What's New in the
Followership Learning Community?
Posted February
2010: Seven short
segments are now online of an interactive presentation by FLC Chair Ira Chaleff
on followership at the Environmental Protection Agency. This was part of
EPA’s “Conversations on Transformational Leadership.” After enjoying this
first segment, please follow the links below to the other six.
Well, of course, it is an experiment. The hypothesis of the experiment is that
there are many academics and practitioners in the field of leadership who
recognize the vital importance of followership, recognize the need to develop
the knowledge and competencies for that end of the leader-follower relationship,
and will participate in a community dedicated to this endeavor.
Some may argue that followership is inherently part of leadership studies and
that creating a learning community around followership is unnecessary or even
counterproductive to the field of leadership. We might respond with an argument
similar to that of advocates of affirmative action. Up until now followership
has played such a marginal role within leadership studies and development that,
at least for awhile, it needs its own forum; this will give its special voice a
boost sufficient to eventually achieve the full integration of followership and
leadership studies.
As support to the viewpoint above consider the hundreds of leadership
conferences and events held annually by many organizations including our own ILA.
But the first and only conference on followership that we are aware of only
occurred two years ago. It was hosted by the the Kravis Leadership Institute and
the Peter F. Drucker and Masatoshi Ito Graduate School of Management at
Claremont University under the banner: “Rethinking Followership: New Paradigms,
Perspectives and Practices.”
Over two exciting days, nearly 200 participants explored the subject from a
broad range of perspectives. There was a widely held sense that the opportunity
to meet with others who shared a passion for developing the field was extremely
valuable and that ways should be found to continue the dialogue. My two fellow
conference hosts, Jean Lipman-Blumen and Ron Riggio, are long time ILA members
and current board members. They encouraged considering ILA as the best home for
an ongoing community of those interested in followership research, teaching and
practice. And thus, with ILA board support, the Followership Community of
Learning was born.
Is the Followership
Community of Learning for you?
The working premise
up to this point has been “Build it and they will come!” Isn’t it instructive
how a compact thought package such as “build it and they will come” can enter so
deeply into popular culture that it needs no further explanation? It is our hope
that the individual and combined genius of a followership community of learning
will generate equally durable memes that will transform the cultural images of
“follower” in ways that transport the leader-follower relationship to new levels
of mutuality, accountability, self-correction and achievement that our world so
urgently needs.
Meanwhile, our working premise needs proving. Will you come? The community is
inclusive. We envision it being a dynamic community in which new people who
discover it or generate a need to converse with its members will flow into the
community and add their ideas, experiences and energy. Existing members who
satisfy a research or application need may flow out until a new need brings them
back. The river we step in will never be the same twice. But we hope it will be
deep and invigorating.
We envision that a nucleus of those passionate about followership, and for whom
the timing in their lives is right, will take – yes, we can use the word without
contradiction – a leadership role in the community, contributing their time,
skills and wisdom. We will all have opportunities to practice our best
followership skills in supporting the leadership that emerges. This, of course,
includes practicing both the art of gratitude for the energy leaders give to the
group and the art of constructive dissent when the leaders’ policies or styles
seem to undermine the capacity and willingness of the group to pursue its
mission. In other words, we will all be on a mutual learning journey!
What will the Learning Community achieve?
Who knows
what will emerge from this community of learning?
We can envision members discovering others who
share a passion for some aspect of followership studies forming
collaborations for specific projects; unlike the broader community, these
may become closed-circles once the participants have formed their goals,
roles, norms and strategy and are implementing their project.
We can envision cross-disciplinary initiatives
such as the role of followership in Chinese cultural development, the place
for conscience in military hierarchies, the gender factors in
leader-follower behaviors, the appropriate relationship of school children
to authority in forming a strong, independent citizenry, and on and on,
limited only by the imagination, curiosity and dedication of community
members.
In the absence of a formal journal of
followership, we can envision working papers being posted for peer review on
their way to an established leadership periodical.
We envision a searchable repository of papers,
presentations, illustrative news articles, links to books, videos, gaming
sites, virtual worlds, and any other type of knowledge capture that sheds
light on our evolving understanding of followership.
In my travels in Mexico this summer I stayed in a
small fishing village with no roads that was only accessible by boat from Puerto
Vallarta on Mexico’s Pacific coast. I arranged to study Spanish with a resident
artist who was a native of Chile. When I met him he greeted me by saying “A que
te dedicas?” To what are you dedicated? How exhilarating was this greeting when
compared to the Washington DC “What do you do?” Dedication is part of the energy
required by the best leadership and the best followership. At this time in my
life I am dedicated to introducing models of followership into the culture that
will correct the imbalances of power and accountability in leader-follower
relationships that have led to so many failures and tragedies in human
endeavors. We are at a point in our world 's history where we cannot afford too
many more of these. It is unreasonable to believe we can produce the deep
changes needed by simply finding the right leaders. We must become the right
followers. I invite you to share this dedication through the Followership
Community of Learning.
Organizer: Ira Chaleff, author of The Courageous Follower: Standing Up To
and For Our Leaders; Co-editor: The Art of Followership: How Great
Followers Create Great Leaders and Organizations (along with Ron Riggio and
Jean Lipman-Blumen)
