Followership
Followership is primarily the ability to follow instructions and take instructions appropriately, to be an integral part of the team, to get in line with a given program, and to be delivering on the team expectations. Mostly, how accurate and well the follower follows and the leader leads is critical for the success of an organization (Day, Lord, Murphy, Steffens, 2016). Therefore, being an excellent follower is a reputation that one should seek since it helps when you will be seeking higher the office.
Followership usually takes the backseat to leadership, and this is very important. This is because whenever followership fails, limited success is witnessed since what is done will be not what was expected. Moreover, followership challenges usually manifest themselves in bad morale, poor ethics in the workplace, unsatisfied customers, a distraction for the company’s goals, issues on product quality, high cost, and weak competitiveness. In extreme cases, weak followership and leadership may result in poor performance and organizations confusion (Day et al., 2016).
Qualities of an excellent follower include judgment, ethics, competence, honesty courage, discretion, loyalty and ego management (Epitropaki, Kark, Mainemelis, Lord, 2017). For instance, the follower must have the judgment of knowing the difference between a wrong directive from the leader and a positive directive that they do not agree with. They have the responsibility of being good employees in the company. Primarily, the follower can only follow appropriately if they are diligent. Followers must be honest to their leader. However, they should not allow the leader to drive them to failure. Therefore, they should have considerations on circumstances when they can go above the leader to questions their leadership. More so, courageous is crucial since it gives the follower the confidence of confronting a weak leader (Epitropaki et al., 2017). Most importantly, good followers must respect their obligation of being loyal to the company, and they should always have their ego under control.
Reference
Day, D. V., Lord, R. G., Murphy, S. E., & Steffens, N. (2016). Leadership, Followership, and Identity: New Insights on a Complex Relationship. In Academy of Management Proceedings (Vol. 2016, No. 1, p. 12186). Briarcliff Manor, NY 10510: Academy of Management.
Epitropaki, O., Kark, R., Mainemelis, C., & Lord, R. G. (2017). Leadership and followership identity processes: A multilevel review. The Leadership Quarterly, 28(1), 104-129.