Role of Followers in Nation Building - Research Paper Example

Followership of the Table of Contents Role of a Follower 3 Essential Qualities of a Follower 3 Role of Followers in an Organization 3 Role of Followers in Leadership Development 4 Role of Followers in Supply Chains 5 Role of Followers in Nation Building 5 References 7 Role of a Follower Whether a corporation will triumph or fail depends on how skillfully they are led. Hence, we idolize great leaders and spend gigantic amount of money and time in search of efficient leaders and plough leadership among the existing employees. Firms prosper or decline partly based on how it is led by leaders and partly on how expertly their followers follow them (Cooperative Extension Services, 2011). Some efficient followers probably feel that their motivation derives from ambition. The role of effective followers is to mould their loyalties to satisfy the needs of an organization. They eagerly take up extra work but at first they perform an extraordinary work in their core responsibilities. They prove themselves to be good judges of their own powers and flaws and are able to contribute well to the team (Johnson, 2009). If they know that they can succeed well they don’t mind coming across failures. They keep on searching for problems that remained unnoticed. They tend to see their coworkers as colleagues instead of thinking them to be entrants. Essential Qualities of a Follower An effective follower must possess certain qualities such as; they are capable of managing themselves well, they tend to be courageous, innovative and honest and dedicated towards organization (Kupers, 2007). Self management is another ability of an effective follower – the ability to work efficiently without being under any supervision. Good followers are those people to whom the leaders can entrust responsibilities. Good followers possess quality to see themselves as equals of the leaders they follow. They are liable to disagree unapologetically with leadership and are not likely to be overawed by the organizational structure. Ineffective followers on the other hand are prepared to obey others unquestioningly, dither between distresses over their powerlessness and make an attempt to juggle leaders to fulfill their own purposes (Yung, 2013). Their fear of powerlessness becomes a self fulfilling prognosis for the individual as well as the work group. Or their hostility drags them to undermine the goals of an organization. A significant cost advantage is received by an organization where there exists a self managed manager. Role of Followers in an Organization There is a major role of followers towards organizational prosperity. Followers are believed to be furnished with complex thinking and innovative skills which if contributed to an organization can drive it towards success. People initiate in an organization as a follower. Followers tend to process good ideas and vision which they need to sell to their leaders. In order to reach the desired shared goal, there should be a proper communication network between the leaders and the followers. Being straightforward and keeping a positive attitude are the keys to possess good communication skills. Motivation is another factor required to drive followers towards achieving organizational tasks (Wiley & Riggio, 2008). Followers need to evaluate them on a regular basis and possess critical thinking in order to make judgmental decisions in an organization. They are able to manage themselves well and tend to facilitate a cordial relationship among fellow co workers which automatically leads an organization to have a fruitful working environment. An important characteristic of an effective follower is the willingness to be honest and enthusiastic with which they can steer the organization towards success and maintain an ethical environment in the workplace. They encourage their fellow co workers to accomplish task effectively and support team work. Followership may seem quite similar to leadership and the followers have a belief that they propound much merit to an organization as a follower do. Role of Followers in Leadership Development There involves a great deal of incitement that everyone should head towards being a leader and can be a leader as well. While it might not seem suitable for everyone to be in a role of leadership, and being in a role of follower is often considered to be asinine. Followers are a great support to leaders (Holden Leadership Center, 2009). They listen, cast back, question, observe, and vindicate the leader. The followers tend to understand the way of interacting with their leaders. Followers tend to act in a similar manner as leaders. Followership is seen as a facsimile of leadership. Thus there is a minor difference between the followers and leaders. To achieve optimal effectiveness, leaders would profit from “stepping down” and in other hand the followers would gravitate to “step up” and contend greater leadership. At the initial stage of a project, there lies a vast difference between the roles of a follower and a leader (M. Hurwitz & S. Hurwitz, 2015). The leader should furnish a direction contour of scope, objectives and recommendations; on the other hand followers should ask questions to ensure that they understand and should dedicate themselves to the completion of the assignment effectively. At the middle of the assignment, the leaders and the followers merge to possess greater similarities in their roles. The role of leadership needs to transpose based on needs to transpose. The differentiation of roles again comes into existence at the end of the project. The decision is licensed by a leader to end a project and move on to the next. For gathering knowledge to be efficient, the leader and the follower should synergistically involve in a “lessons learned” dialogue (Brewer, 2013). Role of Followers in Supply Chains There exists a discrepancy relating to discipline in the supply chain management. Followership is important in the success of supply chain. According to a recent analysis, the followers of the supply chain are noticed to experience much growth in market capitalization as compared to non followers, which assures that followership, has a beneficial effect. The behavior unveiled by the followers helps in identifying the supply chain followers. The efforts of the followers contribute to the success in supply chain management. Majority of the supply chain member firms are found to be followers than leaders. Due to the presence of a greater number of follower, the supply chain firms contribution are found to be much larger than the supply chain leads (Smelser, 2001).Transformational supply chain followers are anticipated to showcase some elucidating followership behaviors such as; adapting to the changes and projecting creative behaviors, eliminating any extra task that could go afar the scope of legitimacy. Transactional followers tend to defy change and unveil behaviors that will boost the profits of their firm due to sovereignty of goals specific to an organization. Role of Followers in Nation Building As mentioned in a case study, there is a significant role of followers in nation building process in Nigeria. The building of a nation entirely depends upon the skills of the followers (Johnson, 2009). The followers possess the abilities to fight against the probability that are leading a society to degrade. Efficient nation building does not require regular symposium of national conferences. Despite that, strictly adhering to honesty, impartiality and funding if done by followers can contribute to the development of a nation. A good follower is known to be one who understands his business and privilege their commitment to serve in nation building. They have an urge to take courageous steps in removing hurdles in the path of nation building. Tremendous development of Nigeria has become possible with the help of followers is one such example of nation building through effective followership (The Conference Board, 2014). Since structuring a nation is considered as a grave business, the qualities of good followers should be verified before appointing them in such a serious task. . Followers set a goal, come across innovative ideas and then take an initiative to execute them to achieve the targeted results. The followers together with the leaders should be endowed with political will and should be sincerely committed towards nation building process. References Brewer, A.M. (2013). Leadership, Coaching and Followership. New York: Springer Shine and Business Media. Cooperative Extension Services. (2011). Followership: Understanding the Basics of Teamwork. Retrieved from http://www2.ca.uky.edu/agc/pubs/cld1/cld15-fcs/cld15-fcs.pdf. Holden Leadership Center. (2009). Followership. Retrieved from http://leadership.uoregon.edu/resources/exercises_tips/skills/followership. Hurwitz, M. & Hurwitz, S. (2015). Leadership Is Half The Story. Toronto: University of Toronto Press. Johnson, C.E. (2009). Introducing Followership into the Leadership Classroom. Journal of Leadership Education, 2(8), 23-45. Kupers, W. (2007). Perspectives on Integrating Leadership and Followership. International Journal of Leadership Studies, 3(2), 993-985. Smelser, N.J. (2001). Social Paralysis and Social Change. California: University of California Place. The Conference Board. (2014). Followership in Nation Building. Retrieved from https://www.conference-board.org/publications/publicationlistall.cfm. Wiley, J. & Riggio, R.E. (2008). The Art of Followership. Philippines: Business and economics publishers. Yung, C.T. (2013). Followership: An Important Partner of Leadership. Macrothink Institute, 2(1), 239-365. Read More