Followership

Models, Styles, and Types of Followers/Followership

Graphics courtesy of Fast CompanyOpens in new window The concept of followership has been studied since the 1950s, when the focus was mostly leader-centered (i.e., framing followers as recipients of leadership). Research has continued to grow over the past seven decades, increasingly taking a more follower-centered approach investigating the interdependence between followers and leaders. This article explores different models and styles or types of followers leaders might encounter.

Understanding the characteristics of different followers can make a leader a better follower and a better leader. There are several follower typologies in the literature that leaders should understand in their efforts to influence followers.

The first typology of followers was intended to help leaders understand followers and to help followers understand and become leaders. The typology makes a comparison based on the dimensions of activity and control.

The four types exist as a result of followers’ responses to inner tensions regarding authority. These tensions may be unconscious but can often come to the surface and influence the communication in leader-follower relationshipsOpens in new window:

1. Impulsive followers (high dominance/active) whose defining characteristic is that they try to lead or influence others and their leader while being a follower themselves. These are active and controlling people who try to dominate others and frequently (as the name suggests) act impulsively tending to move into areas that others wouldn’t, sometimes seen as courageous and sometimes ill advised.
2. Compulsive followers (high dominance/passive) are more passive than their impulsive colleagues. The rationale here is that these people wouldn’t like to dominate their leaders and others but hold back out of guilt.

3. Masochistic followers (submissive/active) on the other hand want to submit and be controlled by authority. These people get pleasure from the pain of active submission. They submit (follow) willingly and enthusiastically, blindly following.
4. Withdrawn followers are passive submissives. They will do the minimum required but will not engage actively in the direction of the organization or make any decisions. They tend to care little for their work or workplace.

Another researcher has introduced the concept of the courageous follower: one who exhibits the courage to support the leader’s behavior in a constructive way, participate as needed in organizational transformation, and ultimately take a stand when warranted to prevent ethical abuses by the organization or its officials.

Another researcher identifies five types of styles of followers (sheep, yes-people, alienated, pragmatics, and star followers). Each exhibits a different degree of independent thinking and organizational engagement and differs in their motivations. A basic assessment of each follower type is:

1. The sheep are passive in their thinking and engagement and are motivated by their leader rather than themselves.
2. The yes-people also allow their leader to do most of the thinking and acting for them but are generally positive and always on the leader’s side.

3. In contrast, the alienated are predominantly negative but think more independently. They think for themselves but do not contribute to the positive direction of the organization.
4. The pragmatic exhibits a minimal level of independent thinking and engagement as they are more willing to exert energy and get involved when they see where the direction of the situation is headed. The pragmatics lack in demonstrating critical thinking and are motivated by maintaining the status quo.
5. Finally, the star followers think for themselves, have positive energy, and are actively engaged. They agree with and challenges their leaders.

This model focuses on the role of followers in an organization and creates a framework for identifying the different types. Thus, leaders and their organizations are able to recognize where the different perceptions and negative connotations of followers have developed and to consider the importance of the positive followership styles that exist.

According to the model, the same qualities that make effective leaders are those that make effective followers thus emphasizing the importance and purpose of followers.

The model notes that it is important to “view followers as the primary defenders against toxic leaders of dysfunctional organizations.” In general the model places significant emphasis on the necessity and how-to ability of organizations to cultivate effective followers, how to teach people to stand up and prepare to be successful.

Another typology offers four styles (resource, individualist, implementer, and partner). The model also focuses on followership in the workplace. Like the model above, this model conceptualizes how organizations can equip everyday workers with the skills and mindsets required to be effective followers, and develop an even stronger framework for followership development.

In addition, the model also names the power that followers exhibit in their different qualities and distinguishes that powerOpens in new window as courage. The courageous follower model reveals five different dimensions of attitudes and behaviors:

1. the courage to support the leader,
2. the courage to assume responsibility for common purpose,
3. the courage to constructively challenge the leader’s behaviors,
4. the courage to participate in any transformation project, and
5. the courage to take a moral stand when warranted to prevent ethical abuses.

From these different dimensions of attitudes and behaviors, the model differentiates four styles of followership based on the degree to which followers have the courage to support or the courage to challenge the leader. The model divides these styles into groups:

1. The resource style of followership exhibits low support and challenge.
2. The individualist style represents low support and high challenge. This follower will speak up but typically takes a position opposed to the majority.
3. The implementer style demonstrates high support and low challenge.
4. The partner style is characterized by high support and high challenge, assuming full responsibility for their actions and acting accordingly.

The two models offered thus far are very similar; each identifies the styles of followership by considering the levels of independent thinking and organizational engagement.

The latter model’s emphasis on courage is similar to the first model’s perception that followers are essential in limiting toxic leaders, but the latter model develops stronger context for evolving and encouraging followers to be more effective and stresses the follower potential and purpose to “influence upward” in order to transform the organizational culture. Both models are focused on the “how-to” for organizations to evolve their followers and transform their culture.

Another model offers five styles of followers (isolates, bystanders, participants, activists, and diehards). The model provides a more worldview of followership and takes the concept outside just the organizational perspective.

Like the first model, follower styles are positioned in a more hierarchical method, placing followers on a continuum of low engagement to an absolutely committed follower. The model, however, provides a more holistic view of followers through conceptualizing followers in relation to leaders and in relation to other followers.

A description of the five different followership styles are:

The main focus is on the level of engagement and asserts that the level of engagement is the single most important factor in differentiating followership styles.

The last two models indicate that dividing followers into types allows another lens of perception into how people can transform and create transformations.

Finally, the latter two models emphasize that there are different styles of followership, that there is a difference between effective and ineffective followership, and that followers can and should influence their leaders.

Others have identified three types of followers: helpers, independents, and rebels.

Other types of followers moderate in compliance: diplomats, partisans, and counselors.

These nuanced classifications or styles help to reveal to leaders (and followers) the various roles that followers can play in organizational efforts. For example, some researchers have advanced three perspectives on followership that conceptualize the duties and responsibilities that followers have within their organizational positions and reflect the range of relationships existing between leaders and followers.

The three roles are vital for the achievement or accomplishment of group and organizational goals. In the independent role, the follower acts more independently of the leader due to their increase in education and training of followers and resulting desire to exhibit more control over her or his work.

The shifting role notes that the duties and responsibilities of the followers are contingent on the situation that the follower and the organization face. This orientation projects and reflects the need for leadership and followership to alternate as needed.

In some instances, the formal leader may be an effective leader requiring subordinating their status as a leader to one of being an “informal follower,” while at the same time the “formal follower” could be more effective as an “informal leader” due to their intimate knowledge of the situation, process and procedures, or population served. At this point, we navigate to seeking an answer to the question “What makes a good or excellent follower?”, in the next literatureOpens in new window.