Leadership and Followership

Abstract

Leadership characteristics and behaviors are crucial to effective leadership, but so are institutions that are willing and able to be led. Effective leadership can inspire and motivate followership, but there are characteristics and behaviors that followers should embrace and implement in order to make their leaders more effective. These characteristics and behaviors have commonalities with those that effective leaders must possess, but followers also must be willing and able to be inspired and be led. “Followership” can be framed in the concept of “team,” which itself consists of communication, trust, collective responsibility, caring, and pride. The essay draws upon Mike Krzyzewski (with Donald Phillips), Leading with the Heart: Coach K’s Successful Strategies for Basketball, Business and Life (2000), for insights into the meaning of “team.”

Keywords: Leadership; followership; management; administration; higher education; business; organizations; change; polarization; fragmentation; team; teamwork