Followership: How Followers Are Creating Change and Changing Leaders

by Barbara Kellerman

This groundbreaking volume provides the first sweeping view of followers in relation to their leaders, deliberately departing from the leader-centric approach that dominates our thinking about leadership and management. Barbara Kellerman argues that, over time, followers have played increasingly vital roles. For two key reasons, this trend is now accelerating. Followers are becoming more important, and leaders less. Through gripping stories about a range of people and places—from multinational corporations such as Merck, to Nazi Germany, to the American military after 9/11—Kellerman makes key distinctions among five different types of Isolates, Bystanders, Participants, Activists, and Diehards. And she explains how they relate not only to their leaders but also to each other. Thanks to Followership , we can finally appreciate the ways in which those with relatively fewer sources of power, authority, and influence are consequential. Moreover, they are getting bolder and more strategic. As Kellerman makes crystal clear, to fixate on leaders at the expense of followers is to do so at our peril. The latter are every bit as important as the former, which makes this book required reading for superiors and subordinates alike.

Genres: Leadership, Business, Professional Development, Nonfiction, Politics

336 pages, Hardcover

First published January 14, 2008

Reviews

[Sana Vasli · Rating 2 out of 5]

This could have been an article. Great concept around the rise and power of followers, but the depth wasn’t required because the reader isn’t learning more, just discussing the same points.

Would recommend a summary.

[Allen Jr. · Rating 4 out of 5]

Kellerman's work is a surprisingly readable, well-researched effort to correct the egregious oversight, devaluation, and misunderstanding of the role of followership. She outlines societal and philosophical factors that indicate why followership is important now in a way that it has not always been.

The strength of this book lies in Chapters 1-4, & 10 (also Ch 9); the categories of follower types that she develops in Chapters 5-8 are only marginally useful, despite the foundation of interesting case studies. I'm not convinced that the distinctions between the types (Bystanders, Participants, Activists, Diehards) are significant enough to be helpful, and ultimately the types do not present a paradigm that's really informative or instructive for living (and developing) as a follower.

Kellerman's work is realistic in interacting with the truth and realities of leadership, followership, and hierachies (i.e. it doesn't attempt to erase either the role of leader or of follower), and this book is highly effective for promoting awareness about this oft-overlooked topic. However, while it reports examples of "How Followers Are Creating Change and Changing Leaders" (the book's subtitle), it falls short of serving to launch followers forward in practically bettering themselves and contributing more effectively to the leader-follower dialectic.

Additional reflections can be found on my blog here:
http://admitandexplore.wordpress.com/...

[Leah Sciabarrasi · Rating 5 out of 5]

Kellerman is right. As much as we dissect and assign leaders to categories, we lump followers into one group or ignore them altogether. It is time to consider what makes a good follower, and what traits each of us can take on to exhibit good followership behavior as we support leaders and work toward shared goals.

One of the most intriguing sections was on bad followership. We all probably have the same idea of makes good followership but do we all have the same idea of what makes bad followership? One example is whistleblowing. People inside the company and who are in the know about the bad things going on in an organization would probably applaud whistleblowing, but leadership (including the Board) may not. As Kellerman states, “Where you stand depends on where you sit on what are your basic beliefs, on what are your fundamental values, and on what you think of this leader and these followers in this situation in particular“ P. 229.

[Tiffany · Rating 3 out of 5]

The author addresses followership using a sociopolitical lens that focuses on follower engagement. The 5-level classification system of isolates, bystanders, participants, activists, and diehards is used to identify how followers choose to relate to a particular sociopolitical phenomenon. The four case studies included in the book are useful for considering macro-level followership dynamics and are the primary value provided for the reader. However, the proposed followership model is too constricted in the variables captured and is not easily transferrable into other contexts. Additionally, the model does not answer the question as to how followers develop their followership effectiveness.

[Thomas · Rating 4 out of 5]

A unique and refreshing approach to viewing leadership through the lens of followers. Followership has changed the way I view leaders and opened my eyes to the power of followers.
Followers empower and enable leaders. This comes with the weight of responsibility. All of us are followers at some point in our lives whether at work, at home, in our communities or in our families. As such, we have a responsibility to support good leaders and oppose bad leaders through our followership.

Thank you to author Barbara Kellerman for your unique insight into leadership and thank you to US Army Major Margaret Russell from Arizona for introducing me to this book.

[Michelle · Rating 4 out of 5]

Although this is definitely skewed towards one political party, I definitely liked the theme of it regarding that leaders are only as good as their followers. It makes you think about how followership and leadership are truly linked together and dependant upon the other. If you are looking for a unique perspective into research on leadership and followership, this would be a good read.

[Robert · Rating 5 out of 5]

According to Kellerman, "followership is the response of those in subordinate positions (followers) to those in superior ones (leaders). Followership implies a relationship (rank), between subordinates and superiors, and a response (behavior), of the former to the latter." Her book departs from the leader-centric approach that dominates much of the current consideration of leadership and management. "Focusing on followers enables us to see the parts they play, even when they do little or nothing. And it empowers them, which is to say that it empowers us." Kellerman duly acknowledges that the line that separates superiors from their subordinates is often "blurred." Also, "the line between them tends to shift. Some of us are followers most of the time and leaders some f the time. Others are the opposite." Finally, that many people are superiors and subordinates simultaneously. More so now than at any prior time that I recall, our roles are determined within a context and, as Kellerman correctly suggests, "followers are creating change and changing leaders."

She devotes an entire chapter to examining the values of each type of follower, again citing real-world examples to illustrate her key points. The examples include Kitty Genovese whose cries for help were heard but ignored by more than a dozen Bystanders as she bled to death on a street in Queens. Kellerman also discusses "good followers" (who support a leader who is good and oppose a leader who is bad) and "bad followers" (who do nothing or who support a leader who is bad and oppose a leader who is good). Then in the final chapter, she recommends "something new and different" when thinking about how and why, until now, analyses of power, authority, and influence have been leader-centric, fixated on those who rank high." She identifies "six all-important assumptions" on which her reasoning is based, making a convincing argument that "those who have less power, authority, and influence [nonetheless] do have ways of impacting on those who have more."

Kellerman offers an eloquent as well as convincing argument that there can be - and should be - a symbiotic balance of leadership and followership based on mutually respect and trust. One of a good leader's most important responsibilities is to help prepare her or his good followers to become more actively and productively involved in their organization's decision-making process. The most effective leaders in the business world are renowned for their uncanny ability to ask the right questions, for their insatiable curiosity to obtain more and better information from as many different sources as possible, and for their deference to the judgment of others who are better qualified to answer a question, solve a problem, or suggest a course of action. That is to say, these executives know when to lead and when to follow.

[Barbara Burd · Rating 4 out of 5]

I really enjoy the works of Barbara Kellerman. Her motivation for this book is to better understand the role of followers and to lay a foundation for the study of followership. While there is much written on leadership studies, the role of followers is just receiving attention. One of the most haunting questions for researchers of leader/follower behavior is how so many individuals benignly or aggressively participated in the Holocaust and other atrocities to humanity. Examining roles of followers from various perspectives and providing examples from different types of follower behavior, Kellerman looks at the wide range from benign followers to those who progress from followers to leaders. While Kellerman does not provide answers to these questions, this is an important book because she examines follower behavior and proposes a typology for the study of followership. Kellerman has a nice style of writing and some of her examples of follower behavior are riveting.

[IAO131 · Rating 2 out of 5]

A book about leadership focusing on those who are led. The entire content can be summarized as saying "Followers are not leaders, but they still have power to change things." The rest of the book is anecdotes and tenuous, unsupported theories that divide followers into various groups for the sake of... dividing followers into various groups.

[Sugy · Rating 5 out of 5]

a must read for all people whether you consider yourself a follower or a leader. especially helpful for those of us that pursue leadership roles. you must understand how you must also be a follower and how the roles of the two interact.

[Mark · Rating 4 out of 5]

interesting categorizations to help understand some I work with

[Samantha Hines · Rating 4 out of 5]

The US Political System makes a lot more sense now.