What is it about?
While a great deal has been written about leadership, followership has been relatively neglected. One way of thinking about leadership is the three-factor model. This identifies three sets of leadership behaviours, namely, relations, task and change behaviours. The first part of this three-part article outlined previous research on followership, described the three factor model of leadership and suggested it could be applied to followership. The second part of the article presented research supporting the three-factor leadership model and showed that it could be applied to other roles, including leadership roles. In this this, the third part of the article, further research is presented that applies the three factor model to followership. This research contrasts leader and follower roles, identifies behaviours associated with each role and established the behaviours that are most and least valued in these roles. From this research, it is possible to provide a detailed, evidence-based account of a three-factor model of followership.
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Why is it important?
Organisations need effective leaders and effective followers. Both leadership and followership can be thought of as learnable skills. The skills of the effective leader develop out of and build on those of the effective follower. They are essentially the same skills, used in different situations by individuals playing different roles. Thus, the training and development of followers underpins that of leaders. This challenges the pr-occupation with leadership and the associated assumption that leadership is both qualitatively different from and superior to followership.
Perspectives
Our backgrounds are in the social and behavioural sciences and we have spent our entire working lives in management education, training and development. Our aim is to produce evidence-based ideas that have practical applications. These findings on leadership and followership can be applied in practice. Both leadership and followership can be usefully thought of as learnable skills. Effective leadership skills develop out of and build on effective followership skills. Thus, ideas that may initially appear abstract and theoretical are practical and relevant to everyone at work.
Mr Tony Manning
Self-employed
Read the Original
This page is a summary of: A three factor model of followership: part 3 – research on followership, a three factor followership framework and practical implications, Industrial and Commercial Training, October 2016, Emerald,
DOI: 10.1108/ict-01-2016-0005.
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