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FOLLOWER-SHIP
We will still discuss the topic of leader vs. mangers in the start of this
lecture and than shift to next
topic the followers.
Leadership is important in organizations because leaders are the ones who make
things happen.
Organizations are shifting from conventional management to leadership. In this
competitive
environment now with simple routine management and simple manager, survival of
organization is
becoming difficult. Unless you have a vision, know the people and human behavior
aspects, understand
team dynamics and motivation, understand the trust and responding change,
challenging the status quo
and believe on sharing the power and participative management, survival of a
manger or leader will be
difficult. All these characteristics are mostly present in leaders but not in
mangers. So today’s
organization needs more leaders rather than managers. But both are important. We
need leaders who are
good mangers too.
Without leaders, an organization would find it difficult to get things done.
Bottom line is organization
needs to focus on people and try to identify and separate leaders from followers
and accordingly train
and develop both important resources an organization can have i.e. “the People”.
A very famous
Chinese saying is;
“If you want one year of prosperity, grow grain.
If you want 10 years of prosperity, grow trees.
If you want 100 years of prosperity, grow people.
— Chinese proverb
MANAGERS VERSUS LEADERS: We are still in the same discussion of
manager vs leader to give
more emphasizes on leaders and explain why this is becoming more and more
important. Let me put
these distinctions between managers and leaders in a different way.
Mangers use authority to get things from his people and drive them while leader
prepare them and act
as a coach for the job done. Manger influence other though the legitimate
authority vested on him/her
due to position and other obeys him/her due to that position. While leaders
influence through their
goodwill and personality. It doesn’t mean they have no legitimate power. They do
have that power but
they believe on the power of team, synergy and participative management.
Mangers inspire fear and use coercive power while leaders inspire enthusiasm and
create excitement
among team members.
_ The Manager knows how it is
done and they get others to fallow the set procedures for the
accomplishment of any job.
_ The Leader shows how it is
done. They always try to create a different. They will challenge the
process for business process re-engineering to improve the system and for
efficiency.
_ The Manager says "Go". The
give orders and sit back to see others deliver.
_ The Leader says "Let's Go”.
They take other along and set example. This approach increases
the moral of all team members and together they achieve more and deliver more.
_ The Manager says "I". Managers
are mostly self centred and mainly concern about themselves.
_ The Leader says "We". Leaders
believe on team work and mainly concerned about others and
always take team as a whole.
_ The Manager fixes the blame
for the breakdown. If some thing went wrong, managers try to
find out the culprit and fix the responsibility.
_ The Leader fixes the
breakdown. In case of leadership, if this situation arrives, leaders will try
to figure out the causes of any breakdown and also try to fix this breakdown
rather than just
fixing responsibility.
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Similarly we can also discuss other distinctions between leaders and managers.
But important thing
is we need good leaders with proper management capabilities. As said earlier”
all leaders are
managers but not all managers are leaders”
So, we need both Leader and Manager and in a way for the success of any
organization leading and
managing both required. In the given figure, it is clearly shown that both
leader and manger are needed
Leading & Managing processes results satisfied stakeholders.
Follower-ship
Let’s shift to second important component of leadership process, the
Followers. We know that
leadership is a function of three elements.
Importance of Followers: Leaders always depend on their followers.
Followers’ actions/attitudes
influence their leader and the process of leadership also. Performance of
leaders & followers are
depended upon one another.
Follower Traits That Influence the Leadership Process: As leaders and
followers are depending
each others for performance and out come, it is very important to understand
followers and their traits
that influence this leadership process.
• Values
• Norms
• Cohesiveness,
• Expectations
• Personality
• Maturity
• Competency levels
• Motivation
• Number of followers
• Trust and confidence
Qualities of effective followers are same ones we want in leaders because both
are important for the
output/performance of teams/organizations.
Follower-ship Style: There are four follower-ship styles;
1. Pragmatic follower: Positive role of these types of followers are
realistic and play their role
according to rules and regulation or as per legitimate powers. In negative side,
they also play
political games in the organization and carries out assignments with middling
enthusiasm. They
believe that staying in the rules is important also avoid the uncertainties and
instability.
2. Alienated follower: These types of followers always think about
themselves, but some time
play a very important role as critics within the team. Because this will help to
improve the
decisions. We can say that these types of people are the whistle blowers. They
can also create
problem for team. They do not work as team member and believes that their leader
does not
fully recognize or utilize their talents
3. Conventional follower: These types of followers easily accept the
assignment and play as a
team member and try to minimize conflict. They have lack of creativity; they
don’t take bold
decisions and not taking risk. They also avoid the conflict and believe that the
established
system of the organization is better than outcomes.
4. Passive follower: These types of followers always rely on the leader
and seldom challenge the
process and avoid any resistance. They are just spending/passing time and also
require an
excessive amount of supervision. They believe that the organization doesn’t want
their ideas so
the leader is going to do what he/she wants anyway.
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5. Exemplary follower: These types of followers contribute above and
beyond the expectation.
They always try to add value in organization in any form. They are creative and
risk takers.
They are highly idealistic and can suffer disappointed and even go in stress and
ultimately
reach to burnout if not given importance and challenging environment. They
believe that their
contribution for the organization is always essential. So they always work for
organization with
commitments and devotion.
How Exemplary Followers Add Value: the exemplary followers are always
focus on the goal,
contribute to the growth of other team members, always help to keep the team on
track and always take
the initiative to increase their value to the organization.
- Think of
someone you know in
your life who is a good leader
and write down why you think
they are a good leader… |
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