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Follow the Leader

There's a lot of research and publishings about leadership available. But there's surprisingly not as much about followers. I read an interesting article in the WSJ about that late last year. Two books mentioned in the article seem particularly interesting:
In "Followership," a book being published this winter, Ms. Kellerman argues that a big organization's fate can be surprisingly dependent on how well it understands thousands of low-ranking employees, and makes them more effective. Entrepreneurs Ori Brafman and Rod Beckstrom took a similar perspective last year in their book, "The Starfish and the Spider," suggesting that lower-ranking employees, called catalysts, need to drive organizational change, instead of top bosses.

And another important perspective from Barbara Kellerman, a lecturer at Harvard's Kennedy School of Government:
Among these authors' precepts: companies should look for passionate employees, keep them informed and give them room to carry out useful projects.

The author of Followers goes even further to distinguish different types of followers. According to Kellerman, there are five types of followers in organizations:
  • Isolates: Detached; don't care about their leaders
  • Bystanders: Observe but don't participate; at peace with the status quo
  • Participants: Somewhat engaged; can support or oppose leaders
  • Activists: Eager, energetic and engaged; can support or oppose leaders
  • Diehards: Highly dedicated; their cause is all-consuming

It'd be an interesting exercise to map out my own company to see who falls in each of these categories. Certainly could help in understanding how different types of people are going to respond to you driving change. Also, interesting to think about how you respond to changes as a follower.

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