80% of organisational success is a result of follower contributions rather than good leadership (Kelley 1992) and yet compared to leadership, so little about it is understood. What is clear, is that poor followship has the same consequence as poor leadership. The team does not pull together into a cohesive force aligned with a common goal.

In the work environment, leaders are typically good followers first, which results in being entrusted with the role. Nearly every leader is subordinate to a higher leader and so learning how to follow may just start you on the path to reaching your leadership potential.

Followship Styles

As followers, one of the first thing we need to understand is our followship style. Kelley identified 5 styles of followship as outlined below.

It’s important to understand that none of these styles are fixed and followers can move between the quadrants based on their moods, motivations and quite often, the interactions with their manager and organisation.

The Passive Follower

In the lower left quadrant indicating both a passive nature and an uncritical thinker we have what Keeley terms the ‘passive’ follower. Followers with this style typically do not challenge instructions, but will do the work asked of them largely without challenge. From a management perspective, a passive follower needs high levels of supervision to keep busy as they do not look for additional ways to add value or Red flag issues up the chain.

Employees who recognise this tendency in themselves can add more value by trying to engage with the leader and organisation more and becoming more pro-active in their day-to-day work. This would result in requiring lower levels of supervision and perhaps even some supervisory responsibilities.

The Conformist Follower

Moving into a more active style we have the ‘Conformist’. This followship style will again follow direction without major challenge, but is more engaged, looking for new tasks to complete within their defined role and trying to remove issues standing in their way of completing them. Conformists typically require lower supervision.

Those who recognise these tendencies in themselves should think about why they do not challenge their leader or instructions? Is this because of an autocratic leader or does it stem from within? Perhaps from a lack of confidence or knowledge that could be addressed which would allow them to add more value.

The Exemplary Follower

As we head upwards to the upper right quadrant we find the ‘Exemplary’ follower, who displays both independent, critical thinking and is actively seeking ways to improve things. The Exemplary follower may challenge a leaders decision or logic if they disagree making them something of a double edged sword. More challenging to manage, yet potentially adding a lot of value by spotting gaps in the plan and suggesting new avenues to explore.

Those with this tendency need to think about how they challenge leaders, using all of their emotional intelligence to do so in an appropriate way so as to avoid conflict.

The Alienated Follower

Displaying both highly independent thinking and disengagement, the alienated follower will often snipe from the side-lines. Alienated followers are poison within an organisation and have the ability to bring a team down through negativity. One thing to note is that alienated followers are often the result of poor leadership and are former mis-managed exemplary followers.

Those who recognise this tendency need to exam why they feel alienated and take action. That could involve changing the situation, changing how they feel about the situation, or walking away from the situation. Staying in a position where you are deeply unhappy benefits neither you or the team.

The Pragmatist

In the middle we have the pragmatist who bounces around the centre ground, morphing as the situation demands. Pragmatists are survivors and to a large extent its where most of us sit, with levels of engagement and critical thinking varying over time depending on interactions with work and our personal lives.

The pragmatist needs to maintain awareness of their engagement, understanding why they currently are where they are on the map. For example it’s perfectly valid to be less engaged during or following a certain life events, likewise we shouldn’t judge others when our personal lives are empty allowing 100% focus on work.

Which Followship Style is Best?

There is no best style, each has strengths and weaknesses that are better suited to some situations than others. The two main factors to consider are the nature of the work and the leadership style of the manager.

For example, highly process driven work where strict protocols must be followed for safety reasons is uniquely suited to ‘Sheep’ and ‘Conformist’ workers. That could frustrate an ‘Exemplary’ follower who is more suited to complex one-off types of work where challenge and self-led activity is beneficial.

It gets more complex when different types of leadership style are thrown into the mix. For example while a laissez-faire leader may appreciate the critical challenge of an exemplary follower, an autocratic leader may not. Research has shown that autocratic leaders are one of the factors that may turn an exemplary follower into an alienated one! It’s also been my personal experience where I have thrived under one leader and been branded troublesome under another. My work, outlook or role hadn’t changed, only to whom I reported.

How to be a Good Follower?

Appropriately Challenge

Where you have identified yourself as an independent thinker, one of the key soft-skills to master is appropriately challenging your leader.

Firstly, focus on the achievement of the task, not the failings of the leader. It’s not personal, so make sure it doesn’t come across that way. Everything is an opportunity to improve things.

Secondly, carefully think about your timing and audience. It is far better to challenge your manager alone or after them seeking feedback than in a meeting with their own manager present. The aim is to improve the decision, not put them on the defensive, which can entrench them in a bad position. You need to show a little emotional intelligence.

Thirdly, consider your managers leadership style. If your manager doesn’t like challenge or you feel ‘managed’ when they don’t accept your advice try asking for help and steering them towards the ‘right’ answer. Make it their idea or at least a collaboration. You need their help and value their opinion, ‘what do they think about ‘x’ given a specific constraint? I see, do you think I need to be concerned about ‘Y’ as a result?’

Bring Solutions, Not Problems

It’s a Cliché, but bringing solutions rather than problems makes you a highly valued follower in the eyes of your manager. Staff who continuously highlight problems are sometimes viewed as negative, taking a small amount of time to think about potential solutions demonstrates your engagement. More importantly, it lessens the demands on your managers bandwidth.

Learn Your Managers Playbook

Most managers operate from set of standard ‘plays’ or actions they follow in specific circumstances. For example, when faced with estimating a task we do not have enough information for they may always tell you to find the missing information, or to do the best you can and caveat and bound the response.

Learning how your manager operates and responds to particular types of problem allows you to pre-empt their needs and that is the gold standard of followship. Imagine how many Brownie points can be earnt when your manager asks for something in a hurry, and you pull one out you prepared earlier?

But it’s not just about Brown-nosing. Anticipating your manager’s needs very quickly earns you their trust. Earn their trust and you may find you are given less supervision, more responsibility and possibly even management responsibilities of your own.

Summary

How we follow is just as if not more important than how we lead. We all have a followship style we are pre-disposed to but that may change over time and circumstance. Our pre-disposed followship style makes us better suited for some types of work and to work with some types of managers than others.

Regardless of our followship leanings, we can make ourselves more valued followers by learning how to appropriately challenge our managers, by bringing them solutions and by pre-empting their needs.

Finally, learning how to be a good follower is very often a pre-requisite for being entrusted with leadership responsibilities.