FOLLOWERSHIP IS JUST AS IMPORTANT AS LEADERSHIP
By Beni Bevly
I notice that there are a lot of information, trainings and seminars about leadership, but it is hard to find things regarding followership. I think to achieve the common goals in an organization, followership skills are just as important as leadership skills. That’s why, it is worth it to discuss.
I knew a person who was quite good in leading, that’s why he always wanted to be a leader in any organization, at any situation and at any time. However it did not always come up with the good results because he had some limitations that prevented him to be a good leader at certain situation. One of his weaknesses was lack of delegation skill. For example when there was a need to negotiate with American, he wanted to do it directly himself. At the end, the negotiation did not come up with a pretty result. One of the problems was his language barrier. He coul not communicate very well in English.
At another occasion, when there was a meeting among organizations, discussing a project to be carried out and forming a team. Before the meeting ended, he walked away because no one voted for him as a leader of the team.
These two cases show how he was lack of followership skills. First, a person only understands how to delegate when he know how to be a follower because by delegating means trusting other people to take lead and take a part of his leadership’s portions. In this situation, besides acting as a leader, he also needs to be a follower from a person he delegates.
Second case shows that he did not understand that to achieve a common goal, one does not need to be a leader all the time. Follower also can contribute as much and as important as a leader. There is a time for one to be a good follower.
To master followership skills, at least one needs to know, understands and adjusts himself to the best basic style of followership. Robert Kelly (1992) suggested five basic styles of followership:
First, alienated followers habitually point out all the negative aspects of the organization to others. While alienated followers may set themselves as mavericks who have a healthy skepticism of the organization, leaders often see them as cynical, negative, and adversarial.
Second, conformist followers are the “yes people” of organizations. While very active at doing the organization’s work, they can be dangerous if the orders contradict societal standards of behavior or organizational policy. Often this style is the result of either the demanding and authoritarian style of leader or the overly rigid structure of the organization.
Third, pragmatist followers are rarely committed to their group’s work goals, but they have learned not to make waves. Because they do not like to stick out, pragmatists tend to be mediocre performers who can clog the arteries of many organizations. Because it can be difficult to discern just where they stand on issues, they present an ambiguous image with both positive and negative characteristics. In organizational settings, pragmatists may become experts in mastering the bureaucratic rules which can be used to protect them.
Fourth, passive followers display none of the characteristics of the exemplary follower. They rely on leader to do all the thinking. Furthermore, their work lacks enthusiasm. Lack initiative and a sense of responsibility, passive followers require constant direction. Leaders may see them as lazy, incompetent, or even stupid. Sometimes, however, passive followers adopt this style to help them cope with a leader who expects followers to behave that way.
Fifht, exemplary followers present a consistent picture to both leaders and coworkers of being independent, innovative, and willing to stand up to superior. They apply their talents for the benefit of the organization even when confronted with bureaucratic stumbling blocks or passive or pragmatist coworkers. Effective leaders appreciate the value of exemplary followers and create the conditions that encourage these behaviors.
What type of basic followers are you? I believe most of you are the exemplary followers. These types of followers are the best among other basic followership types. For an example, regarless of what they are pursuing, many Falun Gong followers can be categorized as this type. When it is a time to be a follower, let’s be the exemplary followers, the organization and society will get the full benefit from us.
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*Beni Bevly holds BA in Political Science, MBA in Marketing, and is a DBA (Doctor of Business Administration) candidate. He is the founder of Overseas Think Tank for Indonesia.
Interesting article. It’s true we’ve heard so much about leadership but not followership. But doesn’t good leadership make good followership? I mean of course not perfectly, but in general I think that a good leadership will make a good followership system (automatically). Isn’t that why good leadership so important? Because leadership tells your people which direction they should go. If the leadership fails to make people follow then it’s a bad one.
guebukanmonyet
4 May 07 at 9:46 pm
I think one attribute of a good leader is knowing when to be a follower, the exemplary one…
bleu
5 May 07 at 4:49 pm
I do believe the best leaders are the best servants. As your article said, “…to achieve a common goal, one does not need to be a leader all the time”. Unfortunately, the world view on leadership, I think, at best has been misplaced. The world view of ‘leadership’ these days is ‘one who holds power or authority’ but to one’s own benefit.
Where as, I believe, a good leader is a servant for others, for the common goal (whatever the goal is). For example, a leader of a country is a servant for that country, using his skills to lead, manipulate and use required (and available) resources, for the good of all.
For the rest, the followers, I think (read: subjectively), sometimes we need to be conformist, pragmatist, passive, or exemplary followers depends on the situation.
I believe there are times we simply need to follow orders without questioning (for example, in military situation, where the group is facing a dilemmatic situation) and trust the decision from the leadership. Where as other time, where we can questions the effectiveness of decision from our leader, and give them better alternatives.
At the end of the day, it is the purpose of that organisation (whether the purpose is for good or bad, that’s another topic
). Where everyone needs to work together, whether as leaders, or as followers to a common goal, NOT individual. Obviously, this is the value that no one holds anymore, especially in a commercial world 
-My two cents-
Rusdy
6 May 07 at 4:44 pm
Great idea. I also think that followership is a very important skill. Leaders must have this skill too, because I see so many ex-leaders who get the ‘post-power syndrome’. A lecturer have ever said to me, a leader must be able to manage, to prepare his/her successor, and in the end, to stop. Sometimes, to manage and to prepare the successor are not as difficult as to stop…
That’s why leaders must be able to be a follower even when he/she has become a leader for many times. In my opinion, the key is having a humble heart… because if we are not humble enough, it’s hard to be a good follower and a good leader also.
Ria Wibisono
6 May 07 at 8:55 pm
Thank you for all of your impressive comments.
Guebukanmonyet presented an excellent thesis that every leader needs to know, “Good leadership should make good followership.” This thesis even more important in paternalistic society such as in Indonesian community. In this type of society, followers tend to follow and adore their leader.
However, leader is also an individual who can make mistakes just like everybody else. Let’s say Soekarno and Soeharto. These two leaders for certain period were know as extraordinary leaders. On the other side they also made mistakes, but at that moment, before things went really bad, just a few of the followers who warned them. The majority of them were kept quite or even supported Soekarno’s and Soeharto’s incorrect actions. This situation happenned maily because of paternalistic culture that becomes one of the conformist and passive followers’ attributes.
I think, if there were enough exemplary followers at that time, Soekarno and Soeharto would have made better leaders.
Bleu and Ria pointed out very critical issues, “When to be a good follower.” I will say Al Gore is one of the perfect example to decide when to stop and just to be a follower, instead keeping fighting to be the United States President. He showed his good followership skills in the presidential election, actually Gore still had a chance to win and became the president. For very good reason, he stopped challenging Bush and the allegedly corrupt election system in Florida. His reason was to keep the integration of the nation.
The other example you can see how Nelson Mandela declined to join the second election in South Africa and chose to become the follower.
Rusdy remind us about something that is very basic in leadership, a leader must serve their followers, act as a servant. Leader must be able to aggregate, transform, articulate their followers’ needs. On the other side the followers need to understand and trust their leader based on their best judgment how to behave.
Beni Bevly
7 May 07 at 4:09 pm
This is a good article, Beni, not least because it runs counter to the prevailing culture here in Indonesia. Consensus rules because those are the rules. Too many followers are ‘passive’, unwilling to upset the perceived status quo or to contradict their ‘leaders’.
There may be the genuine fear of being ‘wrong’, because of incompetence or a sense of inadequacy for the job. This could well be due to economic factors – underemployment is a major consideration in these impoverished times – but is more likely a genuine lack of skills due to the paucity of an education system which does not encourage creativity or personal growth, but only the ability to memorise the ‘right’ answers in examinations.
There is, I believe, another, greater fear – that of being seen to be ‘wrong’, the concept of losing face. Surely it’s the inner person which is of greater import. Is it worth having a nice ‘face’, if you’re ugly inside?
As you say, Beni, there are some impressive comments here. I particularly agree with Rusdy’s comment that the value that no one holds anymore is of having a common goal, a shared vision.
When I say something like that on my site, folk start to comment that I must be some kind of communist, as if the ‘gimme, gimme, me, me’ attitude is all-important. There appears to be a genuine fear of working for the common good, of sharing and caring.
Surely the best leaders are those who allow each individual in a team to perform to his or her potential. The common good demands that we do what we can rather than what we can be seen to be doing. And this can only be achieved by everyone being a good listener and the acceptance of alternative, even dissenting, views.
Jakartass
9 May 07 at 7:32 pm
Wow! Here I saw other perspectives that I even did not think about it before.
Jakartass, your comment is very comprehensive, yet you can presented it briefly. I am impressed!
I would like to point out one of the points that influences followers to be the good ones, education. When I started my career at a conglomerate’s corporation in Indonesia, most of my coworkers who were overseas graduated (western education) had one common characteristic, i.e. outspoken. They would share what they knew, what they thought and they were not afraid to be told that they were wrong. This is one of the characteristics that makes people to be the good followers.
There are two articles, that I wrote, regarding education. I think they are worth to discuss, first is in relation to how a teacher should treat her/his students, second is regarding show and tell program in the United States education system. It seems, Indonesia education system does not emphasize strong enough on these subjects.
Beni Bevly
10 May 07 at 9:03 am