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Leadership and followership
Leadership and followership

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1.1 What type of follower are you?

So far in this course, you’ve spent some time considering what type of leader you are, or could be, but how many of us ever think about what type of follower we are?

Activity 1 What type of follower are you?

Timing: Allow about 10 minutes

In Week 1, Activity 2, you thought about your reasons for following various leaders. Choose one of those leader–follower relationships and using the typologies listed in this section, consider what type of follower you are. Summarise your thoughts here:

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Discussion

Much of the available research suggests that your follower type stems from your own personal qualities and behaviours, but following their review of the nature of followership, Bastardoz and Van Vugt (2019, p. 28) raise the possibility that ‘followers match their styles to those of their leaders to ensure smooth coordination – and that their engagement results from a combination of satisfaction with outcomes, fairness of leader procedures, consideration of alternative leaders, and investments in the relationship.’

Does this ring true for you?

Context can also play a significant role in your level of engagement, for example if a department’s funding is suddenly cut, this is likely to have an impact on the engagement and commitment of staff.

Do you see yourself as an effective follower? If not, why not? What would help you to become more engaged? Do you think your leader understands the benefits of having effective followers?

If you are an effective follower, what inspires you to be engaged and energetic? How do you benefit from that relationship?

If you want to become a more effective follower, set yourself a relevant goal, for example, to give appropriate, constructive feedback to your leader within the next month. Use your leadership journal to list some ideas. The GROW Goal Setting tool in your Toolkit [Tip: hold Ctrl and click a link to open it in a new tab. (Hide tip)]   might also be helpful.

Identifying your own follower type will make you more aware of how you and other individuals interact with leaders. This awareness will be useful when reflecting on your own role as a leader and the relationships you have with those following you.

How to develop as a follower

In the typologies explored here, positive/pro-active followership is about having energy and assertiveness, providing support but being willing to question, and seeing yourself as a partner rather than a subordinate.

But Benson et al. (2016) warn that leaders may interpret proactive followership behaviours differently in different situations. Working with the leaders of highly competitive sports teams, they identify five relevant factors (p. 960):

  • the presence of third party observers
  • the momentary demands of the task at hand
  • the stage of the decision making process
  • suitability of the targeted issue
  • relational dynamics.

They suggest that effective engagement in proactive followership behaviour requires a degree of skill. The key to success is for a proactive follower to recognise when their contributions are appropriate, or they may be interpreted negatively by the leader.

Following their review of current and emerging followership research, Matshoba-Ramuedzisi et al. (2022 p. 657) suggest that ‘whether a follower is good or not is not just a matter of activity, but also depends on whether they assist the organisation in achieving its objectives or not’, explaining that a follower may be very proactive ‘but in the opposite direction to what the organisation requires.’

Professor Jean Hartley offers her thoughts on how to be a good follower here – including the value of understanding your leader’s personality and preferences.

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In the next section, you’ll explore some of the benefits of being a good follower.