Understanding Followers

Leadership is singularly focused on business outcomes and may be directed toward profits, revenues, mission, community service, or some combination of all these variables. Whatever the desired result, leaders must optimize their relationship with followers; workers mediate the relationship between leaders’ actions and decisions and the final results.

In other words, working through followers is necessary to reach business goals, and the leader needs to fuel the followers’ reach for peak performance. Richard L. Daft described a set of the ordinary follower behaviors (created by Robert Kelley) along a continuum on two dimensions as a means to shed light on what leaders should target.¹

The first dimension is critical thinking, which suggests workers behave from "high application of critical thinking" (thinking on one’s own and with awareness of the consequences of decisions; helpful) to "low application of critical thinking" (does not think beyond what is assigned; blind acceptance of directives).¹

The second dimension regards the worker's level of engagement and reveals that workers behave with "high engagement" (willing to exceed the minimum requirements of the job and increased levels of Organizational Citizenship Behavior; actively engaged) to "low engagement" (focuses on doing what is necessary but not beyond; passive).¹

This viewpoint of follower behaviors is organized in a two-by-two matrix (see below) with each intersecting variable labeled by a description of the worker and associated behaviors.

⁴ Image located at: http://sfubiz.ca/aiesec/2010/11/followership/

Description of Behaviors¹

Effective Follower (High Critical Thinking and High Engagement): Is fully engaged in the work and is willing to diligently seek solutions to problems. Demonstrates a willingness to be inventive and take on matters to better the organization and move it forward.

Alienated Follower (High Critical Thinking and Low Engagement): Tends to focus on the negatives in the organization. Worker is able to think critically but is hesitant to engage in reaching for solutions. Perhaps he or she had a past negative experience and holds back out of fear.

Conformist Follower (Low Critical Thinking and High Engagement): Fully engaged but is not a deep thinker. Willing to follow orders but fails to consider implications of those actions.

Passive Follower (Low Critical Thinking and Low Engagement): Does not engage. This worker likely requires extensive leader oversight and involvement.

Pragmatic Survivor: Shares some of the qualities from each category and may match the style to the situation in order to minimize personal risk. According to Daft, about 25% to 35% of followers fall into this category.

There is no doubt that leaders desire workers in the High/High category. Sometimes workers are personally driven to be in that category for a range of reasons (e.g. desire to get ahead, do a good job, earn their pay, self-efficacy and internal focus of control). However, in many instances, it is up to the leader to establish the conditions for a worker to reach that level; this is called “motivation.”

One method for moving workers toward the upper-right quadrant (Effective Follower) is by using Transformational leadership (TFL) behaviors. TFL identifies four categories of behaviors (six dimensions): (1) Inspirational Motivation (e.g. visionary); (2) Individualized Consideration (e.g. personal focus on the worker and not just as a tool to achieve ends); (3) Intellectual Stimulation (e.g. excites workers to partner in the work); and (4) Idealized Influence (e.g. engenders trust).² TFL has been and continues to be a popular research topic; outcomes of studies consistently suggest that TFL improves worker and organizational performance in most contexts.

While all of the TFL behaviors drive followers to success, this publication will focus on Individualized Consideration behaviors. Individualized behavior is associated with the following leader behaviors:²

** Guides, teaches, coaches, mentors.

** Provides personalized attention.

** Recognizes and accepts people as human with personal needs and goals.

** Identifies the unique talents, characteristics and skills of workers; helps individuals reach their potential.

** Shows genuine concern and caring for the worker.

The genesis of individualized consideration dates back to the Hawthorne experiment and the beginnings of the human relations movement. Hawthorne's results revealed that when leaders pay attention to workers, productivity improves.³ Individualized consideration suggests that workers should not be thought of as objects but instead treated as individuals, giving attention to their personal needs, goals and desires. Leaders also need to be cautious not to exhibit harmful behaviors that violate the principle of individualized consideration, such as:

• Committing to a change process (see previous publications) without considering the workers.
  
  
• Failing to focus on a worker during a meeting by constantly checking and responding to e-mails and text messages; this sends a clear message that "our meeting is not important."
  
  
• Showing a lack of civility (bullying, treating with disrespect, punishing in public, etc). This can result in decreased productivity and organizational citizenship behavior, which increases in turnover.⁵

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Leaders need to pay attention to people who work for them. The set of follower behaviors described above provides leaders with a way to organize and consider how to work with each follower. The goal is to compel everyone to become an effective follower. This is a leader’s job so that he/she can leverage the knowledge, skills and abilities of all workers. Individualized consideration is one path to make this happen. Future publications will continue to identify other ideas.

Please feel free to offer your thoughts and views.

References

¹ From Robert Kelley in Daft, R.L. (2008). The Leadership Experience (4th ed.). Mason, OH: Thomson Southwestern. Page 194-198. The Power of Followership, by Robert E. Kelley, 97, Copyright 1992.

² Avolio, B.J. and B.M. Bass (2004). Multifactor Leadership Questionnaire. Menlo Park, CA, Mind Garden, Inc.

³ Kiechel III, W. (2012). The Management Century. Harvard Business Review (90) 11, pp. 62-75.

⁴ Image located http://sfubiz.ca/aiesec/2010/11/followership/. Retrieved 1-23-13

5 Porath, C., & Pearson, C. ( 2013). The Price of Incivility: Lack of Respect Hurts Morale– and the Bottom Line. Harvard Business Review, 91(1/2), 114-121.