Description

After spending close to 30 years in the leadership corridor, I found a significant concern with those led. I discovered that there were times that leaders played their parts in the organization, and yet the organizational goals were not realized. More shocking for me was that not many people looked at the followers’ direction when thinking of the possible causes of under achievements in organizations. This often created unease within me that motivated me to
study more on followers. The more I looked at various organizations, the more I saw the need to study
followers alongside leaders.

A BBC correspondent, Martins (2017), claimed that many Nigerians are fiercely independent. “This is a nation of leaders and not followers.” Martin’s claim xiv seems to be a critical one that needs to be verified because leaders alone may not move the nation forward.

In his work on “Great leaders need great followers,” Brown (1995) reported his interview with Chaleff, who
claimed that all executives are both leaders and followers and that a lot of corporate success depends on “followership” skills. Also, that followership is the flip side of leadership (Buhler, 1993). If one sees organizations and a nation as one that cannot be built alone by leaders, one may want to study followership, considered as the other side of leadership.

Buhler (1993) claimed that the direction of leadership studies today is toward recognizing the significance of
followers in the relationship. She believes that more researchers should focus on the importance of leadership and followership roles in a healthy organization. One can say that a nation is made up of leaders and citizens (followers). In the past, so much time has been spent studying leadership skills. It might just be the time to also research followership skills…

Seth Akhilele, Ph.D