This is, of course, the seminal work on followership, built largely on controversial research first published in the Harvard Business Review in 1988. While others have touched on followership incidentally, Robert Kelley was the first to get research and an excellent book published exclusively on the issue. His work is still the foundation of most meaningful followership conversations today, although Kelley himself seems to have moved off into other, slightly different directions.Kelley first establishes, in my view, the increasing impossibility of our obsession with leadership. With the sheer quantity of leadership advice available,with the world changing rapidly around us, it is ludicrous to believe our leader-centrism is sustainable. So Kelley makes a case for intentional followership. He gives reasons to choose followership. Interestingly, for this research, he uses Robert Greenleaf's Servant Leadership stuff as one foundation for his follower thinking. Kelley's chapter on "enoughness" is particularly thought-provoking in this regard.
Probably the most important and useful thing Kelley does is establish a Followership Styles questionnaire and evaluation mechanism. He then spends time discussing exemplary followership, a follower's web of relationships, courageous conscience (see Ira Chaleff for an expansion of this) and then, ironically, some leadership secrets from exemplary followers.
By his own admission, Kelley was not attempting to establish a comprehensive text on followership. He was simply trying to get people to consider the other side of our leadership obsessions. He did so beautifully. I find it fascinating (and very revealing!) that this great book is now already out of print.
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