The Impact of Leadership and Followership: an Organizational Phenomena

Although traditional research has viewed leadership and followership as separate functions, recent studies have acknowledged the importance of followership in both the effectiveness and development of leaders. Followership models have emerged suggesting that leaders cannot be effective without having experience as a follower and that leaders and followers share characteristics that when successfully used in concert, can result in the achievement of organizational goals. Several stereotypes of what it means to be a follower inhibit both the development of followers and the willingness of aspiring leaders to assume followership roles. More research on the importance of followership to the health of an organization is necessary to encourage follower development.