Chapter 9 Self-Assessment: Followership Styles

Kelley proposes critical attributes that recognize exemplary and incapable followers. One of the traits is that followers focus on objectives within a large framework and decide on the role to perform at a specific time to expedite the accomplishment of organizational goals. An adherents' demonstration of commitment and duty to the organization beyond the individual level, separates them from ineffective followers. Additionally, compelling followers exhibits a desire to attain greater degrees of competency and regulate their endeavors to this that results in positive recognition from leaders. Another distinction between effective and ineffective followers is that the latter exhibit courage, honesty, enthusiasm, intelligence, and self-reliance. This is dissimilar to ineffective followers who withhold information, whereas effective followers contribute and share opinions, which is an advantage to the organization especially if certain issues are not covered. Overall, exemplary followers share all of the qualities of effective and successful leaders. Kelly’s concept of servant followership is regarded as an important contribution to organization behavior literature. This is due to his theory that “servant followership is more important than leadership” because the majority of people spend most of their time in subordinate roles rather than leadership positions. Kelly utilizers the term ‘exemplary’ to describe the ideal servant follower and according to him, there are two dimensions to describe followers who score high within an organization: independent, critical thinking, and active engagement.
The first dimension of active followership encompasses independence, critical thinking, and active engagement, which is effective in an organization. Active followers affect their organization positively because they take