Robert Kelley (1992), author of The Power of Followership, suggested that effective followers possess four common qualities: They are self-managing and able to wo

In Praise of Followers

by Robert E. Kelley

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We are convinced that corporations succeed or fail, compete or crumble, on the basis of how well they are led. So we study great leaders of the past and present and spend vast quantities of time and money looking for leaders to hire and trying to cul- tivate leadership in the employees we already have.

I have no argument with this enthusiasm. Lead- ers matter greatly. But in searching so zealously for better leaders we tend to lose sight of the people these leaders will lead. Without his armies, after all, Napoleon was just a man with grandiose ambi- tions. Organizations stand or fall partly on the basis of how well their leaders lead, but partly also on the basis of how well their followers follow.

In 1987, declining profitability and intensified competition for corporate clients forced a large commercial bank on the east coast to reorganize its operations and cut its work force. Its most sea- soned managers had to spend most of their time in the field working with corporate customers. Time and energies were stretched so thin that one de- partment head decided he had no choice but to del- egate the responsibility for reorganization to his

staff people, who had recently had training in self- management.

Despite grave doubts, the department head set them up as a unit without a leader, responsible to one another and to the bank as a whole for writing their own job descriptions, designing a training pro- gram, determining criteria for performance evalua- tions, planning for operational needs, and helping to achieve overall organizational objectives.

They pulled it off. The bank’s officers were de- lighted and frankly amazed that rank-and-file em- ployees could assume so much responsibility so successfully. In fact, the department’s capacity to control and direct itself virtually without leader- ship saved the organization months of turmoil, and

Copyright © 1988 by the President and Fellows of Harvard College. All rights reserved. HARVARD BUSINESS REVIEW November-December 1988

Robert E. Kelley teaches at the Graduate School of In- dustrial Administration, Carnegie Mellon University. He is the author of Gold-Collar Worker: Harnessing the Brainpower of the New Work Force (Addison-Wesley, 1985) and Consulting: The Complete Guide to a Prof- itable Career (Scribner, rev. ed., 1986). The material in this article is drawn from a book in progress, Follower- ship–Leadership–Partnership. This is his second article for HBR.

Not all corporate success is due to leadership…

In Praise of Followers by Robert E. Kelley

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as the bank struggled to remain a major player in its region, valuable management time was freed up to put out other fires.

What was it these singular employees did? Given a goal and parameters, they went where most de- partments could only have gone under the hands- on guidance of an effective leader. But these em- ployees accepted the delegation of authority and went there alone. They thought for themselves, sharpened their skills, focused their efforts, put on a fine display of grit and spunk and self-control. They followed effectively.

To encourage this kind of effective following in other organizations, we need to understand the na- ture of the follower’s role. To cultivate good follow- ers, we need to understand the human qualities that allow effective followership to occur.

The Role of Follower Bosses are not necessarily good leaders; subordi-

nates are not necessarily effective followers. Many bosses couldn’t lead a horse to water. Many subor- dinates couldn’t follow a parade. Some people avoid either role. Others accept the role thrust upon them and perform it badly.

At different points in their careers, even at differ- ent times of the working day, most managers play both roles, though seldom equally well. After all, the leadership role has the glamour and attention. We take courses to learn it, and when we play it well we get applause and recognition. But the reali- ty is that most of us are more often followers than leaders. Even when we have subordinates, we still have bosses. For every committee we chair, we sit as a member on several others.

So followership dominates our lives and organi- zations, but not our thinking, because our preoc-

cupation with leadership keeps us from consider- ing the nature and the importance of the follower.

What distinguishes an effective from an ineffec- tive follower is enthusiastic, intelligent, and self- reliant participation – without star billing – in the pursuit of an organizational goal. Effective follow- ers differ in their motivations for following and in their perceptions of the role. Some choose follower- ship as their primary role at work and serve as team players who take satisfaction in helping to further a cause, an idea, a product, a service, or, more rarely, a person. Others are leaders in some situations but choose the follower role in a particular context. Both these groups view the role of follower as legiti- mate, inherently valuable, even virtuous.

Some potentially effective followers derive moti- vation from ambition. By proving themselves in the follower’s role, they hope to win the confidence of peers and superiors and move up the corporate lad- der. These people do not see followership as attrac- tive in itself. All the same, they can become good followers if they accept the value of learning the role, studying leaders from a subordinate’s perspec- tive, and polishing the followership skills that will always stand them in good stead.

Understanding motivations and perceptions is not enough, however. Since followers with different motivations can perform equally well, I examined the behavior that leads to effective and less effective following among people committed to the organiza- tion and came up with two underlying behavioral dimensions that help to explain the difference.

One dimension measures to what degree follow- ers exercise independent, critical thinking. The oth- er ranks them on a passive/active scale. The result- ing diagram identifies five followership patterns.

Sheep are passive and uncritical, lacking in initia- tive and sense of responsibility. They perform the tasks given them and stop. Yes People are a livelier but equally unenterprising group. Dependent on a leader for inspiration, they can be aggressively defer- ential, even servile. Bosses weak in judgment and self-confidence tend to like them and to form al- liances with them that can stultify the organization.

Alienated Followers are critical and independent in their thinking but passive in carrying out their role. Somehow, sometime, something turned them off. Often cynical, they tend to sink gradually into disgruntled acquiescence, seldom openly opposing a leader’s efforts. In the very center of the diagram we have Survivors, who perpetually sample the wind and live by the slogan “better safe than sorry.” They are adept at surviving change.

In the upper right-hand corner, finally, we have Effective Followers, who think for themselves and

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carry out their duties and assignments with energy and assertiveness. Because they are risk takers, self- starters, and independent problem solvers, they get consistently high ratings from peers and many su- periors. Followership of this kind can be a positive and acceptable choice for parts or all of our lives – a source of pride and fulfillment.

Effective followers are well-balanced and respon- sible adults who can succeed without strong leader- ship. Many followers believe they offer as much value to the organization as leaders do, especially in project or task-force situations. In an organization of effective followers, a leader tends to be more an overseer of change and progress than a hero. As or- ganizational structures flatten, the quality of those who follow will become more and more important. As Chester I. Barnard wrote 50 years ago in The Functions of the Executive, “The decision as to whether an order has authority or not lies with the person to whom it is addressed, and does not reside in ‘persons of authority’ or those who issue orders.”

The Qualities of Followers Effective followers share a number of essential

qualities: 1. They manage themselves well. 2. They are committed to the organization and to

a purpose, principle, or person outside themselves. 3. They build their competence and focus their

efforts for maximum impact. 4. They are courageous, honest, and credible.

Self-Management. Paradoxically, the key to being an effective follower is the ability to think for one- self – to exercise control and independence and to work without close supervision. Good followers are people to whom a leader can safely delegate respon- sibility, people who anticipate needs at their own level of competence and authority.

Another aspect of this paradox is that effective followers see them- selves – except in terms of line re- sponsibility – as the equals of the leaders they follow. They are more apt to openly and unapologetically disagree with leadership and less likely to be intimidated by hierarchy and organizational structure. At the same time, they can see that the people they follow are, in turn, following the lead of others, and they try to appreci- ate the goals and needs of the team and the organi- zation. Ineffective followers, on the other hand, buy into the hierarchy and, seeing themselves as sub- servient, vacillate between despair over their seem-

ing powerlessness and attempts to manipulate lead- ers for their own purposes. Either their fear of pow- erlessness becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy – for themselves and often for their work units as well – or their resentment leads them to undermine the team’s goals.

Self-managed followers give their organizations a significant cost advantage because they eliminate much of the need for elaborate supervisory control systems that, in any case, often lower morale. In 1985, a large midwestern bank redesigned its person- nel selection system to attract self-managed work- ers. Those conducting interviews began to look for particular types of experience and capacities – initia- tive, teamwork, independent thinking of all kinds – and the bank revamped its orientation program to emphasize self-management. At the executive level, role playing was introduced into the interview pro- cess: how you disagree with your boss, how you pri- oritize your in-basket after a vacation. In the three years since, employee turnover has dropped dramati- cally, the need for supervisors has decreased, and administrative costs have gone down.

Of course not all leaders and managers like hav- ing self-managing subordinates. Some would rather have sheep or yes people. The best that good follow- ers can do in this situation is to protect themselves with a little career self-management – that is, to stay attractive in the marketplace. The qualities that make a good follower are too much in demand to go begging for long.

Commitment. Effective followers are committed to something – a cause, a product, an organization, an idea – in addition to the care of their own lives and careers. Some leaders misinterpret this com- mitment. Seeing their authority acknowledged, they mistake loyalty to a goal for loyalty to them- selves. But the fact is that many effective followers

see leaders merely as coadventurers on a worthy crusade, and if they suspect their leader of flagging commitment or conflicting motives they may just withdraw their support, either by changing jobs or by contriving to change leaders.

The opportunities and the dangers posed by this kind of commitment are not hard to see. On the one

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4 HARVARD BUSINESS REVIEW November-December 1988

Self-confident followers see colleagues as allies and

leaders as equals.

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hand, commitment is contagious. Most people like working with colleagues whose hearts are in their work. Morale stays high. Workers who begin to wander from their purpose are jostled back into line. Projects stay on track and on time. In addition, an appreciation of commitment and the way it works can give managers an extra tool with which to understand and channel the energies and loyal- ties of their subordinates.

On the other hand, followers who are strongly committed to goals not consistent with the goals of their companies can produce destructive results. Leaders having such followers can even lose control of their organizations.

A scientist at a computer company cared deeply about making computer technology available to the masses, and her work was outstanding. Since her goal was in line with the company’s goals, she had few problems with top management. Yet she saw her department leaders essentially as facilitators of her dream, and when managers worked at cross- purposes to that vision, she exercised all of her con- siderable political skills to their detriment. Her im- mediate supervisors saw her as a thorn in the side, but she was quite effective in furthering her cause

because she saw eye to eye with company leaders. But what if her vision and the company’s vision had differed?

Effective followers temper their loyalties to satisfy organizational needs – or they find new organiza- tions. Effective leaders know how to channel the energies of strong commitment in ways that will satisfy corporate goals as well as a follower’s personal needs.

Competence and Focus. On the grounds that committed incompe- tence is still incompetence, effec- tive followers master skills that will be useful to their organiza- tions. They generally hold higher performance standards than the work environment requires, and continuing education is second nature to them, a staple in their professional development.

Less effective followers expect training and development to come to them. The only education they acquire is force-fed. If not sent to a seminar, they don’t go. Their com- petence deteriorates unless some

leader gives them parental care and attention. Good followers take on extra work gladly, but

first they do a superb job on their core responsibili- ties. They are good judges of their own strengths and weaknesses, and they contribute well to teams. Asked to perform in areas where they are poorly qualified, they speak up. Like athletes stretching their capacities, they don’t mind chancing failure if they know they can succeed, but they are careful to spare the company wasted energy, lost time, and poor performance by accepting challenges that coworkers are better prepared to meet. Good fol- lowers see coworkers as colleagues rather than competitors.

At the same time, effective followers often search for overlooked problems. A woman on a new product development team discovered that no one was responsible for coordinating engineer- ing, marketing, and manufacturing. She worked out an interdepartmental review schedule that identified the people who should be involved at each stage of development. Instead of burdening her boss with yet another problem, this woman took the initiative to present the issue along with a solution.

HARVARD BUSINESS REVIEW November-December 1988 5

Some Followers Are More Effective

Independent, Critical Thinking

Dependent, Uncritical Thinking

ActivePa ss

ive

Effective Followers

Survivors

Yes PeopleSheep

Alienated Followers

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Another woman I interviewed described her ef- forts to fill a dangerous void in the company she cared about. Young managerial talent in this manu- facturing corporation had traditionally made ca- reers in production. Convinced that foreign compe- tition would alter the shape of the industry, she realized that marketing was a neglected area. She took classes, attended seminars, and read widely. More important, she visited customers to get feed- back about her company’s and competitors’ prod- ucts, and she soon knew more about the product’s customer appeal and market position than any of her peers. The extra competence did wonders for her own career, but it also helped her company weather a storm it had not seen coming.

Courage. Effective followers are credible, honest, and courageous. They establish themselves as inde- pendent, critical thinkers whose knowledge and judgment can be trusted. They give credit where credit is due, admitting mistakes and sharing suc- cesses. They form their own views and ethical stan- dards and stand up for what they believe in.

Insightful, candid, and fearless, they can keep lead- ers and colleagues honest and informed. The other side of the coin of course is that they can also cause great trouble for a leader with questionable ethics.

Jerome LiCari, the former R&D director at Beech- Nut, suspected for several years that the apple con- centrate Beech-Nut was buying from a new supplier at 20% below market price was adulterated. His department suggested switching suppliers, but top management at the financially strapped company put the burden of proof on R&D.

By 1981, LiCari had accumulated strong evidence of adulteration and issued a memo recommending

a change of supplier. When he got no response, he went to see his boss, the head of operations. Ac- cording to LiCari, he was threatened with dismissal for lack of team spirit. LiCari then went to the pres- ident of Beech-Nut, and when that, too, produced no results, he gave up his three-year good-soldier effort, followed his conscience, and resigned. His last performance evaluation praised his expertise and loyalty, but said his judgment was “colored by naiveté and impractical ideals.”

In 1986, Beech-Nut and LiCari’s two bosses were indicted on several hundred counts of conspiracy to commit fraud by distributing adulterated apple juice. In November 1987, the company pleaded guilty and agreed to a fine of $2 million. In February of this year, the two executives were found guilty on a majority of the charges. The episode cost Beech-Nut an estimated $25 million and a 20% loss of market share. Asked during the trial if he had been naive, LiCari said, “I guess I was. I thought apple juice should be made from apples.”

Is LiCari a good follower? Well, no, not to his dis- honest bosses. But yes, he is almost certainly the kind of employee most companies want to have: loyal, honest, candid with his superiors, and thor- oughly credible. In an ethical company involved unintentionally in questionable practices, this kind of follower can head off embarrassment, expense, and litigation.

Cultivating Effective Followers You may have noticed by now that the qualities

that make effective followers are, confusingly enough, pretty much the same qualities found in some effective leaders. This is no mere coinci- dence, of course. But the confusion underscores an important point. If a person has initiative, self-con- trol, commitment, talent, honesty, credibility, and courage, we say, “Here is a leader!” By definition, a follower cannot exhibit the qualities of leadership. It violates our stereotype.

But our stereotype is ungenerous and wrong. Fol- lowership is not a person but a role, and what dis- tinguishes followers from leaders is not intelli- gence or character but the role they play. As I

pointed out at the beginning of this article, effective followers and effec- tive leaders are often the same peo- ple playing different parts at differ- ent hours of the day.

In many companies, the leadership track is the only road to career suc- cess. In almost all companies, leader- ship is taught and encouraged while

followership is not. Yet effective followership is a prerequisite for organizational success. Your orga- nization can take four steps to cultivate effective followers in your work force.

1. Redefining Followership and Leadership. Our stereotyped but unarticulated definitions of leader- ship and followership shape our expectations when we occupy either position. If a leader is defined as re- sponsible for motivating followers, he or she will

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Courageous followers can keep a leader honest – and out of trouble.

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likely act toward followers as if they needed motiva- tion. If we agree that a leader’s job is to transform followers, then it must be a follower’s job to provide the clay. If followers fail to need transformation, the leader looks ineffective. The way we define the roles clearly influences the outcome of the interaction.

Instead of seeing the leadership role as superior to and more active than the role of the follower, we can think of them as equal but different activities. The operative definitions are roughly these: people who are effective in the leader role have the vision to set corporate goals and strategies, the interper- sonal skills to achieve consensus, the verbal capaci- ty to communicate enthusiasm to large and diverse groups of individuals, the organizational talent to coordinate disparate efforts, and, above all, the de- sire to lead.

People who are effective in the follower role have the vision to see both the forest and the trees, the social capacity to work well with others, the strength of character to flourish without heroic sta- tus, the moral and psychological balance to pursue personal and corporate goals at no cost to either,

and, above all, the desire to participate in a team ef- fort for the accomplishment of some greater com- mon purpose.

This view of leadership and followership can be conveyed to employees directly and indirectly – in training and by example. The qualities that make good followers and the value the company places on effective followership can be articulated in explicit follower training. Perhaps the best way to convey this message, however, is by example. Since each of us plays a follower’s part at least from time to time, it is essential that we play it well, that we con- tribute our competence to the achievement of team goals, that we support the team leader with candor and self-control, that we do our best to appreciate and enjoy the role of quiet contribution to a larger, common cause.

2. Honing Followership Skills. Most organiza- tions assume that leadership has to be taught but that everyone knows how to follow. This assump- tion is based on three faulty premises: (1) that lead- ers are more important than followers, (2) that fol-

lowing is simply doing what you are told to do, and (3) that followers inevitably draw their energy and aims, even their talent, from the leader. A program of follower training can correct this misapprehension by focusing on topics like:

Improving independent, critical thinking. Self-management. Disagreeing agreeably. Building credibility. Aligning personal and organizational

goals and commitments. Acting responsibly toward the organiza-

tion, the leader, coworkers, and oneself. Similarities and differences between

leadership and followership roles. Moving between the two roles with ease.

3. Performance Evaluation and Feed- back. Most performance evaluations in- clude a section on leadership skills. Fol- lowership evaluation would include items like the ones I have discussed. Instead of rating employees on leadership qualities such as self-management, independent thinking, originality, courage, compe- tence, and credibility, we can rate them on these same qualities in both the leadership and followership roles and then evaluate each individual’s ability to shift easily from the one role to the other. A variety of performance perspectives will help most

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people understand better how well they play their various organizational roles.

Moreover, evaluations can come from peers, sub- ordinates, and self as well as from supervisors. The process is simple enough: peers and subordinates who come into regular or significant contact with another employee fill in brief, periodic question- naires where they rate the individual on follower- ship qualities. Findings are then summarized and given to the employee being rated.

4. Organizational Structures That Encourage Followership. Unless the value of good following is somehow built into the fabric of the organization, it is likely to remain a pleasant conceit to which

everyone pays occasional lip service but no dues. Here are four good ways to incorporate the concept into your corporate culture: � In leaderless groups, all members assume equal responsibility for achieving goals. These are usually small task forces of people who can work together under their own supervision. However hard it is to imagine a group with more than one leader, groups with none at all can be highly productive if their members have the qualities of effective followers. � Groups with temporary and rotating leadership are another possibility. Again, such groups are prob- ably best kept small and the rotation fairly fre- quent, although the notion might certainly be ex- tended to include the administration of a small department for, say, six-month terms. Some of these temporary leaders will be less effective than others, of course, and some may be weak indeed, which is why critics maintain that this structure is inefficient. Why not let the best leader lead? Why suffer through the tenure of less effective leaders? There are two reasons. First, experience of the lead- ership role is essential to the education of effective followers. Second, followers learn that they must

compensate for ineffective leadership by exercising their skill as good followers. Rotating leader or not, they are bound to be faced with ineffective leader- ship more than once in their careers. � Delegation to the lowest level is a third tech- nique for cultivating good followers. Nordstrom’s, the Seattle-based department store chain, gives each sales clerk responsibility for servicing and sat- isfying the customer, including the authority to make refunds without supervisory approval. This kind of delegation makes even people at the lowest levels responsible for their own decisions and for thinking independently about their work. � Finally, companies can use rewards to underline the importance of good followership. This is not as

easy as it sounds. Managers depen- dent on yes people and sheep for ego gratification will not leap at the idea of extra rewards for the people who make them most uncomfortable. In my research, I have found that effec- tive followers get mixed treatment. About half the time, their contribu- tions lead to substantial rewards.

The other half of the time they are punished by their superiors for exercising judgment, taking risks, and failing to conform. Many managers insist that they want independent subordinates who can think for themselves. In practice, followers who challenge their bosses run the risk of getting fired.

In today’s flatter, leaner organization, companies will not succeed without the kind of people who take pride and satisfaction in the role of supporting player, doing the less glorious work without fan- fare. Organizations that want the benefits of effec- tive followers must find ways of rewarding them, ways of bringing them into full partnership in the enterprise. Think of the thousands of companies that achieve adequate performance and lackluster profits with employees they treat like second-class citizens. Then imagine for a moment the power of an organization blessed with fully engaged, fully energized, fully appreciated followers.

Author’s note: I am indebted to Pat Chew for her contributions to this article. I also want to thank Janet Nordin, Howard Seck- ler, Paul Brophy, Stuart Mechlin, Ellen Mechlin, and Syed Shariq for their critical input.

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Groups with many leaders can be chaos. Groups with none can be very productive.

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