The Followership Continuum: A Model For Fine Tuning The Workforce - Patsy Blackshear

This 2003 article from The Public Manager is another continuum based perspective on leadership and followership. Blackshear argues for a five stage continuum:

1. Employee (Is this person even a follower? Rost would say no.)
2. Committed Follower
3. Engaged Follower
4. Effective Follower
5. Exemplary Follower

She also suggests most organizations settle for a conventional bell-curve of people along this continuum with the majority of people falling squarely in the engaged follower spot. She argues that working to place people in their "best job" situations will result in the most exemplary followers in the organization.

I'll admit to being somewhat confused about her "best/worst" job definitions. It sounds like she is arguing for some sort of shallow situational focus for followership development. Work on changing the situation and you'll change your followers. I disagree. While this approach will certainly help somewhat, I'm more interested in producing followers who are effective and exemplary in whatever situation. Situations will always come and go; there are only so many situational variables that are even within our control. If we hold good followership hostage to gaining total control of the organizational context, we will never see good followership. But if we develop followers able to thrive in any context, we will have truly done something.

I think back to the story I heard last week at the Willow Creek Global Leadership Summit. There comes a time when both leaders and followers must be able to look at the situation and honestly say, "TBU: True But Useless." There might be an awful lot of bad stuff going on around us in need of fixing, but where are the handles of good stuff we can grab onto? Don't just talk to me about situational problems! Talk about the practical baby steps within our control. Honestly assess and understand the bad and good aspects of the situation and then be able to make lemonade out of the lemons we're dealing with. We will never be able to make the situation good enough, so let's concentrate on developing people able to cope with any situation.

But then again, maybe I'm wrong about Blackshear's argument...in which case, never mind!