Christian Monö's Blog

Imagine you’re exhausted after a long day and just about to leave the office when your boss asks you to stay late to finish a report for the board of directors. Chances are you’ll agree—not because you admire your manager or care deeply about the board, but because you’ve signed a contract. That’s the deal: you give your time and effort in exchange for compensation, and in return, you accept certain limits on freedom and decision-making during work hours.

Most research on leadership and followership is conducted in non-natural settings such as schools, businesses, political parties, armies, and sports teams. While these environments differ, they share one thing in common: they are socially constructed environments—systems deliberately designed to organize people.

Take the workplace as an example. It’s an invention, created to coordinate labour in the production of goods and services. The relationship between employee and employer is based on a formal contract, and the entire system relies on laws and practices to function. We can’t, for example, force people to work for us. As employees, we agree to exchange our time and effort for compensation. But in doing so, we also give up a certain level of freedom and decision-making during work hours.

Structural Leadership

One of the main objectives of a constructed environment is to coordinate people’s actions. This can be done in different ways—through rules and regulations that control behaviour, and/or by giving certain people the authority to dictate what others should do. In a workplace, the latter are usually known as “managers.”

For decades, we’ve preferred the word leader over manager. The term manager is often seen as negative—someone who enforces rules, supervises, or simply “bosses people around.” Leader, in contrast, is framed as positive—someone who motivates, empowers, and collaborates with others to achieve shared goals.

But as I discuss in Why We Follow, the objective is ultimately the same: coordinating people to move in a certain direction. To avoid the endless “manager versus leader” debate, I use the term structural leadership to describe any process in which one individual has formal decision-making rights over others.

The challenge with structural leadership is that it relies on external factors—contracts, salaries, rules, or laws—to sustain collaboration. A team may follow their manager’s lead, but if the paycheck stops, most people will leave.

Natural Leadership and Followership

The opposite of socially constructed environments are natural environments—settings that emerge organically and aren’t shaped by design. Think of the way friends interact. These relationships are fluid, guided by instincts, trust, and shared interests rather than contracts or rules.

As I explain in Why We Follow, natural leadership and followership happen when people voluntarily choose whom to follow based on who they believe is best suited to achieve a specific goal at that moment.

Unlike structural leaders, natural leaders don’t hold permanent positions of power or influence. Leadership flows freely, shifting from one person to another depending on the situation. This makes collaboration more flexible, resilient, and effective, while avoiding the risks that come with fixed hierarchies or manipulative influence. In essence, it’s a dynamic, situational way of working together to achieve shared goals.

Why This Distinction Matters

It’s striking how much of our leadership thinking is shaped by research in structural environments. Yet these environments are human inventions—and therefore changeable. The workplace today looks very different from 150 years ago, and even now it varies widely between countries and companies.

If we understand natural leadership and followership better, we can design our schools, organisations, and societies in ways that encourage more engaging forms of collaboration. If we want healthier, more resilient systems, we need to bring the natural back into the structures we create. The challenge now is to rethink the environments we’ve built—and ask how they can better reflect the way people truly collaborate.

I typically listen to books, but summer vacation is a time for reading. It means I can finally pick up the books I haven’t had time for. One of these is Ira Chaleff’s To Stop A Tyrant. I’ve just started it, and as with any great non-fiction book, it gets my mind spinning from the start.

Yesterday evening, I read the following from the book:

“If we [as followers] are not sufficiently informed, we are not prepared to make good choices. … On any issue, at either end of the political spectrum, if we only get our information from one side of that issue or one end of the political spectrum, we cannot make an independent judgment.”

Therefore, Chaleff continues, “What we can do is consciously choose to get our information from several points on the political spectrum, then assess for ourselves which we judge to have greater value.”

I completely agree with Chaleff that this is absolutely necessary. That, however, doesn’t make it easy. To objectively explore diverse perspectives requires commitment, determination, and consistency. One must continuously search for and consume different sources of information. While that may seem easy in theory, in practice it’s hard. I think it’s comparable to someone trying to lose weight or eat healthier.

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Most people who want to lose weight generally know enough to achieve what they want. The problem is now knowledge but consistency. How does one maintain the positive routines again and again?

Chaleff’s comment made me think about the importance of constructing an environment that encourages the behaviours we desire. If we want people to consider different perspectives, we should look at how to simplify that process for them. That made me think of the news media.

News media play a critical role in our society. For centuries, they’ve painted a picture of the world and shared it with their readers. But what kind of image are they sharing?

In 2020, a Gallup/Knight Foundation study found that 8 out of 10 Americans believe there is a fair amount of political bias in news media. A study by the University of Rochester, covering the years 2014 to 2022, shows that major U.S. news outlets are becoming more biased. This is the precise opposite of what we would like to see.

Another problem is the lack of trust in the media. Because of the above, people are less likely to trust what is said in the news. This becomes problematic. Comparing it to weight loss again—if we don’t trust the experts, then the likelihood that we’ll take their suggestions seriously is rather low.

Interestingly, people choose what facts to believe in. The Gallup research mentioned above shows that while most people believe news media are biased, only 3 out of 10 believe their news media is biased.

Ira Chaleff’s book - To Stop a Tyrant. So what can we do?

To begin with, we need to amplify the discussion on news media objectivity. As consumers of news, we have a responsibility to demand objectivity from our sources. You wouldn’t accept buying rotten food—so why would you accept rotten news?

Second, media must be accessible to everyone. Many news sources require payment and thus become inaccessible to people who cannot afford to subscribe to several different outlets. But this is doable. If The Guardian, YouTube, Google, and Spotify can provide free versions (albeit with advertisements), then so can other serious newspapers.

To conclude, Chaleff’s point about information diversity is key—but now we need to discuss how to create an environment where this becomes doable for everyone.

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Yet another poll has concluded that nearly half of young Europeans are dissatisfied with democracy. According to this study, more than one in five (21%) “would favour authoritarian rule under certain, unspecified circumstances.”

It’s tempting to blame social media, disinformation, or economic stress, but as I’ve discussed before, I suspect something deeper is at work. For decades, we’ve told our children that leadership is the key to success. At the same time, we complain that democracy is messy, bureaucratic, and often inefficient. Why would any of them believe democracy is the way to go?

Do they realize what they’re willing to give up?

Anyone who says they’d trade democracy for strongman rule is effectively saying, “I don’t believe my own opinions and freedom matter. I’d rather someone else decide my life for me.” Is that really what they want?

Have you ever met a teenager who claims they enjoy having their parents dictate their lives? I haven’t. Teenagers put up with certain orders from their parents because they’re dependent on them and (hopefully) because they love and respect them, knowing their parents have their best interests at heart. They also understand that one day they’ll move out and become independent, so they know their current subordination is only temporary.

Democracies may be bureaucratic, messy, and frustrating at times, but that so-called mess is exactly what protects our freedom. Among other things, it serves as a safety net, ensuring that different perspectives and opinions are considered before and during the decision-making process. As I’ve said many times before, making decisions is easy — making the right decision is not. Giving one person all the power dramatically increases the risk of bad decisions.

Questions for the young

If you work with young people—in schools, youth organizations, or even around your own dinner table—here are some questions worth exploring. They’re not meant to shame or scold, but to spark real thinking. Please feel free to use them, share them, or adapt them to your context.

Would you like your parents decide everything about your life forever—your job, partner, where you live?

If not, why?

Would you let someone else do it?

Who would you trust with absolute power over your life if you gave up that right? FOLLOW UP QUESTIONS:

Why this person?

Do you think they would always put your interests first? If they didn’t, or if they died or lost power, what would you do?

What would you do if you found out they protected your interests but harmed others?

Would you rather live where decisions are quick but only help a few, or slow but consider many perspectives? If it’s the former, are you okay being one of the people left out?

Let’s Keep the Conversation Going

There’s a big difference between fixing democracy and rejecting it altogether. If we want to protect our freedoms, we need honest conversations — especially with young people — about what democracy gives us, and what’s at stake if we lose it. Leadership isn’t the solution; collaborative engagement is.

So I hope you’ll pass these questions along to anyone who might use them, in classrooms, workplaces, or at home. Because once democracy is gone, it’s incredibly hard to get back.

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We live in a time when the world is facing a tide of so-called neo-authoritarian rulers, such as the US’s Donald Trump, Russia’s Vladimir Putin, Israel’s Benjamin Netanyahu, Turkey’s Recep Tayyip Erdogan, and so on.

It’s often said that dictators tend to be charismatic, luring people to trust and support them, but I believe reality is far more complex.

Voting against rather than for something

When governments and institutions fail to meet people’s needs, the people will eventually turn to anyone who takes their frustration seriously. As author Richard David Hames put it:

“People understandably gravitate toward rulers who validate their frustrations, even if they exacerbate the underlying problems. The more incompetent the leadership becomes, the more fervently it's defended by those who will suffer most from its failures. This is not just facile political polarisation; it represents something deeper and more dangerous: a collective flight from the yoke of reality.”

Hames’ point is spot on. Dictators gain ground not because of who they are, but because existing governments weren’t paying attention or couldn’t mitigate the people’s frustration. Simply put, it’s not about who these wannabe dictators are—it’s about what they promise to fix. In the end, we’re here not because people are voting for someone, but because they’re voting against something.

The quiet dismantling

Once a wannabe dictator has gained power, the next step is to dismantle the democratic systems. This is often masked by a wave of media-grabbing actions. By creating drama and conflict, these authoritarian rulers shift the spotlight away from what matters—the slow destruction of democratic systems. Many act as national or global bullies, targeting anyone or anything standing in their way. They lie, cheat, and stir up violence, often behind the vague promise of restoring their country to its former glory. In reality, they’re attacking the fundamental structures that uphold democracy. So while we’re left stunned by the actions of Trump, Putin, Erdogan, and Netanyahu, our democratic rights are being stolen behind our backs.

Focus on what matters

Those of us living in a democracy share one key responsibility: to protect our democratic systems. A crucial factor here is ensuring that democratic institutions remain independent from the government. These institutions exist to provide checks and balances on power, so that no single entity becomes too powerful or authoritarian. By functioning independently, they help prevent abuses of power, corruption, and the erosion of democratic principles.

It doesn’t matter what our stance is on taxes, schooling, immigration, or climate change. We are the protectors of our democratic systems. We cannot let ourselves be emotionally manipulated into accepting the dismantling of the very structures that were put in place to protect us.

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Have you ever met a manager, CEO, or business owner who seriously argues that collaboration between employees is a waste of time? I haven’t. On the contrary, I’ve met plenty of managers who claim that collaboration is one of the most important factors for success. Studies confirm this—good teamwork and collaboration “significantly improve efficiency and productivity” (https://doi.org/10.30574/wjarr.2025.25.2.0343).

How well people collaborate determines what they can achieve together. Some teams defy all odds and perform far beyond what anyone thought possible. Then there are teams that, on paper, have all the qualifications for success but still manage to fail miserably.

We humans are remarkably skilled at complex collaboration, but that doesn’t mean we’re born with perfect collaborative abilities. Like any skill, collaboration must be explored, practised and refined—a lot. With that in mind, how much time have you and your colleagues spent deliberately improving your collaborative skills?

Start Early

Considering how important collaboration is, I’m surprised we don’t spend more time practising it. In today’s hyper-individualistic society, people are often encouraged to focus more on their own performance than on that of the group to which they belong.

It starts in school. As I state in my book, Why We Follow: Natural Followership in a World Obsessed with Leadership:

“We say we want our young to learn how to collaborate, but once our kids start school, they realize that they are evaluated, tested, graded, and compared to one another as if they’re competing in a lifelong contest. By the time they graduate, most of them will be convinced that life is all about positioning oneself in a hierarchy.”

In other words, instead of priming our children to think in terms of collaboration, we’ve built systems that encourage self-interest. Even team efforts—like group work—are often individualistic, since students know that their personal performance can either boost or drag down their individual grades.

If we want children to master the art of collaboration, we must first demonstrate that cooperation is a trait we genuinely value. That means not only teaching collaborative skills but also creating structures that reward collaborative behaviour. If students are primarily measured on individual performance, that’s exactly what they’ll focus on.

Collaboration at Work

Most workplaces aren’t much better. For some illogical reason, companies will gladly invest in leadership training while offering little or no training on collaboration. Why?

Add to that the fact that few organizations take the time to audit their own structures for behaviours or systems that undermine collaboration. What structures do you have in place today that might encourage self-centred behaviour? Do you use individual bonus systems or competitions that pit employees against one another? Do you spotlight individuals instead of teams through initiatives like “Employee of the Month”?

My point is this: We can’t claim that collaboration is important and then make no effort to develop it. If you truly believe collaboration is vital for success, why not commit to improving it where you work?

Next step?

If you want to improve collaboration at work, start by exploring how you perform within these areas:

Shared vision and goals
Look at any high-performing team, and you’ll see members who genuinely share a common goal. What’s it like in your workplace? Do employees truly share the same vision?

Embrace differences
Don’t fear disagreement—embrace it. Differing opinions broaden a group’s perspective and provide more data points than homogeneous teams can offer.

Active listening
Pay close attention when others speak. You already know your own thoughts—start by understanding what others are thinking. Ask questions, seek clarification, and ensure everyone has the chance to contribute. Don’t interrupt, and be patient when it’s not your turn.

Strive for consensus
Reaching consensus means that everyone can accept a decision, even if it’s not their favourite. It doesn’t require full agreement—just enough alignment to move forward together. To build consensus, work backwards: eliminate the least favourable ideas first, then the second least, and so on until one viable option remains.

Natural Followership NewsletterRedefining leadership. Rethinking Followership.By Christian Monö

@Envato

Growing up, we admire heroes like Superman, Wonder Woman, Harry Potter, and Katniss Everdeen. Like all fictional heroes, they have only one thing in common—a deep dedication to protecting others.

Ask people about real-life heroes, and you’ll likely hear names like Mother Teresa, Mahatma Gandhi, Nelson Mandela, and Martin Luther King Jr.—individuals who devoted their lives to standing up for others.

The villain

In movies and books, heroes always face a villain. These villains usually crave power, control, revenge, or chaos.

Here’s a checklist of classic fictional villain traits. Ring any bells when you look at real-world behaviour?

World Domination – Obsessed with controlling large swaths of the world through politics, military force, or technology.

Revenge – Motivated by a perceived injustice—real or imagined.

Power and Wealth – Willing to harm others in the relentless pursuit of more.

Chaos and Destruction – Delights in dismantling systems and sowing disorder.

Resource Control – Seeks to monopolize essential resources like oil, water, or tech.

Ideological Supremacy – Forces their beliefs onto others, often with violence or coercion.

"Utopia" Creation – Tries to build a so-called perfect world—based solely on their twisted ideals.

Personal Gain at Any Cost – Everything and everyone is expendable in their climb to the top.

Manipulation and Deception – Lies, divides, and deceives to serve their own agenda.

Escape or Immunity – Obsessed with avoiding consequences and shielding themselves from justice.

Today’s news reads like badly written fiction, filled with authoritarian decision-makers hungry for power at everyone else’s expense. Like entitled brats, they demand more and more, regardless of the impact on others. They lie, cheat, and manipulate, causing harm to innocent people. They play the villain so convincingly that it's almost laughable—but it’s not funny.

I pity these bitter old individuals. They seem insecure, desperate for attention, and completely unskilled at building genuine human connections. Their obsession with domination suggests they’ve never learned how to interact with others. Many confuse fear with admiration and conformity with respect. They surround themselves with yes-sayers and, consequently, live in a fantasy world where they believe they’re loved—when most people just see them as villains.

It's time to don the hero’s cape.

Call me old-fashioned, but I believe that with power comes responsibility. I’m tired of fools justifying their attempts to dismantle democracies, bypass laws, or steal land. I’m fed up with millionaires who have everything yet will do anything to gain more. I cannot stomach watching clowns start wars over nothing, sending the young to die while they play golf or attend parties.

These individuals are not leaders; they’re leeches. They rob the world of all that is decent and good. It’s time for heroes to step forward. Without ordinary people taking a stand, history would not have known the names of Mahatma Gandhi, Martin Luther King, or Nelson Mandela. Many believe these individuals created a following. That’s not true. These so-called heroes didn’t create followers—followers created them. It started with people taking a stand.

Obeying orders is not an excuse

It doesn’t matter who you are—if you buy the villain’s products, hold their guns, accept their lies, or obey their orders, you have the power to influence their behavior.

I may not be directly impacted by what’s happening in other countries, but that doesn’t make me less responsible for taking a stand.

So I’ve decided: I will no longer be a bystander, waiting for someone else to solve the problem. I will take a stance by making it clear that I will not accept this madness—wherever it occurs. I do this by saying, clearly and unapologetically, that I’ve #HadEnough.

It might seem like an insignificant step, but taking a stance is the first step to reclaiming our freedom.

My family and I have decided to start boycotting companies and products that support villains—whether openly or behind the scenes. In doing so, we’ve realized just how much we’ve unknowingly contributed to the problem by financially supporting those connected to harmful agendas. Changing this won’t be easy, but taking a stand rarely is. Whether we like it or not, the choice is now ours: Are we the ones supporting villains, or are we helping shape the next generation of heroes?

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In previous articles, I’ve mentioned the interesting paradox that we may believe in democracy while simultaneously believing that people must be led. At first, I found this amusing, but lately, my amusement has faded, replaced by genuine concern.

What I haven’t told you is that just a few years ago, people assumed that this paradox was a result of a flaw in our leadership thinking. Lately, however, I’ve met people who would rather question democracy than the idea that people must be led.

For example, earlier this year, a poll conducted by British Channel 4 found that more than half of Gen Z (13- to 27-year-olds) agreed with the statement: “The UK would be a better place if a strong leader was in charge who does not have to bother with parliament and elections.” This alarming conclusion led the Policy Institute at King’s College London to conduct its own study, which found that “just” 6% of Gen Z agree the UK should be run by a dictator. Now, 6% may not sound like a lot, but remember—that’s about one person in twenty.

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The Birth of a Leader-Centric Mindset

Our obsession with leadership surged about 50 years ago. Prior to that, the concept of leadership was mainly a topic of interest among scholars and specific expert groups. However, by the end of the 1970s, the interest in leadership had begun to spread beyond academic and professional circles. As Bernard Bass and Ruth Bass point out in their book The Bass Handbook of Leadership, between 1900 and 1947, a combined total of 124 English-language leadership articles, books, and separate chapters were published. Between 1990 and 1999, a single journal—Leadership Quarterly—published 188 articles on leadership.

Leadership as a concept has subtly crept into our lives, becoming a central part of how we think and behave.

“Neo-Authoritarianism” and the Fall of Western Beliefs

Having spent most of my career exploring natural followership, I’m utterly convinced that the younger generation’s belief that a country is better off being ruled by a “strong leader”—read: dictator—is the result of a half-century of systematic focus on leadership at all levels of society. This has created a myth that people need someone to direct them in order to function as a group.

According to Chinese historian Professor Xiao Gongqin, a leading figure in neo-authoritarianism, the West associates authoritarianism with tyranny, whereas in China, the concept has been reframed as a “rational, pragmatic, East Asian-specific strategy for modernization.”

The question is, are we in the West moving in a similar direction? Is our belief in leadership so strong that we no longer accept the process of democracy?

Any fool can make a decision—what’s hard is making the right decision.

The Power of Chaos

The term “strong leadership” is often used synonymously with having one person getting things done. Many associate it with structure and efficiency. But as I’ve said before, no single individual knows everything. If you give one person ultimate power, you effectively weaken the group over which that individual rules.

Democracy is not just about the right to vote—it’s about protecting our freedom and harnessing the power of diversity. It’s about understanding that people’s differences are key ingredients in building collective intelligence. Yes, democracies can be slow and time-consuming, but that should not be confused with inefficiency or ineptitude. Any fool can make a decision—what’s hard is making the right decision. How much time have you spent in your life correcting errors or poor decisions? How many mistakes could have been avoided by involving more people in the decision-making process?

Time to Let Go of the Leadership Myth

While I often critique today’s leader-centric focus, it’s important to acknowledge that those who emphasize leadership generally do so with good intentions—they genuinely want to help teams, organizations, and businesses thrive. However, that doesn’t make our narrow focus on leadership any less problematic. We need to shift our perspective and recognize that success isn’t driven by one person alone. It’s time to teach the next generation that collective intelligence, collaboration, and shared effort hold far greater power than individual leadership ever could.

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Be sure to read Why We Follow: Natural Followership in a World Obsessed with Leadership – an eye-opening journey into the power of followership and why it matters now more than ever.

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Leadership is seen as the driving force of progress
in our society—but history tells a different story.

In this thought-provoking book, followership expert Christian Monö challenges traditional leadership thinking. Drawing on research, history, and real-world examples, he shows how a leader-centered mindset can stifle innovation, limit collaboration, and even undermine democracy.

At the heart of the book is natural followership, a groundbreaking concept that redefines leadership and followership. By exploring how people collaborate in non-hierarchical settings—from early human societies to modern teams—Monö presents a new understanding of what it means to lead and follow.

We’re also introduced to the concept of collaborationship, a powerful process where people use natural followership to maximize the output of their collaboration.

Whether you’re part of a team, managing a company, or hoping to spark change, this book offers new and inspiring insights. Let the principles of natural followership guide you in today’s fast-changing world. Build stronger teams, foster innovation, and create lasting change by moving beyond traditional leadership ideas."

IntroductionThere are No Leaders
Without Followers

He who thinks he is leading and has no
one following him is only taking a walk.

––Malawian Proverb

When I first began exploring natural followership, I had no idea what I was getting into. It took years for me to realize that leadership isn’t just a discipline; it’s a belief system. And like any belief system, it quietly shapes our thinking. Even people with no interest in leadership carry certain preconceived ideas about leaders and followers.

While most of us are unaware of it, these ideas influence how we think and behave when we’re in the company of others. Often, it’s not until someone challenges these ideas that we become aware of them.

I never set out to challenge the leadership community—it just sort of happened as I began asking a series of questions. Let me give you an example: We can’t have leaders without followers, yet for some reason, people tend to focus solely on leaders. Why? We don’t need leadership skills to fall in love, paint our living rooms, or have dinner with friends. So why does leadership get so much attention?

I’ve been asking students of leadership this question for nearly twenty years. Typically, I receive answers like, “I want to become a better leader” or “I want to help others grow.” But when asked to explain why, many struggle to provide a clear answer.

Another common response I hear is that people want to be leaders because they enjoy helping others reach their full potential. But what does that really mean? Do they want to help everyone around them reach their full potential or just a select group? Have the intended followers asked to be led by this person? If not, who made that decision? And who determines whether someone has truly reached their full potential—is it the so-called leader or the person being led?

There’s a tendency among scholars and experts to describe leaders as selfless individuals who take on the burden of helping others achieve success. But once you start questioning this premise, a very different picture emerges.

Those who invest in leadership do so because they believe their goals depend on the engagement of others. For instance, I’ve never met anyone who studies leadership because their friends want them to lead. However, I have met plenty of managers who study leadership because they want their staff to align with the company’s goals and interests. In essence, they study leadership to control or influence the behaviour of others.

When you read that last sentence, did the word “control” stand out to you? If so, you’re not alone. Expressing a desire to control people is generally considered inappropriate, but that’s exactly where leadership comes into play. Leadership is often described as the art of “inspiring,” “motivating,” or “empowering” others. Leaders are labelled “visionaries,” “catalysts,” and “change agents.” Although these words carry a positive connotation, the fundamental purpose remains the same—to influence the actions and mindset of others.

When we try to influence someone, we attempt to affect or change their behaviour, thoughts, or development. Thus, one could argue that leadership is about controlling people but without apparent exertion of force or direct exercise of command. Some leadership experts take great offence at this statement, insisting that leadership is not about controlling others. I agree with them, but, in practice, most individuals still see leadership as a tool to steer people in a certain direction. However, if you try to steer people in a certain direction, are you not trying to control them?

For many, leaders are enablers who create conditions for success within a group or an organization. It’s argued that enabling a group to succeed is vastly different from managing people. Yet in practice, when people refer to leaders as enablers, they often seem to mean decision-makers. This becomes evident if you ask them questions such as: “Who determines the goals of a team—the so-called leader or those expected to follow?” or “What happens if the team wants to follow someone else with very different visions or goals?”

Perhaps the best evidence, however, is that we measure a leader’s success by how they get others to perform. This leads us to another peculiar observation. If we argue that a leader’s success is determined by how well they get others to perform, why do we focus on leadership and not followership? Why invest in a single individual and ignore everyone else when it’s the performance of the collective that matters? The only logical explanation is that we believe leaders can control the behaviour and actions of others.

Unfortunately, this mindset also affects how we perceive followers. Who wants to be a follower if that means being controlled by someone else?

How It All Started

I’ve spent nearly my entire career exploring what I call “natural followership.” I’m fascinated by the way people instinctively follow one another when formal rules and regulations aren’t in play. Take the workplace, for example. It’s not a natural environment—nor is the political arena, the military, or a sports team. These settings are deliberately structured to organize people toward specific outcomes.

Compare this to your interactions with friends. In these informal settings, you aren’t confined by official rules or agreements. Instead, your actions are shaped by shared interests and values, motivated by a genuine desire for meaningful connection.

My interest in this topic dates back to a beautiful day in February 2007. During a small family gathering, my wife’s uncle, Per, suddenly turned to me with a question. “Everybody talks about the importance of leadership,” he began, “but why don’t we ever discuss the importance of followership?”

At the time, Per was working as a bus driver. He had begun his career in a bus depot and gradually climbed the corporate ladder to become the company’s head of communications. Although he held this position for several years, he missed the daily interactions with commuters. Eventually, despite protests from his colleagues and managers, he resigned and returned to driving buses. That was when he experienced an epiphany.

Like most of us, Per had been raised in a society that believes leaders are crucial for the success of a group, be it a team, an organization, or a country. Although many experts argue that leaders and managers are two separate things, most people, even the experts themselves, still see the two as closely linked.

Therefore, as a manager, Per was defined as a leader.

He was repeatedly reminded how important he and the other managers were for the success of the company. Yet, once he was back behind the wheel, it struck Per that the drivers had a greater impact on certain aspects of the business than the managers. It was the drivers, not the managers, who interacted with the commuters every day. How they drove the bus, interacted with the customers, and handled unforeseen problems in traffic had a huge impact on the company’s reputation. Those, in turn, affected opportunities for the business.

So why wasn’t followership considered as important as leadership?

The First Step

As Per told me his story, I realized that no one—not my parents, teachers, managers, or friends—had ever discussed the importance of followers with me. Now I wanted to understand why.

That evening, I turned on my computer, determined to learn more about those who follow leaders. I didn’t know it at the time, but I’d just embarked on a journey that would change my entire worldview.

After a few weeks, I realized that very little research had been done on followership. While this meant I had little to go on, it was also a great opportunity. Anyone who wants to study leadership will find a mountain of literature. By the time they’ve gone through a fraction of it, they’re already influenced by several thinkers. With followership, I was looking at a nearly empty canvas. This meant I could approach my subject with an open mind.

As we shall see in the first chapter, I chose to study leadership and followership from a follower’s perspective. Since then, I’ve searched for answers from a broad range of disciplines, including anthropology, archaeology, history, psychology, genetics, and zoology to name a few. I’ve interviewed researchers, leadership gurus, managers, teenagers, and children. Meanwhile, I’ve also held several management roles in larger companies, giving me plenty of time to study behaviours and test various hypotheses in real-life settings.

Different Definitions

With a different perspective and a holistic approach to the subject, I found myself questioning key aspects of the leadership field. For instance, I found that while experts agree that leaders are important, they don’t agree on what a leader is. Now, imagine that you and I agree that apple pie is tasty, but we don’t agree on what an apple is, then what are we agreeing on? How do we know leaders are important if we don’t know what a leader is?

In this book, we’ll explore aspects of the leadership field that may challenge your current worldview. Some readers might find this overwhelming. As one CEO exclaimed during a workshop: “Chris, you’re breaking my brain!” Of course, I’m not out to do that. If anything, I’m trying to do the opposite.

Leadership as a concept has infiltrated every aspect of our society, from politics and business to sports and arts. It’s sought after, trained for, discussed, and analyzes. This near obsession with leadership affects everything from how people interact and organize themselves to how engaged they are in school, at work, and in politics. Contrary to popular belief, this focus on leadership is not necessarily positive.

As I’ll attempt to show, our obsession with leadership regularly subdues people into inaction. It prevents collaboration, destabilizes democracies, and encourages selfishness. It even undermines one of humankind’s most critical collaborative processes—something I call “collaborationship,” which we’ll explore in more detail in Chapter 13.

In other words, the focus on leadership is counterproductive. Fortunately, over the last few years, interest in the concept of followership has increased. In early 2000, most people I spoke to portrayed followers as “sheep,” “puppets,” “conformists,” and “yes-men.” They saw followers as passive minions. Today, people also associate followers with social media. To me, that’s a step in the right direction. On social media, followers decide who, when, where, and how they want to follow. That means the power to follow is in the hands of the followers, which I believe, has helped change the way we interpret the word “follower.”

In addition, Gen Zers (born during the late 1990s and early 2000s) are entering the labour market. These young individuals are less willing to accept conformist roles at work. They want to be involved, feel engaged, and work in an environment where they are free to rule themselves.1 Sending managers to leadership training will not be enough to attract and retain the best of this generation. This might explain why, for the past few years, an increasing number of people have started looking beyond leadership for answers. Followership is finally gaining worldwide attention.

The Rise of Nonconformist Followers

While I applaud and encourage this shift in focus, I’m also a little concerned. Most experts still see followers as subordinates and speak of followership as meaning “how to collaborate with someone with formal authority.” This worries me because it means we’re adapting followership to fit leadership’s preconceived view of the world. If we continue down this path, we’ll soon have the same leadership theories as today, just packaged differently. That’s why I believe this book is important. It presents a new theory that redefines what it means to lead and to follow.

This book is divided into three parts. In Part One, we’ll shine a light on today’s obsession with leadership. We’ll see how we’re conditioned to think of leaders and followers in a particular way and how it affects individuals, organizations, and societies.

Part Two is dedicated to explaining “natural followership” and its significance. We’ll explore how our ancestors led and followed each other, how they used collaborationship to overcome obstacles, and how groups of people can outsmart individuals.

In Part Three, we look to the future. We’ll see examples of people, schools, and companies that have successfully applied various degrees of natural followership to improve business and education. We’ll even explore how natural followership can be used to improve democracy—a clarity that is becoming increasingly important in today’s turbulent world.

To be clear, I won’t be offering a business model or a blueprint for implementing natural followership in various settings. My work has convinced me that it’s more or less impossible to construct a leadership or followership blueprint that is applicable to every person, industry, environment, and culture.

Instead, I believe we should focus on learning how people naturally lead and follow one another. With that knowledge, we can create our own models to fit whatever environment we’re in. For this reason, I hope you’ll see this book as the beginning of an exciting journey—one that offers new perspectives, ideas, and understandings. Natural followership has changed my entire worldview; now it can change yours.

Chapter 1A Follower’s Perspective

Change your thoughts and you change your world.

––Norman Vincent Peale

A month had passed since I’d begun my followership journey. I’d spent hours at the Stockholm University library searching for relevant books, articles, and academic papers. As mentioned, there wasn’t much information available in the early 2000s. Search engines weren’t as advanced as today, thus I struggled to find resources in my area of interest. I wanted to understand why people follow each other, but most scholars—even those writing about followership—seemed more interested in how followers should be led. Later, I would describe this as scholars adopting a leader-centric view or a “leader perspective.”

Then one day, I sat in my small home office, gazing out the window and contemplating how to proceed. I knew I had to start from scratch—but where should I begin? After what felt like hours, I finally grabbed a notebook and wrote a single question in the middle of the page:

What makes me want to follow someone else?

I didn’t know it at the time, but as we’re about to see, that question would change my entire worldview. Had I phrased it just a little differently, I doubt I would have discovered natural followership. Looking back, I’m surprised I didn’t ask, “What makes me want to follow a leader?” But if I had, I would have narrowed my field of view, as that question assumes we first know what a leader is. And since most of us already hold preconceived ideas about leaders, I likely would have drawn very traditional conclusions about followers.

Instead, by asking the question in a way that required no assumptions about leaders or followers, I opened a different path. The question “What makes us follow someone else?” doesn’t imply that we follow leaders—only that there are times when we follow other people. This distinction proved critical to the outcome of my work, because, without realizing it, I had adopted a “follower’s perspective.”

Through a Follower’s Eyes

A major issue with contemporary leadership theories is that they’ve been developed by people who tend to view the world from a leader’s perspective. Followers are generally regarded as “the others”—a collective that merely reacts to its surroundings rather than influencing them. Consequently, companies, schools, and organizations invest millions in leadership but not in followership, because they believe that leaders are influential, while followers are not.

By taking a follower’s perspective, I found myself questioning many of the traditional assumptions about leaders and followers. Take, for example, the common idea that leaders should motivate their followers to action. When considered from a follower’s perspective, a number of questions arise: Why do we assume that followers need to be motivated by a leader? Where does that idea come from? Do you need leaders to motivate you, and if so, why and when? And why is it that leaders should be the ones motivating their followers rather than the other way around?

Changing perspectives opened a whole new world to me, but I quickly realized that this came with certain challenges. Adopting a new perspective isn’t always easy. Psychologists refer to this as cognitive dissonance, which occurs when a person experiences mental discomfort due to holding two or more contradictory beliefs or values at the same time. In other words, if you’ve learned that leaders should motivate their followers, you may feel an inner conflict when confronted with facts that suggest the opposite.

I’ve experienced this myself. There have been moments when my work led me to discoveries that disrupted my entire way of thinking. It usually started with a simple question asked from a follower’s perspective: What is a leader without followers? If there were no hierarchies, whom would I follow? What happens if people refuse to follow one another? If leaders are the key to success, does that mean followers aren’t?

I mention this because you may find yourself instinctively reacting to certain conclusions in this book. When that happens, I encourage you to pause and reflect on what exactly you’re reacting to. Is it the conclusion itself, or is it the fact that it challenges an old worldview? Taking a follower’s perspective will come with certain challenges, but if we truly want to understand why people follow one another, there’s no other choice.

Influenced by the Times

Many years ago, while having breakfast with my youngest daughter, Emmy, I noticed that the butter box on the table contained 600 grams of butter. Seizing the opportunity to be a pedagogical father, I pointed to the container and said, “Emmy, it says here that this box contains 600 gs of butter. Do you know what the ‘g’ stands for?”

Emmy, who was around six years old at the time, glanced at the box and confidently replied, “Yes. Gigabyte.”

Let me tell you, when I was six years old in 1983, there wasn’t a child in the world who would’ve guessed that a box contained 600 gigabytes of butter. We’re influenced by the times we live in, often to a much larger degree than many of us are aware.

In his New York Times bestselling book The Psychology of Money, Morgan Housel claims that a handful of people were responsible for most of the world’s development during the 1800s and 1900s. Out of the billions born during these two centuries, Housel selects seven individuals who he believes changed the world:

• Adolf Hitler

• Josef Stalin

• Mao Zedong

• Gavrilo Princip

• Thomas Edison

• Bill Gates

• Martin Luther King

According to Housel, almost everything in the world today—from country borders to technology—would have looked different if these seven people hadn’t been born.1

The idea that a single person is capable of altering mankind is common. It’s also wrong. Without support, people like Hitler, Stalin, and Mao would never have been able to gain power in the first place. Without earlier inventors and researchers, someone like Gates wouldn’t have had a computer to play with. Edison was just one of several people who contributed to the invention of the incandescent light bulb. In fact, British inventor Joseph Wilson Swan produced an incandescent light bulb six months before Edison. We often overlook such facts. It’s as if we want to believe that a lone individual has the power to change the world. It fits the leader perspective.

For example, the Swedish Constitution states that “all public power proceeds from the people.” As I wrote this, Sweden had just become a member of NATO. Whether this was a decision made by the Swedish public is debatable. The main political parties decided against a referendum, fearing that Russia would interfere and influence the opinion of the Swedish people.

The Green Party spokesperson for international issues, Maria Ferm, said: “We don’t see a referendum as anything worth striving for. There are great risks attached to this, such as disinformation campaigns and the like.”2 Ferm was supported by Hans Wallmark of the Moderate (conservative) Party. “One should not underestimate Russian devilment, which they have proven in other contexts,” Wallmark said. “It is, of course, of the utmost importance from a Russian perspective to prevent a Swedish membership of NATO.”

Here’s my question: If people can’t be entrusted to decide on important issues affecting their lives and their country, what’s the point of a democracy? There will always be a risk of foreign attempts to manipulate elections or referenda, not to mention the risk of our own politicians abusing their power.

Two months after Sweden formally joined NATO, national media reported that one of the country’s largest political parties had run a so-called troll factory prior to the 2018 Swedish general election. The right-wing Sweden Democrats used more than twenty anonymous social media accounts to post offensive and provocative messages in an apparent attempt to manipulate public opinion. While the party denied the allegations, it confirmed ownership of anonymous social media accounts.3 It also promised to “make some minor adjustments to soften the tone going forward”4 but refused to shut down these anonymous accounts.

If a referendum on NATO was out of the question due to the fear of foreign disinformation tactics, would future general elections be stopped for fear of national manipulators? Besides, why do politicians believe the public is more likely to be manipulated than themselves? If anything, politicians are far more likely to be influenced by external actors than their citizens. Their power makes them attractive targets. One in ten Swedish elected representatives has reported that they have been exposed to threats, violence, or vandalism by so-called system-threatening actors due to their political mission.5

When Russia invaded Ukraine in 2022, Finland, which is situated between Sweden and Russia, decided to join NATO. Sweden was on the verge of becoming the only Scandinavian country outside NATO. For weeks, Swedish politicians were courted by NATO members and promised a speedy application process if Sweden applied for membership along with Finland. When it was time for a formal decision, the political elite in Sweden had already made up their minds. At that point, they almost seemed more worried about the opinions of the Swedish people than about Russia.

In many countries, the public’s confidence in their governments is low. Despite this, those in political power are generally called leaders, which consequently makes the rest of us followers. If we continue this line of thought and accept a traditional leader-centric perspective, it suggests that politicians are the ones who make decisions and direct people where to go.

This leader-centric view creates certain problems. It increases the risk of politicians misinterpreting their roles. For example, in November 2022, Swedish Prime Minister Ulf Kristersson referred to the Swedish government as “my government” when discussing a possible Swedish NATO membership.6

While I doubt Kristersson literally meant that the Swedish government is his, the rhetoric is interesting. It suggests that Kristersson feels he controls the government. Of course, the Swedish government belongs to the people, not to the prime minister. This is the essence of democracy.

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Coming to other book stores in March 2025.

In Why We Follow, I introduce a new term—collaborationship—which I define as:

“A specific kind of collaboration where people work together, combining their strengths to maximize their chances of achieving a shared goal or vision.”

You may have heard of social loafing—when people put in less effort on a group task than they would alone. Collaborationship is the opposite—it’s about maximizing team output by actively using each person’s unique skills and strengths.

A great example of this is in sports, where teams rely on collaborationship. I first realized this in high school when a classmate explained the different roles on a cheerleading team—bases provide support, flyers perform stunts, and spotters ensure safety. Each role requires different physical and mental abilities and the team’s success depends on having the right people in the right positions, working together for the good of the team.

While this is a simplified explanation of collaborationship, I’ve found it helps people make sense of the core idea.

The Traditional Focus on Structure

Grasping the concept of collaborationship is key to understanding natural followership.

Most theories on leadership and followership revolve around the idea that someone (the so-called leader) has a formal or informal mandate to direct, steer, or govern others (the followers). As a result, leadership has traditionally been centred around structure—we focus a great deal on who steers the group and how they do it.

Natural followership, on the other hand, doesn’t focus on structure. Instead, it prioritizes a group’s ability to build strong collaborationship. For example, in collaborative environments where people don’t typically think in terms of leaders and followers—such as among friends or in egalitarian band societies—individuals rarely stop to reflect on who leads or follows. Their attention is on whatever they want to achieve as a group.

A single individual can’t change the world—groups of people do.

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A Single Individual Can’t Change the World

In today’s leader-centric world, many people assume that large and complex issues must be solved by so-called leaders.

My 19-year-old daughter unknowingly exemplified this the other day. We were discussing climate change when she expressed her frustration that certain politicians brush the issue aside. When she finished, I asked her what she would do about it. She looked at me as if I’d lost my mind and replied, “I can’t do anything. I don’t have any power.”

For decades, we’ve been told that so-called leaders shape the world we live in—from Adolf Hitler to Mahatma Gandhi. We hear experts analyze the actions of Donald Trump and assume that what happens in the U.S. is the result of one man.

But here’s the truth: if no one obeyed his commands or accepted his decisions, Trump wouldn’t achieve anything. This applies to democracies as well as dictatorships. A person’s power always depends on someone’s acceptance.

A single individual can’t change the world—groups of people do.

Making Use of Each Other’s Strengths

One reason collaborationship should be a top priority—whether at work or in society—is that it encourages people to solve problems together, even when no one has an immediate solution.

Instead of waiting for a single person to come up with an answer and dictate what to do, individuals start sharing ideas, thoughts, and perspectives. Gradually, they piece together a group solution.

Of course, this isn’t always easy, especially in a world that encourages people to put themselves first. For collaborationship to work, group members must:

a) Genuinely share the same goal or vision.
b) Be willing to find a solution that is acceptable to all parties. This doesn’t mean everyone has to love the solution, but they need to accept it.
c) Be open to others’ input, ideas, and differences, embracing diversity.

In my experience, groups that build on each other’s ideas and suggestions are far more likely to succeed than those where individuals waste energy competing for power or trying to “sell” their ideas to everyone else.

We Don’t Need All the Answers to Start Collaborating

As I later told my daughter, changing the world doesn’t require each of us to have all the answers. Nor do we need power or influence to steer others. What we need is more collaborationship.

That means we need:

· A clear objective (goal or vision)

· A willingness to collaborate

· People to work with

So, to conclude—if you want change to happen, don’t wait for someone else to make it. Find like-minded people and start building collaborationship. Trust in the process—together, we can achieve things we’d never achieve alone.

Deep down, I believe we all realize this. So why not start by sharing this text with others? The first step in breaking free from the leader-centric mindset is reaching out to others, exploring their thoughts and ideas. But to find them, we must first open their eyes to the power of collaborationship.

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The other day, I visited my father. Whenever we meet, we tend to discuss everything from books we’ve read to global politics. These discussions usually lead to conversations about natural followership, and yesterday was no exception.

Sipping tea in my father’s living room, we discussed the importance of democracy and the challenges of loyalty.

The Balance of Power

Democracies are fragile, and they’re always at risk of being undermined by power-hungry individuals. Therefore, they must be protected.

In a stable democracy, there’s a balance of power among key institutions. No single branch of government—executive, legislative, or judicial—should have enough power to dominate the others.

In recent years, several political leaders have attacked their countries' democratic constitutions and foundational principles. A common tactic of these democratically elected autocrats is to shift the balance of power away from independent institutions and toward themselves. However, to succeed, they need the support or compliance of those holding influential positions in key institutions.

Decision-Maker vs. Constitution

When a democracy is under attack by an autocratic individual or group, the actions of the institutions become crucial. More specifically, it’s the actions of the institutional decision-makers that become crucial. As my father put it, “A key factor is whether the military command chooses to be loyal to the president or the democratic constitution.”

The fall of democracy and individual freedom does not hinge on the actions of one or two individuals. It’s the actions of those who represent the institutions that matter.

Loyalty Is Not Blind Obedience

Blind obedience is not the same as loyalty. We don’t demonstrate loyalty by following orders at the expense of our values. Nor are we loyal if we submit to decision-makers who threaten the very principles we’re meant to protect.

I’ve always maintained that when we’re hired for a job, our loyalty should lie not with management but with the company itself. The same principle applies in politics: our loyalty should first and foremost be to our country and its inhabitants, not the decision-makers.

This is easier said than done. Standing up for what’s right requires integrity and courage. However, it’s important to recognize that when someone pressures us to obey an order that violates our objectives, principles, or responsibilities, they’re abusing their power.

Ethics:
A system of accepted rules about behaviour based on what is considered right and wrong.

Law vs. Ethics

Before obeying an order, it’s wise to ask:

Does this order conflict with any laws, rules, or regulations?

Of course, laws are written by people—and they can be changed. Autocratic individuals and groups will often try to manipulate laws to serve their own interests. In such cases, what can we do?

Well, I believe the second question we should ask before complying is:

Does this order go against my moral values?

As I wrote in Why We Follow, “If an order requires you to do something you find morally distasteful, don’t comply. Few things weigh more heavily on one’s conscience than violating one’s ethical values.”

In the end, true loyalty lies not in blind obedience, but in the courage to uphold the values that protect both human freedom and the natural world we all depend on.

Worth noting:

Don’t miss the 2025 Global Followership Conference in Claremont, California May 28-30. I hope to see you there.

Book: Why We Follow: Naural Followership in a World Obsessed with Leadership is now available as both e-book and paperback. Get your copy here.

Book: To Stop a Tyrant: The Power of Political Followers to Make or Brake a Toxic Leader by Ira Chaleff. Get your copy here.

Book: The Origins of Elected Strongmen: How Personalist Parties Destroy Democracy from Within by Erica Frantz, Andrea Kendall-Taylor, Joseph Wright. Get your copy here.

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