Followers Want Acknowledgement, Too

Author : Paul Hoffman
It appears a person seated at the pinnacle of a hierarchical pyramid no longer heads the modern organization rather leaders are active participants with their human resources. There is shared power in work groups and the leader exercises power within the group not power from a hierarchy. A question remains however, what do followers want from leaders. Answering this question remains as elusive today as when early leadership theorists first began searching for a better way.Traditional hierarchical management using command and control tactics is not effective in a society of information gatherers. Drawing a parallel to pre-history, information gatherers are to organizational success as hunter gatherers were to tribal success. The inference is that organizations need a constant flow of information if they are to live in a fast-paced atmosphere of constant change. Teams of people now share information in streaming data flows, leaders' access the information and teams analyze the data and make decisions on all or parts of its validity.People and Organizational DiversityDiversity is not a new term meaning affirmative actions and equal employment opportunity. The current stage of diversity revolves around management, creating opportunities in organizations for all workers to achieve at their highest level. Therefore, leaders of diverse workforces acknowledge a future corporate landscape that looks for connections and relationships using intuition to sense and feel the new landscape. Leaders employing diversity planning and diversity management, seeking to give workers the greatest opportunity to grow, are taking positive steps to influence change in its environment.Walsh cites statistics from an Australian Human Resources Institute report that CEOs place recruiting and retaining skilled employees ahead of developing leaders. However, the report continues to offer contradictory statistics. Followers perform 80 percent of meaningful work in support of organizational success. Workers spent most of their time, 70 to 90 percent, in follower roles. The report states there is little discussion on the role of followers as they relate to leaders. The debate concludes that the people who do 80 to 90 percent of the work rarely get a mention.Walsh supports the above statistics with quantitative data from the same study offering the following steps to enhance the role of follower. The first piece is recognizing organizational success hinges on fruitful interpersonal interaction among workers and leaders. Another piece tells organizations to make an in depth study to draw attention to the value, importance, and potential contributions of followers to team and corporate success. It is important to identify that leaders' successes stem from followers' knowing their roles and exercising them.A new view of leadership and followership must be that they are separate concepts, complementary, not competitive. Understanding that followers possess strong skills, knowledge, and talent mean they have the socio-technical skills necessary to make appropriate decisions affecting themselves, their team, and leadership. This supposition allows followers an environment in which they meet their needs. With needs met, followers work at a higher level of consciousness and greater sense of meaning and accomplishment.Followers are influenced and influential. Yet, neither occurs without interpersonal relationships among members of the organization. Followers are central figures of organizational success. The role of follower blurs in empowered organizations. DuBrin explains modern organizations as places where followers share power generally equally among members. In these relationships, followers expect to grow while becoming better contributors, gain through their interdependence, succeed without overt leadership, and grow into leaders from their followership.The future of an organization exists in members and their future vision. Taylor and Wacker write that organizations' future successfulness contains a high tolerance for ambiguity in thinking. This means the organization accepts and expects members to imagine themselves in the future, explore ways to improve themselves and the product of the company.Future of Following and LeadingBekker provides some insight to future following and leading by examining some biblical past. He spoke of leaders and followers building community. Although his presentation was from a biblical perspective, that perspective has a direct connection to modern organizational life. Whether entering as a leader or follower, each person in the relationship should enter with relative equality; this is similar to the position recommended by DuBrin. Each person entering the relationship should do so in terms of being a servant to one another and the organization.
Bekker provided five ideals of a leader in a relationship; however, each partner in the relationship can apply these to themselves and their organizational relationships.1. Enter the relationship without an attitude of reputation2. Feel free to express ones humanity3. Be a servant4. Be humble5. Be obedientFurther, Bekker offers that leader transformation of self and follower helps create a union of equality and service.ConclusionWithin any organization there are numerous skills needed. Regardless the skill sets possessed, people at work spend as much as 70 to 90 percent of their time in a follower role. Followers want appreciation for their efforts, they want acknowledgement for their contributions to the goals of the organization and its success. The suggestions presented here provide leaders with a foundation that acknowledges followers desire to share as fully participating members of the organizational team. Leaders, by recognizing they are followers also, can build their skills on the skills of all members. Leaders do not lower their status in the organization; they raise the status of all. That's really what followers want.ReferencesBekker, C. (2006, June). Kenotic Leadership. Lecture presented online at Regent University http://www.regent.edu/acad/sls/leadershiptalks/jun_06_bekker.htm.Davis, S. (1996). Future Perfect. Reading: Addison-Wesley.DeGrosky, M. (2004). When Leaders Become Followers. Primedia Business Magazines. Retrieved June 24, 2006 from http://wildfiremag.com/microsites/magazinearticle.asp?mode=print&magazinearticleid=208734&releaseid=&srid=10934&magazineid=157&siteid=26.DuBrin, A. J. (2004). Leadership: Research Findings, Practices, and Skills (4th Ed). Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company.Hill, C. W. L. and Jones, G. R. (1998). Strategic Management: An Integrated Approach. New York: Houghton Mifflin Company.Hoffman, P. (2006). The Strategy of Leadership is Thinking, Vision, and Planning – The Future Depends on It. Regent University, LEAD 773 – Strategic Design, Planning, and Implementation.Mintzberg, H., Ahlstrand, B., & Lampel, J. (1998). Strategic Safari: A guided tour through the wilds of strategic management. New York: The Free Press.Pfeffer, J. (1998). The Human Equation: Building profits by putting people first. Boston: Harvard Business School Press.Saunders, T. I. (1998). Strategic Thinking and the New Science: Planning in the midst of chaos, complexity, and change. New York: The Free Press.Senge, P. M. (1990). The Fifth Discipline: The Art and Practice of the Learning Organization. New York: Currency and Doubleday.Taylor, J., Wacker, W. with Means, H. (2000). The Visionary's Handbook: Nine paradoxes that will shape the future of your business. New York: Harper Collins Publishers, Inc.Tsui, A. S. and Gutek, B. A. (1999). Demographic Differences in Organizations: Current Research and Future Directions. Lanham: Lexington Books.Walsh, A. (2003, October 15). Followership: The case for promoting followership within business. Adrian Walsh and Associates. Retrieved June 28, 2006 from http://adrianwalsh.com.au/followership.htmYukl, G. (2006). Leadership in Organizations (6th Ed.). Upper Saddle River: Pearson Education.
Keyword : Leadership, Followership, Servant Leader, Humble Leader