego. March 1, 2014.

Wren, J (1995) A Leader's Companion. New York: The Free Press