Can There Be Leadership Without Followership? - Eddie Buchanan

This is an interesting little article published a couple years ago in Fire Engineering of all things. Mostly, the article is a summary and application of Kelley's followership styles stuff.

But there are some interesting comments in the article. While discussing the issue of loyalty, Buchanan makes the comment "you don't have to be to loyal to the leader. Be loyal to your department, your organization, the job, and the citizens. If the leader is mission-oriented and doing the right thing, that's a bonus. Over the span of your time in the fire service, you may encounter leaders who want personal loyalty. Usually, these individuals eventually start to believe their own line of baloney. If you give them enough time, they'll go away. Be loyal to the patch; that's what really matters. Do a good job because the citizens and your brothers and sisters deserve it. The rest will take care of itself."

Really? Loyalty should never be personal? I'm not so sure about that - while personal loyalty is always much more difficult, I question whether or not we should intentionally shy away from it as this writer implies.

The other comments I found noteworthy came at the end of the article. The writer advises us to be careful about pigeonholing people (according to Kelley's categories or anyone else's). We may be incorrect about who we're dealing with. Making assumptions about followers could be very counterproductive. We must not attempt to read each other's mind on these things. Clear and open communication is key.