Leadership Map

For my leadership map I chose to represent all the theories with a pie chart. I chose the pie chart because even though some theories are more valid than others, it is still critical to take something from all the theories. Because each situation is different and people are not all the same, different leadership theories will lend themselves more successfully in different situations as well. I also included a piece for "To be Discovered" because your journey as a leader is never complete, instead you must constantly be learning new theories.

New Theories of Leadership

While researching leadership theories on my own, I stumbled across a theory that we had not discussed in great depth, and therefore was very interesting to me. This theory was the theory of followership, which has its roots in the theory that without followers there is no such thing as a leader; therefore in order to be a good leader you must listen to your followers. More importantly I chose to study Leader-Exemplary Follower Exchanges (LEFX). According to James McGregor Burns leadership is “. . . inducing followers to act for certain goals that represent the values and the motivations – the wants and needs, the aspirations and expectations- of both leader and followers.” This means that in order for true leadership to be taking place the leader must recognize how important his followers are to his end goal. A very positive thing about this is most scholars today seem to believe that followership can be taught! This is very positive because it means that every leader is capable of displaying good followership as long as he works long enough at it.

Another benefit of followership in the modern workplace is the common goal that it helps to create for all employees within an organization. Because the employees are following the leader, they should all be working towards the leaders goal. However, this does not mean that followers cant become catalysts for change because it is often low-level employees that bring about important changes. And in our followership example, if everyone is working towards a common goal then everyone will be improving the workplace for everyone else.

One of the most important aspects of followership is the relationship between the leader and followers. Obviously the stronger this relationship, the stronger the leader-follower bond is going to be. Good followership builds on motivation not control. However, this is not to say that the leader should not retain the majority of the power, but a balance is ideal. Leaders must actively participate in the followership process if they wish to reap its benefits; Benefits which are very worth while.

FOLLOWERSHIP QUOTES

 

·         “Followers are more important to leaders than leaders are to followers."

— Barbara Kellerman

 

·         “The difference between followers and leaders is that followers need leaders to help them follow what leaders themselves are following. This relationship takes the form of a shared response-ability to a shared calling. Both find each other in a true fellowship to create the world responsibly.”

— James Maroosis

 

·         "Followership does not mean changing the rank of followers but changing their response to their rank, their response to their superiors and to the situation at hand."

— Barbara Kellerman

 

·         “If a man aspires to the highest place, it is no dishonor to him to halt at the second.”

— Cicero

Further Readings:

• This is a fairly long scholarly article about followership: http://www.ibam.com/pubs/jbam/articles/vol7/no3/JBAM_7_3_5_Followership.pdf