The Role of a Leader and Follower - Assignment Example

Group leadership Project Reflection Introduction What is a leader, what is a follower and what is their relationship? Is the leader of a team more responsible for its success or is a follower responsible for it? What are the constraints a leader might face and what are the dilemmas a follower might find himself in? These are the questions that are to be answered in this reflective paper, and the basis of the topics that are to be further built upon. In the initial phase, the term terms shall be described. Then the similarities and differences between them will be illustrated, with special highlight on the importance of each towards the success of a team. The influence of a leader on a follower and what a follower expects from a leader will also be discussed. Furthermore, the factors which make a good leader will be dissected and then the problems leaders or followers might face in certain situations. What makes a leader efficient and how does he achieve these goals? What makes a follower efficient and what makes it easy for him to be so? Focus will be placed upon these questions as on how this efficiency is developed in each. Leadership and its many styles and forms will also be discussed and the effect of these varying styles upon a follower and his efficiency. This will all be done so collectively and in general but by focusing on the theme of each week, i.e. leadership in women, the power and importance of charismatic leadership, leadership challenges and failures, leadership trust and ethics, leading high technology organizations and global leadership and influence, and adapting on what has been learnt from each week. What is a leader and what is a follower? There can be a great number of definitions for both a leader and a follower. The simplest of course is that a leader is someone that instructs and follower is someone that follows these instructions. But it isn’t quite as simple as that because a soldier who follows the instructions of a general cannot strictly be considered a follower and a teacher who instructs a student on his homework cannot strictly be considered a leader. What then is the precise definition of each? According to Brosnahan (1998, stated in Lau 2000, pg 212) the definition of a leader and leadership vary from people to people but he goes on to define a leader broadly as, ‘… a somewhat paternal figure, autocratic, wise and knowing, able to make hard decisions…”. Gary Yukl (2006) defines leadership as “the course of having an influence on others to comprehend and be in agreement about what requires to be done and how it should be done, and the progression of facilitating individual and collective efforts to achieve shared objectives” (p. 8). Yet others define leadership as “a process whereby an individual influences a group of individuals to achieve a common goal.” Peter Northouse (2007). What does this actually signify? It implies that there is far more to a leader than just giving out instructions. A leader is someone who does not just give out instructions but rather someone directs and guides a specific group of people towards doing something and someone who unites the aims and intentions of that group such that they reach their own personal goals as well as the specific common goal. What then is a follower or followership? The former is a term very commonly used and given little thought. The latter is a term rarely heard and not fully understood. This is because ‘follower’ is a devalued term, where most people consider it as blindly following instructions. In truth, there can be no leader without a follower and good followership is what drives a team towards its ultimate goal. Once a far neglected area of research, research is now being conducted into the role and importance of a follower and followership skills are being developed just as leadership skill would be. Followership can be defined as ‘… the ability to effectively follow the directives and support the efforts of a leader to maximize a structured organization’, (Thach, Thompson and morris, 2002, pg 1). Followership is the art of being a follower and yet being a ‘leader’ in the sense where you have control of your personal actions and the power to silently influence the other members of the team in a positive way. As stated by Schaubroeck and Lam (2002, p 1132), “Regardless of work unit individualism/collectivism, supervisors were more likely to form trusting, high-commitment [relationships] with subordinates who were similar to them in personality”, which clearly shows how a follower in himself must also be a leader of sorts. The role of a leader and follower So what is the specific role that a leader plays in achieving a goal and what is the role that a follower plays? To put it into very simple, abstract words, if a leader is the GPRS system in a car, a follower is the fuel that will get it to its destination. In other words, neither can function without the other. For a leader, his obvious role is to direct the team. He must focus everyone on one common goal which at all times must be clearly in sight. A leader motivates his team, collectively and individually and keeps them driven and energized. Furthermore, a leader is expected to solve any problems that may arise along the way and to ensure that each member of the team is both satisfied and contributing positively. Followership on the other hand is the role the followers in a team play. It involves more than just taking order and following them. Good followership invoves voluntarily working, not just working by authority, and working on jobs that are not necessarily one solitary person’s. Good followers are loyal and although they make their voice heard when they feel the need to, they do not deviate from the pack, creating an atmosphere of democratic authority. Good followers freely offer suggestions and contribute wholeheartedly towards the ultimate goal as they are aware of how it is both a group goal and a personal goal. Effective Leadership and Followership Both a leader and his team work hand in hand to achieve a common goal. But what is the best way to achieve this goal? What are the steps that optimize this process? That was the focus of the GLPs particularly in the 4th week where the importance of trust and ethics for a follower were highlighted and the 2nd week where the importance of charisma for a leader was highlighted. So who is a good leader and what is the most effective approach? A good leader is one who has influence on his followers, in the sense where his followers do what they say because they believe it to be the best thing to do, not out of necessity or authority. To do this one needs to build trust around his followers, and in order to do that, one must always be ethical, whether on a personal small scale or a corporate large scale. The importance of trust cannot be undermined as it is the one force that binds or breaks a team. Secondly, the best leadership or followership is one where communication is given great importance and where thoughts and ideas flow freely. An unhappy follower should be able to express his thoughts and feel heard, and a good leader should listen to these thoughts and act accordingly. Each person’s input should be considered important, as it no doubt is. Similarly, a good leader should be able to express his directions with ease and clarity so that their purpose is made clear. Motivation also plays a great role in leadership. A good leader must emphasize to his team how what they are doing is unique and important so that they are driven towards achieving it. Effective leadership above all employs involvement of followers and effective followership makes use of this involvement. Of course there are many styles of leadership, each having its own good points and each its drawbacks. Which style is more effective than the other is a matter of situational dependency. Three common styles are autocratic, bureaucratic, and democratic (Miner, 2005). There are countless others but these are the most broadly used. Autocratic, considered the most classic approach, is one in which the leader makes good use of the authority in his position and simply gives out orders which are expected to be followed. This is not as dictatorial as it sounds but it is an environment of structured authority where things proceed in a certain decided order. The motivation factor for working in an environment like this is generally focused on a punishment-reward system. On the other hand, democratic leadership involves taking a lot of input from the members of a team. There is a great discussion and understanding among the leaders and followers and the degree of freedom for a follower depends upon the leader himself. Bureaucratic leadership is similar to autocratic leadership but varies in the sense that while an autocratic leader gives out ideas of his own, a bureaucratic leader will strictly give out instructions from a guideline already provided to him. Which method is most effective again depends on the nature of both the leaders and followers but the two most important factors to consider are trust and communication from either side. Communication relies on trust, and trust relies on ethics so it is a self-feeding circle which forms the basis of both good leadership and good followership. Global leadership was the focus of the sixth week and the requirements of a large-scale global leader are a bit more specific. For one thing, a global leader must be able to handle employees from various ethnical and cultural backgrounds (Goldsmith, 2003), creating a need to focus on the background of an individual rather than just the person in front of you. This leads to better understanding, better communication and happier team members, which naturally leads to better productivity. Certain factors of leadership are essential in high-technology corporations, as illustrated by the focus of the 5th week. Inefficient internal operations lead to a lack of productivity on the outside (Cohen, 1997). Many factors contribute towards this internal inefficiency, such as inefficient or outdated infrastructure and difficulty in implementing large scale transformations. Even if implemented successfully, it takes a long time to do so, but if it is unsuccessfully implemented it leads the corporation even further back. So what is the solution to all this? A good leader adapts to the differences in the business environment around him, whether it is difficult or easy. This in turn allows him to lead his followers to do the same. An effective leader in that environment would take advantage of the technological impact, rather than considering it impairment. Problems faced in leadership and followership As effective as a leader might be and as hard working as a follower might be, there are still difficulties and problems that arise. Good leadership involves counteracting these problems and finding tangible solutions to each road bump. The same goes for followers. When you work under a team you are responsible not only for yourself but also for the people working with you and this includes responding positively to the problems that arise directly or indirectly due to someone else. The focus of the third week was on the problems and challenges that are generally faced. These problems are not always due to one single person or due to a lack of planning on a leader’s part. They arise for a multitude of reasons and affect the progress of the entire team, not any one single individual. In terms of followers, these problems generally arise when a team thinks of themselves as individuals rather than a single group working towards a common goal. Due to this thinking they may refuse to do work that they consider as someone else’s, even though that is a concept against the very basis of a team, or they may be selfish by working for personal interest rather than the interest of the team or towards that one common goal. Followers may also contribute towards creating friction on the road of progress when they refuse to respect their leader or the position of authority that he holds over them. Although a leader should not consider himself superior to his team, his authority does hold a superior position, a fact that must be respected in order for operations to run smoothly. In terms of challenges that arise due to a leadership are mainly focused on when a leader considers himself superior to his team (Waneka, 2006). This creates disorder and unhappiness among the team which naturally reduces productivity. Being focused on power rather than purpose leads to friction and causes a lack of focus on the main task at hand. Women as leaders face some specific problems which male leaders might not. This was illustrated in the studies conducted in the second week where the focus was on women in leadership and the “glass ceiling” effect, i.e. the artificial barrier that prevents women, or other individuals, from progressing in a certain environment due to attitude biases. Although women are generally more confident and more stable than men, they are criticized for their emotional nature (Rosenthal, 1998). They face constraints in expressing themselves like men do and therefore have to deal with a slight lag in progress. This is now changing however as recent studies indicate the positive power of emotional understanding in a leader’s authority. Conclusion In conclusion, there are a great many forms of leadership but there are just as many forms of followership, each being just as important as the other. Whether on a small scale personal level or a large scale global level, a good leader is one that also has the ability to be a follower and a good follower is one that also has the ability to be a leader. This is the essence of effective leadership and followership. Keeping respective roles in mind and adhering to them, considering one’s self the most vital link of a chain and working accordingly and being aware of how each person influences the other is what leads towards progressive work. A good leader combats the problems that arise and keeps in mind the factors which keep followers satisfied. Followers on the other hand should respect their leaders and grant them the position of authority that they deserve but they should not undermine their own position of importance and they should realize that blindly following instructions is not the most optimum form of contribution (Kellerman, 2008). The leadership-followership relation is one that is both self-serving and co-dependent (Kelley, 1992). Each contributes towards the efficiency and effectiveness of the other and since ideally the common goal should be one that each wants to pursue with equal motivation and interest, it only makes sense that each should contribute as positively as they can. In the end, there is no such thing as an individual in a team but the individual effort that each person puts in is the vital cohesive force that makes a team a team. Therefore the role of a follower is just as important as that of a leader, if not more so, as there can of be course be no leader without a follower and vice versa. Bibliography Cohen, P. 1997, ‘The Technology Leaders: How America's Most Profitable High-Tech Companies Innovate Their Way to Success’ Conger, J. A., & R. N. Kanungo 1998, Charismatic Leadership in Organizations. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications Edwin, L 2000, ‘Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development’, OECD Publishing. Gary Yukl, G 2006, ‘Leadership in Organizations’, Pearson Education; 6th edition. Goldsmith, M. & Greenberg, C. & Robertson, A. & Hu-Chan, M. 2003, ‘Global Leadership: The Next Generation.’ FT Press Kellerman B 2008,‘Followership: How Followers Are Creating Change and Changing Leaders’ Harvard Business School Press Kelley, R. E. 1992, ‘The power of followership: How to create leaders people want to follow and followers who lead themselves.’ Northouse, P 2007 ‘Peter G. Northouse: Leadership - Theory and Practice’ Sage Publications, Inc; 3rd edition. Rosenthal, C. S. 1998 ‘When Women Lead: Integrative Leadership in State Legislatures’ Oxford University Press, USA Tittemore, James A 2003, ‘Leadership at all Levels.’ Canada: Boskwa Publishing Warneka, T 2006, ‘Leading People the Black Belt Way: Conquering the Five Core Problems Facing Leaders Today.’ Asogomi Publications Intl. Cleveland, Ohio. Read More