Best in a supporting role

From the March 2016 issue of The Rotarian

I believe I am safe in assuming that most of you are not regular readers of the Journal of Leadership Studies. Nor that you had the pleasure of perusing the article in that magazine’s Winter 2014 issue titled “Followership in Leadership Studies: A Case of Leader-Follower Trade Approach.” To save you the trouble, let me summarize the argument put forward by the author, Petros G. Malakyan:

While an abundance of research is devoted to leaders – an entire literature, in fact –almost nothing is written about followers.

The reason for this is not particularly elusive. From presidents to mob bosses, from generals to drug lords, we love narratives that center on figures who hold, or aspire to hold, absolute power.

This bias is even more pronounced in the world of business, which is predicated on the notion that worth can be measured by your place in the pecking order. People don’t think about how they function as followers because the very idea that they might be followers – as opposed to leaders-in-waiting – strikes them as insulting.