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Leadership and followership
When we think about leadership, we tend to focus almost entirely on the leader. Yet without
followers, there is no leader. Leadership is participatory: leaders and followers exist in a mutually
beneficial relationship where each adds to the effectiveness of the other.
Key to this process is listening, because leadership is as much about listening as it is about talking, or
perhaps more so. From the beginning, a leader must be informed by the followers’ values, beliefs,
and aspirations, the followers’ identity. The commitment gap people frequently experience, the
difference between what the leader desires and what the followers actually do, can often be traced
back to not aligning the elements of leaders’ and followers’ identitieswho they think they areto
find common ground on which to function and grow.
There are certain skills and traits that tend to define a leader. Not everyone possesses those skills, or
even if they do, they simply may not desire to be in a leadership position. That doesn't make them
any less valuable to the organization and certainly doesn't make them a lesser person. Though it
might seem to be an obvious concept, those who find themselves in leadership positions need to
occasionally remind themselves that it's those followers who keep them employed. Without people
who follow, obviously there would be nothing to lead, but more importantly, nothing would be
accomplished because it usually isn't the leaders who actually do the work.
I like to be very blunt with leaders about their relationship with followers; however, I am equally
forthright with followers about their relationship with leaders. Followers have a responsibility to
support their leaders. That doesn't mean just do as you're told and don't disagree or speak up. As
Kellerman points out in Bad Leadership, followers who do not communicate honestly with leaders,
or who merely ride along on coattails, don't help their leaders or themselves. A good follower will
always be honest with their leaders and always give them the best they have to offer.
Of course, a good leader must seek out, and give serious consideration to input from their followers.
This is a key point! Followers who feel their contributions and expertise are not appreciated will be
unlikely to continue to give their support.
Action learning
Action learning has quickly emerged as one of the most powerful and effective tools employed by
organizations worldwide to develop and build their leaders. Companies such as Boeing, Du Pont,
Motorola, Alcoa,and Nokia have recently turned to action learning to solve their critical, complex
problems as well as to grow the competencies and attributes needed by their leaders if they are to
succeed in the twenty-first century. What has become increasingly clear to almost every
organization is that our new century demands new kinds of leaders with new skills. Leadership styles
and skills that
may have worked in a more stable, predictable environment of the twentieth century will be
inadequate in this new era of uncertainty and rapid change, where we can hardly define the
problem, much less engineer possible solutions. Although many organizations continue to use a

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variety of ways to prepare their leaders (e.g. traditional training programs or business school
courses), they recognize that the
results are both slow and highly unsatisfactory. Why? The main reason appears to be that most
management development initiatives focus on isolated dimensions of managerial work ± the
personality of the leader, professional competence at specific tasks, or competence in dealing with
the organization's culture and environment. Leadership development, as practiced by most
corporations and institutions of higher learning, according to Dilworth (1996),``produce individuals
who are technologically literate and able to deal with intricate problem-solving models, but are
essentially distanced form the human dimensions that must be taken into account.'' They may be
good at downsizing and corporate restructuring, but cannot deal with a demoralized workforce and
the resulting longer-term challenges. These so-called development programs provide excellent
technical skills, but the ``social and
interpersonal aspects of the organizations that largely create the dynamics of corporate
culture are left unattended'' (p. 49).On the other hand, action learning derives its power from the
fact that it does not isolate any dimension from the context in which managers work. It develops the
whole leaderfor the whole organization. It also recognizes that what leaders learn and how they
learn cannot be dissociated from one another, for how one learns necessarily influences what one
learns.
case example for action learning.
Action learning and leadership development at General Electric Hundreds of organizations around
the globe, including Unilever, Skandia, BASF, Volvo,Johnson and Johnson, Asea Brown Boveri, BHP,
and Singapore Airlines have incorporated action learning into all of their leadership programs.
Perhaps the best known and longest existing of all action learningbased leadership programs is that
of General
Electric.
Prior to 1986, GE's leadership programs consisted primarily of lectures, case studies, computer
simulations and outdoor activities. Curriculum included modules on leadership, teamwork, global
competition, and business strategy. The program ended with an integrating activity that synthesized
these
various themes. CEO Jack Welch soon recognized, however, that leadership learning was not
sufficiently intense and impactful in developing the new GE leaders. GE therefore decided to move
from a model that was based on individual cognitive learning to one that was based on action
learning, involving real
problems, real team challenges, and real risks. GE leadership programs now have four key
objectives, each of which was deemed to be best achieved through action learning: (1) Enable
participants to learn, apply and receive feedback on business concepts and skills applied to real GE
business issues.

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 Leadership and followership When we think about leadership, we tend to focus almost entirely on the leader. Yet without followers, there is no leader. Leadership is participatory: leaders and followers exist in a mutually beneficial relationship where each adds to the effectiveness of the other. Key to this process is listening, because leadership is as much about listening as it is about talking, or perhaps more so. From the beginning, a leader must be informed by the followers’ values, beliefs, and aspirations, the followers’ identity. The commitment gap people frequently experience, the difference between what the leader desires and what the followers actually do, can often be traced back to not aligning the elements of leaders’ and followers’ identities—who they think they are—to find common ground on which to function and grow. There are certain skills and traits that tend to define a leader. Not everyone possesses those skills, or even if they do, they simply may not desire to be in a leadership position. That doesn't make them any less valuable to the organization and certainly doesn't make them a lesser person. Though it might seem to be an obvious concept, those who find themselves in leadership positions need to occasionally remind themselves that it's those followers who keep them employed. Without people who follow, obviously there would be nothing to lead, but more importantly, nothing would be accomplished because it usually isn't the leaders who ...
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