The interdependence of leadership and followership

Enhancing authentic leadership-followership:

Strengthening school relationships To be a leader, you must have followers.

Carolyn Crippen, from the University of Victoria, BC, Canada describes leadership as the act of motivating a group of people to act towards achieving a common goal. She describes the inter-relationship and interdependence between leaders and followers, as each without the other cannot exist.

Kelly (1992) describes seven follower paths:

• apprentice, 
• disciple
• mentee
• comrade
• loyalist
• dreamer
• lifeway’ 

Within Schools, here are certain ‘rules’ that staff follow related to issues of safety, for example fire drills, bomb threats, earthquakes. These could fall under the follower path category of disciple. Others want to change themselves through personal growth (mentee). Each year, teachers develop a Teaching Inquiry to strengthen their teaching practice in the classroom. New teachers are assigned a mentor to guide them and act as a resource, especially in their first two years in the classroom. There are also interpersonal and intrapersonal goals of staff. Some aspire to lead. Apprenticeship, is directed toward mastery of specific administrative skills. Comrades enjoy bonding together where many talents are needed to accomplish a goal, such as in a curriculum development committee. Some people follow out of personal loyalty to the leader. Dreamers follow their own ideas, their guiding force, not necessarily those of the leader. Such staff are ‘outside the box’ and may ‘do their own thing’. The last path is that of the lifeway. They are convinced this path of service or helping others provides the best or most satisfying way of living.

I tend to agree with Greenleaf (1977) who suggests that as individuals we are all actually on a continuum during our lifetime. At one end of the continuum is leadership and at the other end is followership. We move back and forth along this continuum during our lifetime and neither one nor the other is better. It is only when we stop moving along the continuum we stop growing and learning and remain in the status quo.

The author posed the following questions to individual school staff members within a district. Roles ranged from administrative, support staff, teachers and principals.

1. What is your greatest strength?
2. How have you used this strength in your daily life?
3. What is your greatest area of weakness?
4. How has the weakness caused you problems in the past?
5. Describe a situation where you were leader.
6. Describe a situation where you were follower.
7. Have you a preference? Leadership or followership? Explain your choice.
8. Describe a situation where you relied upon your moral and/or ethical leadership to deal with a difficult decision?
9. How do you prepare to make a decision?
10. How do you react if the decision turns out to be wrong?

The process enabled them to learn about each other. They were able to build stronger teams, understanding the strengths within the group. Answering these questions also empowered the group members to better understand themselves and their values. From the beginning, the participants were reminded to only say what they were comfortable expressing and sharing. It's extremely useful for all school staff to become aware of the various ages and stages, strengths, challenges and values of the members of their group. This can only strengthen the connections that bind a school together.

Time is a huge restraint in our job. It's something that we seem to constantly be fighting and prioritising the things that we give attention to in order to fulfil our many roles. Self-reflection often falls to the bottom of the priority list as we check off all the physical tasks n our To-Do Lists. Questions that encourage respondents to ‘consider their individual sense of themselves, but also their sense of themselves as a community of educators, learners, and support staff’ (Starratt, 2011: 67) can promote reflective thought.

A small sample of the feedback from the previous self-discovery questions included:

•  A good leader must be a good follower and a good listener.
• Use your strengths to help rectify your weaknesses.
• Involve students in having leadership-followership roles in the classroom. Talk about them. How did they feel as a leader? How do they feel as a follower?
• Leaders and followers are both part of the whole puzzle that makes up our school.
• The importance of self-awareness, listening to others, sharing decision making, valuing dissonance.
• I can be myself and I have lots to offer my school community.
• The roles of leaders and followers constantly change.
• To continually remind myself of students being on a continuum at the same time as I am.

These responses seem to support the use of such activities and the investment of time in each other.

Wheatley (2005) believes that without ‘shared beliefs and desires, people are not motivated to seek out one another and develop relationships. Instead, they inhabit the same organisational and community space without weaving together mutually sustaining relationships’ (p. 102). Some questions in a professional development session that focused participants on understanding each other were suggested by Baron (2010):

When you think of your life’s story and how it unfolded, what people, experiences, or events were critical to your development? (p. 28)

And,

To recall these defining moments, take a walk through the stages of your life, from early childhood, to adolescence, to young adulthood, to the present moment. You could have experienced these defining moments as either strongly positive or difficult, even negative. What thought and memories come to mind? (p. 28)

Issues of listening, persuasion, partner inputs and inclusivity of all school stakeholders with an overall recognition and appreciation for individual voice can nurture the entire school environment. "When we give another person our attention, our time, we actually honour them and value them by this action" (Sergiovanni, 1992).

Schools are all about relationships, and relationships are developed, in part, through caring, listening, trust, honesty and collaboration. They are about reaching out to each other first, by trying to understand and being true to ourselves (authentic) and then by trying to understand and appreciate our colleagues.

Baron, T (2010) The Art of Servant Leadership: Designing Your Organization for the Sake of Others. Tucson, AZ: Wheatmark.

Greenleaf, R (1977) Servant Leadership: A Journey into the Nature of Legitimate Power and Greatness. Mahwah, NJ: Paulist Press.

Kelly, R (1992) The Power of Followership: How to Create Leaders People Want to Follow and Followers Who Lead Themselves. New York, NY: Doubleday Currency Publishers.

Sergiovanni, T (1992) Moral Leadership. San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass.

Starratt, R (2011) Refocusing School Leadership: Foregrounding Human Development Throughout the Work of the School. New York, NY: Routledge.

Wheatley, M (2005) Finding Our Way: Leading for Uncertain Times. San Francisco. CA: Berrett-Koehler.