The Art of Followership: How Great Followers Create Great Leaders and Organizations

by Ronald E. Riggio (Editor), Ira Chaleff (Editor), Jean Lipman-Blumen (Editor)

The Art of Followership puts dynamic leader-follower interaction at the forefront of discussion. It examines the multiple roles followers play and their often complex relationship to leaders. With contributions from leading scholars and practitioners from the burgeoning field of leadership/followership studies, this groundbreaking book outlines how followers contribute to effective leadership and to organizations overall. Drawing from various disciplines?from philosophy, to psychology and management, to education?the book defines followership and its myriad meanings. The Art of Followership explores the practice and research that promote positive followership and reveals the part that followers play in setting the standards and formulating the culture and policies of the group. The contributors include new models of followership and explore fresh perspectives on the contributions that followers make to groups, organizations, societies, and leaders. The book also explores the most current research on followership and includes insights and perspectives on the future of leader-follower relationships.

Genres: Leadership, Professional Development, Education, Nonfiction

416 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 2008

Reviews

[Tara Brabazon · Rating 5 out of 5]

A magnificent book. Leadership Studies has a tendency to replicate the 'great man' narratives of history. Indeed, leadershp as a term is so vague and expansive, it is close to meaningless.

BUT this book re-energizes leadership through followership. This paradigmatic shift is a powerful one. Words like collaboration and collaborators have a problematic history. But a reconfiguration of leadership through the building of relationships is an outstanding strategy.

I am particularly fascinated by the phrase "courageous followership." This phrase asks that those that follow be accountable, responsible, engaged and honest in their actions, beliefs and behaviours.

Outstanding edited collection. Meaningful and incisive.

[Tiffany · Rating 3 out of 5]

Through this compendium of articles, the reader is able to explore followership from different theoretical perspectives and understand the state of research into the follower-leadership relationships and followership. I related most to the articles focused on Defining and Redefining Followership, Effective Followership, and the Pitfalls and Challenges of Followership. I plodded through the articles within the Followers and Leaders: Research, Practice, and the Future section. I appreciate that the editors chose to include dissenting articles and did not limit the articles to those that shared complimenting perspectives on followership. As a reference book, this a decent resource.

[Joey · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was a wonderful book, but not what I was expecting. I was expecting a little professional development book, similar to many books on leadership, but this is a text book. Again, it was great, just far more than I was expecting.

[Dr Ariel Rainey · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is an anthology of articles by some of the leaders in "Followship Theory" and is great for getting a broad perspective of followership in bite-size pieces.

[Wieczna Piwonia · Rating 4 out of 5]

Broad overview of topic of followership. Includes interesting case studies, as well as theorethic framework and some insights from psychodynamic perspective. Comprehensive introduction to the topic.

[Jim · Rating 4 out of 5]

While The Art of Followership was required reading for one of my PhD courses surprisingly enough titled Followership, I found the compilation of articles though provoking and provided many new research ideas to employ. I am glad to see that after all of the years that research has focused specifically on leadership that followership is now moving in to the research stream on a more significant basis.

[Barb Terpstra · Rating 4 out of 5]

Really liked this book, especially for the way it brings forward the idea that those of us who are not official leaders in an organization, can 1) influence our leaders with our thoughts and opinions and 2) have moments when our skills allow us to step into leadership roles even though we are not official leaders.

The chapter on bulling is worth a look see, if only because it makes you think about what it really means when you choose silence versus getting involved.

I just basically love the idea that we are all leaders in whatever role we play. My decisions/actions influence those around me, and my colleagues influence me. We all have value and add (hopefully not subtract) from those we have contact with on a daily basis.