Reflections from Leadership a critical text 3rd ed. Sage pub.
To cite Western S. (2019:43) Leadership a critical text 3rd ed. Sage pub.
“Without followership leadership doesn’t exist. Followership is symbiotic with leadership, and to understand leadership is to recognize how leaders and followers co-produce and sustain each other (Ladkin, 2006)”.
Leaders and followers have tended to be seen as dualist opposites, with the main focus being on the leader. Through this dualistic lens followers have been presented both individually and collectively as passive objects, to be moulded, coerced and influenced by the leader.
Collinson (2006: Intro) cites a widening literature that insists followers are integral to the leadership process, “… rejecting the common stereotype of followers as timid, docile sheep, these writers argue that in the contemporary context of greater team working, ‘empowered, knowledge workers’, and ‘distributed’ and ‘shared’ leadership, ‘good followership skills’ have never been more important.”
There is a growing ‘follower literature’ that attempts to diminish the agency of the leader and assert the agency of the follower, who, if anything, ‘raises up the leader’ (Meindl, 1995). Grint claims ‘the power of leaders is a consequence of the actions of the…
