The Importance of Followership - Lundin & Lancaster

This article in The Futurist, published in 1990, was also instrumental in opening up followership dialogue. After making yet another strong argument for followership studies, they posit four characteristics of effective followers, based on their research.

1. Integrity - Followers are driven by their own beliefs

2. Owning The Territory - They understand the organization and acknowledge their own contribution.

3. Versatility - They are flexible and able to adapt. This is a particularly prophetic and enormous observation. Perhaps the biggest argument for followership studies is the increasing complexity of organizational life. It is becoming increasingly impossible for one leader to manage.

4. Self-Employed - They take responsibility for their own careers, their own actions, and their development.

Lancaster and Lundin also make some suggestions for nurturing followership:

1. Reconceptualize the workplace - Recognize self-management always outperforms coercion. Explore ways to enhance self-management.

2. Instituationalize followership - Empowered followers must be a part of business as usual. Build a valuation of followers into the structure of the organization.

3. Hire and train for followership - We are not simply looking for compliant people able to perform tasks. We are looking for motivated people desiring to own tasks.

Another excellent followership argument...