The Art of Followership

The Art of Followership

A WARREN BENNIS BOOK This collection of books is devoted exclusively to new and exemplary contributions to management thought and practice. The books in this series are addressed to thoughtful leaders, executives, and managers of all organizations who are struggling with and committed to responsible change. My hope and goal is to spark new intellectual capital by sharing ideas positioned at an angle to conventional thought in short, to publish books that disturb the present in the service of a better future.

Books in the Warren Bennis Signature Series Branden Mitroff, Denton Schein Sample Lawrence, Nohria Cloke, Goldsmith Glen Cloke, Goldsmith George Kohlrieser Rhode George Townsend Kellerman/Rhode Self-Esteem at Work A Spiritual Audit of Corporate America The Corporate Culture Survival Guide The Contrarian s Guide to Leadership Driven The End of Management and the Rise of Organizational Democracy Leading Geeks The Art of Waking People Up Authentic Leadership Hostage at the Table Moral Leadership True North Up the Organization Women and Leadership

The Art of Followership HOW GREAT FOLLOWERS CREATE GREAT LEADERS AND ORGANIZATIONS Editors Ronald E. Riggio Ira Chaleff Jean Lipman- Blumen Foreword by James MacGregor Burns

Copyright 2008 by Ronald E. Riggio, Ira Chaleff, and Jean Lipman-Blumen Published by Jossey-Bass A Wiley Imprint 989 Market Street, San Francisco, CA 94103-1741 www.josseybass.com No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, scanning, or otherwise, except as permitted under Section 107 or 108 of the 1976 United States Copyright Act, without either the prior written permission of the publisher, or authorization through payment of the appropriate per-copy fee to the Copyright Clearance Center, Inc., 222 Rosewood Drive, Danvers, MA 01923, 978-750-8400, fax 978-646- 8600, or on the Web at www.copyright.com. Requests to the publisher for permission should be addressed to the Permissions Department, John Wiley & Sons, Inc., 111 River Street, Hoboken, NJ 07030, 201-748- 6011, fax 201-748-6008, or online at www.wiley.com/go/permissions. Readers should be aware that Internet Web sites offered as citations and/or sources for further information may have changed or disappeared between the time this was written and when it is read. Limit of Liability/Disclaimer of Warranty: While the publisher and author have used their best efforts in preparing this book, they make no representations or warranties with respect to the accuracy or completeness of the contents of this book and specifically disclaim any implied warranties of merchantability or fitness for a particular purpose. No warranty may be created or extended by sales representatives or written sales materials. The advice and strategies contained herein may not be suitable for your situation. You should consult with a professional where appropriate. Neither the publisher nor author shall be liable for any loss of profit or any other commercial damages, including but not limited to special, incidental, consequential, or other damages. Jossey-Bass books and products are available through most bookstores. To contact Jossey-Bass directly call our Customer Care Department within the U.S. at 800-956-7739, outside the U.S. at 317-572-3986, or fax 317-572-4002. Jossey-Bass also publishes its books in a variety of electronic formats. Some content that appears in print may not be available in electronic books. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data The art of followership : how great followers create great leaders and organizations / Ronald E. Riggio, Ira Chaleff, Jean Lipman-Blumen, editors; foreword by James MacGregor Burns. p. cm. (The Warren Bennis signature series) Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 978-0-7879-9665-9 (cloth) 1. Leadership. 2. Organizational behavior. I. Riggio, Ronald E. II. Chaleff, Ira. III. Lipman-Blumen, Jean. HD57.7.A78 2008 658.4 092 dc22 2007035505 Printed in the United States of America first edition HB Printing 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 0

CONTENTS Foreword JAMES MACGREGOR BURNS Acknowledgments About the Contributors Introduction WARREN BENNIS xi xiii xv xxiii PART ONE Defining and Redefining Followership ONE Rethinking Followership 5 ROBERT E. KELLEY TWO Leadership: A Partnership in Reciprocal Following 17 JAMES MAROOSIS THREE Three Perspectives on Followership 25 JON P. HOWELL AND MARÍA J. MÉNDEZ FOUR A New Leadership-Followership Paradigm 41 ERNEST L. STECH FIVE Followership: An Outmoded Concept 53 JOSEPH ROST vii

PART TWO Effective Followership SIX Creating New Ways of Following 67 IRA CHALEFF SEVEN Rethinking Leadership and Followership: A Student's Perspective 89 KRISTA KLEINER EIGHT The Hero s Journey to Effective Followership and Leadership: A Practitioner s Focus 95 GAIL S. WILLIAMS NINE Courageous Followers, Servant-Leaders, and Organizational Transformations 109 LINDA HOPPER TEN Followership in a Professional Services Firm 127 BRENT UKEN ELEVEN Developing Great Leaders, One Follower at a Time 137 RODGER ADAIR TWELVE Getting Together 155 GENE DIXON PART THREE The Pitfalls and Challenges of Followership THIRTEEN Following Toxic Leaders: In Search of Posthumous Praise 181 JEAN LIPMAN-BLUMEN FOURTEEN What Can Milgram s Obedience Experiments Contribute to Our Understanding of Followership? 195 THOMAS BLASS FIFTEEN What Kind of Leader Do People Want to Follow? 209 MICHAEL MACCOBY viii Contents

SIXTEEN Bystanders to Children s Bullying: The Importance of Leadership by Innocent Bystanders 219 LORNA S. BLUMEN SEVENTEEN Whistleblowing as Responsible Followership 237 C. FRED ALFORD PART FOUR Followers and Leaders: Research, Practice, and the Future EIGHTEEN Followers Cognitive and Affective Structures and Leadership Processes 255 ROBERT G. LORD NINETEEN Social Identity Processes and the Empowerment of Followers 267 MICHAEL A. HOGG TWENTY Lead, Follow, and Get out of the Way: Involving Employees in the Visioning Process 277 MELISSA K. CARSTEN AND MICHELLE C. BLIGH TWENTY-ONE Effective Followership for Creativity and Innovation: A Range of Colors and Dimensions 291 KIMBERLY S. JAUSSI, ANDY STEFANOVICH, AND PATRICIA G. DEVLIN TWENTY-TWO Conformist, Resistant, and Disguised Selves: A Post-Structuralist Approach to Identity and Workplace Followership 309 DAVID COLLINSON TWENTY-THREE The Rise of Authentic Followership 325 BRUCE J. AVOLIO AND REBECCA J. REICHARD Notes 338 Index 377 Contents ix

FOREWORD James MacGregor Burns We have been brought up as schoolchildren to think of leadership as only the realm of heroes and devils as in the lives of Caesar, Napoleon, Churchill, the three Roosevelts, Hitler, Stalin, Mao, and the like. The people the voters, the masses provided only a vague background. But if you define leadership as the mobilization of followers who then become leaders of the original leaders, and if you measure these mobilizations by the harsh tests of moral and ethical values, you begin to understand the complex processes of leadership. You can see Franklin Roosevelt, for example, as a president who entered office without a comprehensive program, then mobilized a desperate people who demanded action, people who in turn forced the administration to fashion the Second New Deal of 1935, which embodied FDR's lasting leadership. Sometimes, when I contemplate the endless complexities and mysteries of leadership, I try to simplify its essence by imagining the following: a candidate for local office spots a possible supporter across the street. She crosses over to ask for his vote. He asks her about an environmental issue, she responds, and he promises his support. A reporter happening on the scene might dismiss this as a quick-fix deal. But a student of leadership should see this episode as reflecting a far more xi

complex set of phenomena: their backgrounds and attitudes, the social and political context, and the other factors ranging from the immediate and practical to the psychological and ideological. But the student should note too that the candidate crossed the street, initiating the engagement. Thirty years ago, I wrote that one of the most serious failures in the study of leadership has been the bifurcation between the literature on leadership and the literature on followership. Surely, I added, it was time that the two literatures be brought together, that the study of leadership be lifted out of the anecdotal and eulogistic and placed squarely in the structure and processes of human development and political action. Making this linkage has proved exceptionally difficult. Dealing with the complexities the multiple roles of leaders and followers in diverse polities, the intersecting as well as the clashing of leadership cultures, the traps inevitable in toxic or bad leadership, the potential of leadership created or undermined by benign or hostile forces, and above all the moral and ethical values that penetrate (or should penetrate) leaders decision making this type of challenging question faces students and practitioners of leadership. I know of no work that faces this challenge so well as The Art of Followership. I expect it to be a landmark work in the complexities of the leader-follower dynamic. xii Foreword

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS First and foremost, we want to thank our chapter authors for their excellent contributions to the book and to the Kravis de Roulet Leadership Conference. We thank Adrienne Boardman and Ross Boomer for their roles at both the conference and in book development, as well as Sandy Counts, who helped produce the final manuscript. Thank you also to the terrific KLI professional staff and faculty, Kevin Arnold, Barbara Ascher, Rebecca Reichard, Susan Murphy, and Jay Conger, who helped make the conference a success. THE KRAVIS DE ROULET LEADERSHIP CONFERENCE The Kravis de Roulet Leadership Conference, which began in 1990, is an annual leadership conference funded jointly by an endowment from Henry R. Kravis and the de Roulet family. This perpetual funding, along with additional support from the Kravis Leadership Institute, the Institute for Advanced Studies in Leadership at Claremont Graduate University, the Peter F. Drucker and Masatoshi Ito Graduate School of Management, and Claremont McKenna College, enables us to attract the finest leadership scholars and practitioners as conference presenters and participants. The sixteenth annual Kravis de Roulet conference, Rethinking Followership, was held in Claremont February 24 25, 2006. xiii